It all began 125 years ago on a snowy Saturday afternoon in Morgantown when Washington & Jefferson introduced West Virginia University to the great game of football.
And what an introduction we received, the Presidents defeating WVU by the depressing score of 72-0, which was no small feat considering touchdowns back then only accounted for four points!
To add insult to injury, the schoolboys recruited to seek donations from the crowd of about 250 that showed up at the “baseball grounds” in South Morgantown that afternoon failed to come up with enough money to pay W&J for their travel expenses incurred during their day-long, horse-and-buggy trip down to Morgantown, meaning the 14 West Virginia players, the acting coach and the student manager were on the hook for the rest of the dough.
To pay off their debt, Melville Davisson Post, later a nationally known fiction writer whose work was featured in such prominent national publications as The Saturday Evening Post, came up with the great idea of putting on a play, Richard III Revised, the proceeds from which were used to offset the losses.
Therefore, in an indirect way, William Shakespeare was among those responsible for bailing WVU football out of its first financial crisis ... so we’ve got that going for us.
Nevertheless, the trauma from that first game was so great that West Virginia’s players wisely chose to take a year off in 1892 to regroup and learn a little more about the game - one of two seasons college football remained idle at the Mountain State’s premier academic institution. The other stoppage occurred in 1918 when a much more serious influenza pandemic overtook the globe, killing an estimated 20 to 40 million people worldwide.
Otherwise, fall autumns in Morgantown have been filled with the sights and sounds of Gold and Blue football. Initially, the football team began calling themselves “The Snakes” - a nickname Pitt supporters continued to use for many years as a derogatory reference to WVU and West Virginians in general - that is until someone on campus wisely realized that “Snakes” was probably not the most flattering mascot name for the football team.
The much more appropriate nickname Mountaineers was adopted, “Hail, West Virginia!” was penned by Earl Miller and Ed McWhorter in 1915 as our official fight song, and soon one of college football’s great athletic traditions was off and running.
In the beginning, the Presidents and Bobcats were West Virginia’s two main rivals - Washington & Jefferson because of its relative proximity to Morgantown and its prominence as a nationally-known football power, and West Virginia Wesleyan, because of its periodic claim for state football supremacy.
In fact, if you read closely the words to “Hail, West Virginia!” you will notice the passage “others may be black or crimson, but for us it’s Gold and Blue”. Of course, Black and Crimson are Washington & Jefferson’s school colors.
But eventually, West Virginia Wesleyan, and then later, Washington & Jefferson, chose to de-emphasize its football programs, leaving West Virginians to set their sights solely on the region’s true Evil Empire - The Pitt Panthers.
It was in the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh in 1922 where the famous phrase “West By Gawd Virginia!” was born. That unforgettable uttering came out of the mouth of a slightly overserved Mountaineer fan while observing a triumphant West Virginia team and its popular coach, Clarence Spears, entering the hotel lobby following an unforgettable 9-6 victory over the Pop-Warner-led Panthers.
“West By Gawd Virginia!” took on added meaning through the years as Pitt started to accumulate victory after victory against the sometimes overmatched Mountaineers, that is until Art “Pappy” Lewis finally began to reverse the trend in the early 1950s.
Then, in the mid-1960s, when the two schools were on more equal terms and agreed to play on a home-and-home basis, another catchy moniker, the Backyard Brawl, was adopted - a perfect description of one of college football’s great rivalries. Precisely who came up with the Backyard Brawl is not known for sure, although many point to Pittsburgh Press sports writer Russ Franke as its originator.
But the Backyard Brawl, too, eventually ran its course early in the Third Millennium when the Panthers decided to leave the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Two decades prior, West Virginia’s other long-time regional rival, Penn State, departed the troubled waters of the Northeast for the tranquil calm and growing wealth of the Big Ten Conference, which, by the way, is now comprised of 14 schools, if that makes any sense.
Then, shortly after Pitt’s departure to Tobacco Road, West Virginia found a new home out in the Southwest with our current friends from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Iowa.
Today, a concentric circle drawn around a 250-mile area encompassing Morgantown, West Virginia, Pittsburgh and State College, Pennsylvania, shows one school located in the Midwest, one in the South and another in the Southwest - go figure!
In the meantime, West Virginia’s primary regional foes through the years - Washington & Jefferson, Pitt, West Virginia Wesleyan and Marietta College at the turn of the last century; Davis & Elkins, Pitt, Centre College, Washington & Jefferson, Fordham, Georgetown, and George Washington in the 1920s and 1930s; Pitt, Kentucky, Maryland, Temple, Virginia and Penn State in the 1940s; Maryland, South Carolina, Pitt, Penn State and the old Southern Conference schools in the 1950s and 1960s; Pitt, Penn State and Syracuse (three-fourths of the old “Big Four” which also included West Virginia) and other Eastern Independents of the 1970s and 1980s; the original Big East, which included Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College of the 1990s and early 2000s, to, most recently, a pared-down Big East comprised of big-time football newcomers Connecticut, Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida - all of them have been replaced by Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, TCU, Texas Tech and Iowa State as the teams we now circle on WVU’s grid schedules each season.
Over the last 124 years, West Virginia has won far more than its lost: 727 triumphs in 1,254 games with 45 ties for almost a .600 winning percentage - a victory total that ranks 14th among college football’s winningest programs. There have been Hall of Fame and All-American players, national record holders, great coaches, championship teams and many, many unforgettable moments.
Year No. 125 presents another opportunity for gridiron glory, another occasion for Mountaineer fans from “Weirton to Welch and all points in between,” plus, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia, Cleveland, Ohio, Charlotte, North Carolina or wherever, to join together on sunny fall Saturday afternoons in Morgantown and enjoy the amazing experience that is Mountaineer football.
In the coming months, we invite you to visit this website frequently as we relive our great history - the unforgettable moments, players, coaches and teams that make up one of college football’s most storied programs.
We encourage you to read our special features, watch classic videos (some never-before seen), follow interactive graphics and vote in exclusive fan polls throughout the summer as we celebrate our proud 125-year tradition. Additionally, all 2016 WVU football season ticket holders will receive a commemorative flag with the 125-year logo to display at home, work, or wherever you are traveling this summer.
In the meantime, we will be continuously searching our archives for more unique content to post on our official Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts with the hashtag #WVU125 in the days and weeks ahead.
Finally, and most importantly, we want to hear from you, Mountaineer Nation - the best fans in the country! We encourage you to post some of your favorite memories, stories, photos and videos throughout the summer by using our special hashtag #WVU125.
And, don’t forget to send us your photos proudly displaying our new 125-year football flag, too!
We’ll re-post as many of them as we can because when you’ve been doing this as long as we have, there's certainly a lot of great stuff to share!
When you are a Mountaineer fan that means it’s always a great day, wherever you may be!
Let’s Go Mountaineers!
