MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Sometimes, good things have to end.
 
And West Virginia University's decade-long, live-event partnership with AT&T SportsNet has definitely been a good thing to both parties. 
 
It's been good to WVU because of AT&T SportsNet's expertise in a Pittsburgh market that has been traditionally tough for the Mountaineers to penetrate, and it's been good to AT&T SportsNet because of the top-quality inventory West Virginia has brought to the network between the Major League Baseball and National Hockey League seasons.
 
The relationship began in the late 1990s when AT&T SportsNet was then known as Fox Sports Net Pittsburgh. It started with football press conferences and other shoulder programing before eventually evolving into live-event coverage when the network became known as ROOT Sports in the mid-2000s.
 
By 2012, when West Virginia joined the Big 12 Conference and still possessed its local television rights, ROOT Sports was the natural place for WVU athletics to turn. ROOT had the resources and the pieces in place to put on a first-class television production similar to what it does for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
 
Actually, when you watch an AT&T SportsNet Mountaineer sporting event it looks just like a Pirates or Penguins telecast, right down to the on-air talent.
 
That's what West Virginia University sports fans have come to expect and appreciate.
 
Veteran Pittsburgh broadcaster Rob King has been calling Mountaineer football and men's basketball games since AT&T SportsNet's first production in 2012 in Landover, Maryland, when West Virginia played James Madison.
 
He's worked all of the football telecasts with either Rasheed Marshall, Marc Bulger or Mike Logan.
 
King has also done the vast majority of the six-to-eight men's basketball games AT&T SportsNet has been airing on a yearly basis since the 2012-13 season. Ex-Pirates broadcaster Tim Neverett was recruited to fill in for some of the games King couldn't do, with Robby Incmikoski handling most of the sideline reporting duties.
 
Former West Virginia University great Warren Baker was added to the basketball telecasts for analysis, giving Mountaineer basketball fans a first-rate broadcasting crew.
 
Behind the scenes on the other side of the curtain tying it all together is veteran producer Roger Lenhart, a 1992 West Virginia University graduate who is unapologetic about his WVU allegiances.
 
The Weirton resident has proudly produced every single West Virginia basketball and football telecast AT&T SportsNet has aired since the partnership began. For Roger, producing these games has never been considered work when it also involves your heart.
 
Originally from right across the Mason-Dixon Line in Gans, Pennsylvania, Lenhart says his involvement with Mountaineer sporting events has been a labor of love. He says his most memorable birthday present was his father taking him and his brother to a Mountaineer football game in the early 1980s.
 
"The snow was falling and I was so excited when my dad told me we were going," Lenhart recalled recently. "We used to scalp tickets and my dad would usually buy me and my brother a ticket and then he would wait outside until halftime when they opened up the gates and he could get in for free. 
 
"He was a coal miner, and there were times when he simply couldn't afford a third ticket," he said.
 
After earning his WVU degree in sport management in 1992, Lenhart got into the TV business, first working as an associate producer for the Penn State Football Story television show before taking a job with Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia in the mid-1990s.
 
In 1998, when a coordinating producer position opened at Fox Sports Net Pittsburgh, he jumped at the opportunity to return to the area close to where his wife, Lucy, was raised in Weirton. Lenhart's relationship with the Mountaineers was rekindled when he first got involved with live-event production in the mid-2000s.
 
In 2012, it came full circle when general manager Shawn McClintock tasked Lenhart in the lead role of producing the West Virginia University games as part of its "Wild and Wonderful" WVU sports lineup.
 
In all, Lenhart has produced roughly 50 football and men's basketball games since that first one aired from FedExField in 2012 – an otherwise forgetful game to Mountaineer fans but one that is permanently seared in his mind.
 
"All of this transpired very quickly, and we had about 10 days to book a truck and put together an entire crew," Lenhart recalled.
 
His No. 1 concern was finding a competent football analyst recognizable to Mountaineer football fans who was also familiar with the team. He had to make a lot of cold calls. 
 
A lot.
 
"I called Anthony Becht, and he was going to do it, but he ended up having a scheduling conflict with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the team he was working for at the time," Lenhart said. "I remember calling John Thornton, who did one of the local games, and Rasheed Marshall, who was doing some television work as well. Marc Bulger was getting into the business and when I began reaching out, all of them had no idea who I was."
 
Worse yet, none of them was available.

Lenhart also knew former Mountaineer great Mike Logan through his television work in the Pittsburgh market, and he was able to get him to call the James Madison game with King.
 
A good portion of the crew he had assembled worked in news and had never done live sports before, so Lenhart was sitting on pins and needles right up until airtime.
 
"It was about 10 minutes until air. We were still struggling, and I'm thinking to myself, 'My god, this is our first broadcast! Is this how it's going to be for all of these?' But we got on the air," he laughed. "If people knew what was going on behind the scenes … wow. We got through it."
 
Seven years later, that first game has become a distant memory because the productions have gone so smoothly.
 
The Mountaineer sports telecasts today are on par with most of the larger regional sports productions. AT&T SportsNet uses seven cameras for football games and six for basketball, which is two more than most regional productions use for hoops games.
 
The same camera people, engineers, font assistants, score bug operators, audio technicians, replay operators, technical directors and production assistants working Pirates and Penguins games are also working Mountaineer games.
 
These people are incredibly talented and have grown to enjoy their association with WVU, thanks to Lenhart.
 
"We take a lot of pride in our production," he said. "We are unbiased as far as the broadcast, but I bleed gold and blue, and I never want to do a disservice to the University."
 
Lenhart said King feels the same.
 
"Rob is tremendous. He treats high school, West Virginia, Pitt, the Pirates, Steelers, Penguins or whatever he's doing just the same," he explained. "That's why he is so highly thought of. He's easy to work with and does his homework. I can't recall a shootaround he's missed since we've been doing these games."
 
Their final crew call will be Saturday afternoon when West Virginia takes on Nicholls at 2 p.m.
 
West Virginia's Tier 3 inventory of games, including Olympic sports events currently streaming on the website, will transition to the Big 12 Now on ESPN Plus beginning next season.
 
"It's been a great partnership when you can bring a group to the table with the expertise AT&T SportsNet has," Matt Wells, West Virginia's senior associate athletic director for external affairs, noted. "When you combine the personal relationships with people like Shawn McClintock, Doug Johnson (vice president and producer) and Roger Lenhart, who each have an affinity for Mountaineer sports, it really shows up in the end product.

"They put a lot of pride in what they do, and that has ultimately benefitted our athletic department, the football program, the two basketball programs and our entire University," Wells added.
 
While this year marks the end of the live-event phase of WVU's relationship with AT&T SportsNet, Wells is hopeful West Virginia University can maintain a continued presence on the network in some form in the future.
 
"Being in a market of that size is a real asset to our program in many different areas," Wells explained.
 
Those things are well above Roger Lenhart's paygrade. He's just sad to be no longer taking part in something that he loves doing when he's not producing Pirates and Penguins studio shows, which number about 150 per year.
 
"We talk about it in the office all the time," he said. "We're going to miss this and the great relationships we've built down here through the years."
 
Mountaineer sports fans are going to miss it, too. AT&T SportsNet has served West Virginia University athletics well these last seven years together.

So when you are sitting in front of your big screen on Saturday with your favorite beverage in hand, raise your glass and toast these guys for a job well done!