MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Walter Young Bear admitted the scariest time in his life was the year he spent as a walk-on football player at Tulsa.

At the time, he said he was using money from his grandmother to cover the cost of tuition there, which at the time was approximately $70,000 per year.

"Taking money from your grandma, that sucks," he said recently. "Pressure builds diamonds and the pressure from that moment, and what I wanted to do and what the scholarship meant to my family and how it would honor them and glorify God, that definitely put pressure on me."

Eventually, Young Bear received a scholarship and earned his first college snaps as a redshirt freshman in 2022 against Jacksonville State, coached then by a guy named Rich Rodriguez.

Walter doesn't remember anything remarkable about those 18 snaps he received other than getting an opportunity to play college football for the first time.

"Those were my first snaps, and it was one of the best nights of my life," he recalled.

A year later, he played all 12 games, making two starts at left guard, and last year, he made 11 starts for the 3-9 Hurricanes. Then, he decided to once again step outside his comfort zone and enter the transfer portal for his final season of college eligibility.

Some discussions with Tulsa coaches Ryan Stanchek and Greg Frey convinced him that West Virginia was the right place for him.

Frey spent one season with Rodriguez at West Virginia in 2007 as his offensive line coach and then went with Rodriguez to Michigan.

Stanchek was a standout offensive lineman for Rodriguez at WVU who always got the most out of his abilities as a football player. The Stanchek play that is most remembered by his teammates came at Rutgers in 2007 when he blocked his man at the line of scrimmage, then hustled down the field to make the final block to spring quarterback Pat White into the end zone during one of White's long, meandering touchdown runs.

It was a play the West Virginia coaches used to show to others as a demonstration of the type of effort that was required of championship players and teams.

So, getting a Walter Young Bear endorsement from Stanchek was good enough for Rich Rodriguez, just as a Stanchek endorsement of Rodriguez was good enough for Walter Young Bear.

"A lot of the time spent in the portal is about who can you really trust. Everybody is trying to sell you something, but you don't really know until you actually get there," Young Bear explained. "I was sold because I had two former coaches that told me what West Virginia is going to be like. I wanted to know what I was getting into and just having that little connection, that definitely made me want to come play here."

Tulsa also plays a similar tempo offense, which suited Young Bear's mobility and skills as a zone blocker. The one major difference is the pace of play.

"I'm used to a high-tempo offense, but this offense is super-duper, high-tempo," he admitted. "All the conditioning we do with coach Mike (Joseph) and all our O-line coaches, they do a good job keeping us in shape.

"In my previous offense, it was sort of similar. There are definitely concepts that are tweaked a little bit," he added. "That's one of the reasons I like this offense. I'm sort of used to it."

Young Bear said he has worked primarily at left guard during training camp, but he has also spent some time at right guard, tackle and has snapped occasionally.

"I'm not necessarily an expert in those areas," he conceded.

The son of Allen and Alice McClellan, his Native American name is Say Tay Oy Day, meaning Heap O Bears, which was also his maternal grandfather's Indian name. 

Walter comes from the Kiowa, Comanche, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Tribes in Norman, Oklahoma, and his grandfather his been an integral part of the family tribe for the last 40 years. 

"My two goals playing this sport are glorifying God and honoring my tribe and my family," Walter said. "My grandpa was the chairman and treasurer for 40-plus years, and I'm really close to my tribe."

The 6-foot-3, 312-pounder says the athletes in his family were mostly basketball players, and he once tried his hand at the sport for a while before switching to football.

"I was horrible," he laughed. "I made the C team, but I was bad."

Asked if he is ever willing to demonstrate some of the tribal dances to his Mountaineer teammates, Walter says he can but is reluctant to do so.

"It's kind of like a private thing," he explained. "Now I talk about it openly, but it's a little private. The dances and stuff … I can show that to people, but it gets a little awkward."

Getting used to the cooler weather in West Virginia has been less awkward, he says.

"It's a little cooler up here, for sure, and less wind," Walter noted. "There were a couple reasons why I walked on at Tulsa, and one was the education, because I don't know what's in store for me afterwards once football is done. 

"I have always been stepping out of my comfort zone, I believe," he adds. "When I walked on, I was scared, but I'm not scared now."

As we inch closer toward the start of the regular season, Walter is encouraged with the progress the team has made so far during fall training camp.

"We have more chemistry as a unit as opposed to when the spring started, and I hoped that would be the case," he observed. "When the spring started it was all new. Players were playing positions they weren't used to.

"All I want to do is see how far we can go. Unfortunately, I have never had a winning record in college; I believe we can win, and I think our chemistry is good," Walter said.

He concluded, "The motto 'hard-edge' works, and it's a proven method."