MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Words assembled correctly can mean so much to so many. Sometimes it only takes a few, such as I love you.
 
Sometimes it requires more, or, sometimes even less.
 
Boxing legend Muhammed Ali was known as a great wordsmith during his life, his humorous poems possibly remembered as much as his epic fights. When Ali was once asked to speak at a Harvard commencement ceremony in 1975, near the conclusion of his speech one of the students shouted out, "Give us a poem, champ!"
 
The quick-thinking Ali complied. 
 
"Me, we," he said, which came to represent the shortest poem in the English language. 
 
What Ali had said moved George Plimpton to write about it afterward. The late journalist and literary editor used those two simple words Ali had uttered to illustrate the great sense of community and support for togetherness they mean when placed together.
 
So words, even just a few of them, can take on great meaning to people.
 
To West Virginians, there are 12 words used together that generate a wide range of emotions – happiness, pride, contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction, togetherness and appreciation, just to name a few.
 
Those 12 magical words to us are "it's a great day to be a Mountaineer, wherever you may be." The phrase is used by West Virginia play-by-play announcer Tony Caridi after unforgettable West Virginia University victories. The first time he said it mostly likely happened following the Mountaineers' men's basketball victory at LSU on Nov. 27, 2004.
 
He has used it on a number of other special occasions since then.
 
In many ways, it's become our "me, we."
 
Believe it or not, the story of "it's a great day to be a Mountaineer, wherever you may be" really begins in Elmira, New York, in the mid-1990s. Pikewood Creative's Dan Lohman masterfully tells the tale in a short, 20-minute podcast released today, thanks to WVU Medicine.
 
West Virginia University's link to the phrase is Morgantown native Zach Spiker, the son of retired West Virginia University athletic trainer John Spiker and today head men's basketball coach at Drexel.
 
Zach was playing basketball at Ithaca College where he had encountered a number of positive people. Longtime Ithaca football coach Jim Butterfield was one of them, and he was well-known around campus for saying "today is going to be a great day!"
 
Ithaca men's basketball assistant coach Dan Miller eventually reworked Butterfield's saying into "it's a great day to be a Bomber!"
 
He used it from time to time as a way to encourage his players, and also to keep himself positive after learning that his father was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which, ironically, also claimed Butterfield in 2002.
 
During an Ithaca junior varsity game at Elmira College, the Bombers fell behind by more than 20 points and Hamilton could sense that his struggling team needed a boost. He told them after one timeout, "Hey guys, you know what? It's going to be a great day to be a Bomber!"
 
Soon, Elmira's lead shrank to 15, to 10 and then to single digits. In the final seconds, Spiker made a pass to an open teammate for the game-winning basket to give Ithaca a come-from-behind victory.
 
It was a meaningless JV game, except to Hamilton and his Ithaca players. Afterward in the locker room, Spiker remembers everyone saying "it's a great day to be a Bomber!"
 
Spiker took that phrase with him to his first college job at Winthrop working on Gregg Marshall's staff. There, it became "it's a great day to be an Eagle."
 
Then, it traveled with him to Morgantown when he became a member of John Beilein's staff in the mid-2000s.
 
In the meantime, Spiker had worked as an intern for Caridi at West Virginia Radio Corporation when he was still considering a career as a sports broadcaster. That's when he first introduced the phrase to Caridi.
 
"I have a vague recollection of a conversation with Zach and he told me the story about the Ithaca basketball game and how they rallied for a big win," Caridi recalls in the podcast. "Then he said 'it's a great day to be a Mountaineer! What do you think?' Well, some way, somehow, that got planted in my head."
 
Caridi was beginning each West Virginia broadcast with the catchphrase "from Weirton to Welch, from Martinsburg to Matewan and all points in between …" which was a little different than his predecessor, Jack Fleming, who said "the hills of West Virginia resound with the sounds of Gold and Blue football (or basketball) …"
 
Caridi liked the phrase Spiker suggested, and he began reworking it a little bit in his mind. It needed something. Eventually, he added the words "wherever you may be" most likely, he believes, as a play off of his opening.
 
It's sort of like John Denver's contribution to Bill Danoff's and Taffy Nivert's lyrics in Take Me Home, Country Roads. Danoff once said that Denver's input to the song was the phrase "all my memories" - which sort of serves as a nice transition to the song's third verse.
 
In that respect, "wherever you may be" completes Spiker's phrase because it unifies us all, whether we are living in Martinsburg, Matewan, Weirton, Welch in the United States or anywhere else in the world.
 
In sum, those 12 words are all-inclusive to Mountaineers everywhere.
 
"The phrase has evolved," Caridi admitted. "When I first began to use it, I really didn't think of the long-lasting impact or the emotion it would generate among fans. But as time has gone on, I've seen that it has become significant to people because oftentimes they mark where they were when they heard the phrase."
 
The key, according to Caridi, is to only use it judiciously. It's not something to bring out after every Mountaineer victory like "we had 'em all the way."
 
Caridi explains: "Sometimes I will think before a game, 'If West Virginia wins this game then it could probably be one where you could use it.' However, it's kind of a gray area. If West Virginia wins a massively important game, chances are it's going to be used.
 
"If West Virginia is a massive underdog in a game, chances are it's going to be used," he added. "If West Virginia finds itself in tremendous peril, i.e., down 20 or 25 points in a basketball game or say three touchdowns in football, and it rallies and comes back, I'll use it."
 
He used it when West Virginia came back to stun Louisville in triple-overtime in 2005. That's when Caridi initially thought he first said it.
 
He also used it for West Virginia's NCAA Tournament second-round victory over Wake Forest in 2006 and the Mountaineers' three BCS bowl wins over Georgia in the Sugar, over Oklahoma in the Fiesta and over Clemson in the Orange.
 
He used the phrase when Tyler Bitancurt's last-second field goal upset eighth-ranked Pitt at Mountaineer Field in 2009, and he used it a year later when Bob Huggins' Mountaineers stunned No. 1 seed Kentucky in the 2010 NCAA East Regional finals in Syracuse, New York.
 
Of course, all of these moments have great meaning to West Virginians everywhere.
 
"I think one of the special things about West Virginia athletics is all 55 counties are engaged in the Mountaineers," Caridi noted. "That's very unusual to find in any state. Whether you are in Weirton or Welch, Martinsburg or Matewan – anywhere in the United States or anywhere in the world for that matter – you're in. You're a Mountaineer, and it's a great day to be a Mountaineer and I think that kind of puts a smile on people's faces."
 
It does - just like "me, we" was so moving to George Plimpton.
 
"It's wonderful to hear people enjoy it, and I'm happy they enjoy it and it's significant to them," Caridi concluded.
 
For his part, Spiker admits he is somewhat taken aback by its popularity.
 
"Did I think it would have the staying power that it has today? No, of course not," he answered.
 
It's become popular to West Virginians because it speaks to the power of words, particularly words that are positive, uplifting and unifying.