The other day it was passed along to me that West Greene High is planning to honor former West Virginia University quarterback Jerry Yost (pictured above in 1964 as a rookie free agent wearing jersey No. 18 for the New York Jets), a member of its two undefeated football teams there in 1958-59.
 
Following his senior season at West Greene, Pitt felt Yost needed a little more seasoning so it placed the Rogersville, Pennsylvania, native at Greenbrier Military Academy in Lewisburg, West Virginia, where West Virginia assistant coach Ed Shockey discovered him.
 
"He came down to watch me play and said, 'Jerry, you've got to come to West Virginia.' I said, 'I can't go to West Virginia, I already signed to go to Pitt after high school.' He said, 'Aw, you don't pay any damned attention to that,'" Yost, now 76, recalled.
 
"Then he came to my house when I got out of school and he gave me a full scholarship to go to West Virginia and that's how I got there," he said.
 
At the time, the Mountaineers were having trouble getting consistent play from the quarterback position and Yost was one of a number of prospects brought in to try and straighten things out.
 
Initially, it appeared Logan's Fred "Colt 45" Colvard was going to be the guy when he led WVU to big road wins at Pitt and Army during the 1961 season. But Colvard left school shortly afterward and ended up transferring to Florida State to play baseball.
 
Then, Moundsville's Eddie Pastilong looked like he was going to be the quarterback of the future until a shoulder injury he sustained before the 1962 season put him on the shelf.
 
That left the quarterbacking duties to Yost, who played sparingly as a sophomore in 1961 behind Colvard. During training camp at Jackson's Mill shortly before the season opener at Vanderbilt, offensive coach Jimmy Walthall informed Yost that he was going to be the team's starting quarterback.
 
"He came up to me and said, 'Jerry, we've got a problem and you're our starting quarterback.' I said, 'What?'" Yost recalled.
 
Jerry played well in his debut, accounting for three of the team's four touchdowns in a surprisingly easy 26-0 victory over the Commodores. He also led the Mountaineers to outstanding wins that season over rivals Virginia Tech, Pitt and Syracuse on the way to an 8-2 record.
 
The victory at Syracuse was the first ever for the Mountaineers at Archbold Stadium at a time when Ben Schwartzwalder's Orange were considered among the elite grid programs in the country.
 
Yost passed for a career-high 227 yards in a road loss at Oregon State and threw for 188 yards and three touchdowns in his head-to-head matchup against the Southern Conference's other top passer, William & Mary's Dan Henning.
 
He became just the second quarterback in school history to throw for more than 1,000 yards in a season (Walthall was the other) and his 14 touchdowns responsible for easily led the team. He was the Southern Conference's top passer and also led the league in total offense. Yost was named third team Associated Press All-America, the first WVU quarterback ever recognized on a major All-America team.
 
A West Virginia sportswriter once opined that had the Mountaineers not discovered Yost that season, the team's record could have very easily been reversed from 8-2 to 2-8 - records West Virginia teams were typically producing in the late 1950s and early 1960s before things got turned around.
 
"Shorty Moss, who was killed in the Marshall plane crash, was a great running back, and Tommy Woodeshick was the other running back and he got drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles," Yost remembered. "Then we had a great center in Pete Goimarac and our ends were Ken Herock and Gene Heeter, both drafted by professional teams.
 
"Glenn Holton, my roommate, was our fullback and he ended up getting killed in a car accident in Barboursville (West Virginia)," Yost continued. "He was a helluva fullback, Steve Berzansky, too. We played because we loved the game, and we loved to win."
 
Yost's senior season in 1963 was not quite as good, nor was the team's record, but he finished his career ranked second to Fred Wyant in career total offensive yardage and third behind Wyant and Walthall in career passing.
 
The New York Jets signed Yost to a free agent contract in 1964 but released him during training camp. He played some semiprofessional football for the Springfield Acorns before getting into the car business in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he lives today.
 
"They picked me up at (New York's) Grand Central Station after I was cut by the Jets and they gave me $1,000 a week to play for them," Yost said. "That was a lot of money back then, but I got into the car business and ended up buying my own dealership."
 
His daughter, Tracy, was a diver on West Virginia University's women's swimming and diving team in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
 
You don't hear Jerry Yost's name discussed very often when considering West Virginia University's outstanding quarterbacks, but the tremendous season he enjoyed in 1962 came at a time when the football program was really struggling, and slipping farther behind Eastern rivals Penn State, Syracuse and Pitt.
 
His play at quarterback that season really gave Mountaineer football a big boost.
 
And now, on to this weekend's WVU sports notes:
 

* The successes continue for former West Virginia University running back Johnathan Holifield. Earlier this week, Holifield was named to lead President Donald Trump's initiative on historically black colleges.
 
He will begin his post on Oct. 2.
 
Holifield played for Don Nehlen at WVU from 1983-86, and then earned a law degree from the University of Cincinnati after playing briefly in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals.
 
Holifield is a consulting firm co-founder and author of the book "The Future Economy and Inclusive Competitiveness," and has been a longtime social advocate.
 
"(Holifield) has more than 20 years of multidisciplinary business and government experience," Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, said.
 
"There's no path to sustained new job creation, shared prosperity and enduring national competitiveness without the current and increased contributions of historically black colleges and universities," Holifield told HBCU leaders during a summit held on the White House grounds at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building earlier this week.
 
Holifield's best season at WVU came in 1986 when he rushed for 645 yards and scored three touchdowns. In 31 career games, the former walk-on from Romulus, Michigan, rushed for 1,628 yards and scored 14 touchdowns, including a career-high 177 yards in a 52-13 victory over Louisville in 1985.
 
* Here is a little interesting tidbit from the media rights industry, http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Morning-Buzz/2017/09/19/Learfield.aspx
 
What this entails, or how it will impact collegiate sports is anyone's guess, including the Federal Trade Commission.
 
 

* Tony' Gibson's defense is still a work in progress, but that progress could be accelerated significantly with the return of its best playmaker - sophomore linebacker David Long Jr.
 
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen indicated Tuesday that Long is back practicing with the team and will be on the trip to Lawrence, Kansas, this afternoon as West Virginia prepares for its Big 12 opener at 1-2 Kansas.
 
It is unknown whether or not Long will see any action on Saturday, though.
 
"It's tough enough to play defense in this league and when you're doing it with two or three guys that you are really counting on being out, it's even harder," Gibson said. "We'll just have to see. When they're available we'll play them."
 
If it's this weekend, Gibson will be getting back a linebacker who understands the defense's complicated run fits and is also capable of verbalizing it to others.
 
"He's very comfortable in his own skin with the way he plays, understanding the defense and the scheme and obviously he's a big-time player that I have a lot of respect for and it's going to be exciting when we get him back," Gibson said.
 
Overall, Gibson said the linebackers played really well against Virginia Tech, not so well against East Carolina and then better against Delaware State. Overall, through three games, he said the linebackers have been "solid."
 
* I know history is not very popular or valued as much these days, but there was once a time when Kansas had some terrific football teams and players.
 
Coach Pepper Rodgers led the Jayhawks to an Orange Bowl appearance against Penn State in 1968, and as recently as 2007, Mark Mangino took a 12-win Kansas team back to South Florida.
 
Then you look up at the top of the end zone in Memorial Stadium and you see the names Gale Sayers, John Riggins, John Hadl and Nolan Cromwell and you begin to realize that Kansas was not always just a basketball school.

* West Virginia's Nikki Izzo-Brown will be inducted into the West Virginia Soccer Association Hall of Fame on Saturday, March 3, 2018 at the Marriott Waterfront Place in Morgantown.
 
It is the first of many halls of fame destined for one of women's college soccer's winningest coaches. No person has done more to promote and develop soccer in this state than Izzo-Brown, first at West Virginia Wesleyan and then at West Virginia University.
 
Izzo-Brown took WVU to the College Cup finals last year with the nation's top player, Kadeisha Buchanan, a Hermann Trophy Award winner.
 
Her West Virginia University team is once again in the top 10 this year with a 7-2 record that includes victories over nationally ranked Georgetown, Penn State and Princeton.
 
* Speaking of Nikki's team, I noticed last weekend that Princeton and LaSalle resorted to some rough play to try and knock the Mountaineers off their game.
 
I can remember years ago when Nikki first got started here at West Virginia, her Mountaineer teams used similar tactics to try and stick close to Notre Dame, Connecticut and some of the other more talented teams on their schedule, so Nikki is all-too-familiar with this style of play!
 
And I'm sure Nikki will make sure her players can handle it as well.
 
 

* After a 30-year hiatus, Sean Covich's West Virginia University men's golf program has achieved victories in two of its last three tournaments dating back to last season.
 
Last year, the Mountaineers got back into the winning column at the East Carolina Intercollegiate in Greenville when they took first place honors.
 
Then on Tuesday, West Virginia captured the VCU Janney Shootout at the Tuckahoe Creek Course in Richmond.
 
Teams in the field included host VCU, Virginia Tech, Old Dominion and Maryland. Counting last year's win at ECU, other notable Mountaineer victims include Rutgers, East Carolina, Coastal Carolina, Florida Gulf Coast and Charlotte.
 
Covich has three returning starters from last year's victory in junior Max Sear, junior Tristian Nicholls and sophomore Etienne Papineau, plus four new players - Columbus State transfer Phillipp Matlari and freshmen Matthew Sharpstene, Mark Goetz and Logan Perkins.
 
Way to go Mountaineers!
 
* Finally, for those who closely follow college basketball, the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook is considered the bible of the sport. Now beginning its 37^th year, the publication was the creation of West Virginia native Chris Wallace, who eventually sold 80 percent of the publication's assets to Joe Lunardi and Chris Dortch in 1994.
 
Today, the 400-page book remains the most comprehensive publication on men's college basketball and is a regular companion to anyone who covers the sport.
 
Therefore, it caught my attention when Blue Ribbon announced its preseason rankings earlier this week and it had Bob Huggins' Mountaineers No. 9 to begin the season.
 
The last time Blue Ribbon thought so highly of West Virginia?
 
That would be 2010 when the Mountaineers were tabbed 12^th to begin the year. That was the year West Virginia reached the Final Four by the way.
 
I'm just sayin' …
 
Practice officially begins next Friday, Sept. 29.
 
Enjoy your weekend!