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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (òòò½ÊÓƵ News) òòò½ÊÓƵ” West Virginia has faced some trying times in its athletic history.

Times were so bad once that a Hall of Fame football coach, Bobby Bowden, was hung in effigy.

They bounced back.

Then there was the Frank Cignetti era, ill and weak, the football coach went 17-27 in four years.

He, too, wound up in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Gale Catlett suffered through an 8-20 final season with one win and 15 Big East losses.

He, though, will be remembered as the winningest coach in Mountaineer basketball history.

And Bob Huggins has had two losing seasons in his last four years.

On Saturday, however, he learns if he will be inducted in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Bad years? Yes. Bad periods of time? Yes.

Never, however, has òòò½ÊÓƵU's place in big time college athletics ever been threatened as it is today.

A combination of the transfer portal and NIL rules have changed the game from amateur to professional. The change has been transformational in nature, widening the gap between the haves and have nots and ripping away at the core of what made college sports what it always had been.

There's no more boola, boola.

That has been replaced by moolah, moolah.

No one wins games for the Gipper any longer. Today, instead, you play to become the Big Tipper.

There is no commitment any longer.

The biggest untruth there is now is the cliche "There is no I in team."

The Alabamas, Ohio States and Oklahomas of the world are awash in talent, while the West Virginias have become nothing but a developmental stopover for their most talented players.

Build a team? How? You have a good player for maybe two years. A great one you get no shot at.

It's as if it hits home every day in places like Morgantown, be it football or basketball. One day basketball player Sean McNeil announces he's leaving, next day football player Akheem Mesidor.

You don't hear anything about members of the rowing team leaving.

But 21 football players, most of the starters, have left since the end of the 2020 season.

Blame the players? No, you can't do that, although one suspects the attitude in today's world might be best represented by players wearing uniform shirts not with the team name on the front and their name on the back, but vice versa.

Blame the coach? Could be, if players are leaving because he is mistreating them or simply such a bad coach that he will never win?

Blame the athletic director? The school president? The cheerleaders?

Damnit, you have to blame someone.

Or do you?

If anyone should be mad today it is òòò½ÊÓƵU's football coach Neal Brown, who lost Mesidor unexpectedly.

He says he isn't angry. Sad, not mad, is the word he uses.

He believes in himself, his values, his approach.

"I'm not bitter. I'm not down on the transfer portal. I'm not down on college football, the direction. I'm not down on the profession," he said on Tuesday in a rare press conference to announce that Mesidor was leaving, something previously left to players via their social media accounts.

"What I'll say here, after having some thought, as I sit here, I'm more resolute, more confident and more committed to my beliefs in how to run a program than I've ever been," he went on.

"I believe in pouring into the student-athletes and going all in. I believe in building an infrastructure and surrounding them with support staff that pours into them, serves, develops them and creates a culture of accountability."

That is all well and good, if he can find some way to go beyond accountability but creates a culture of pride in the school, pride in the state, pride in the team and a realization that there is more to being an athlete than just how many stars are listed with your name.

"Here's the thing," Brown said. "There's going to be some days that are tough, like the last day and a half where you lose some guys that you really, really invested in. But I believe if you do it that way, there are going to be a lot more success stories than there are ones that go away. I believe that with every ounce of my being.

"I believe in the young men in our program. We've had five practices here and it's the most excitement we've had, the most competitive practices we've had. "We've had different college coaches talking about how well our guys are practicing.

"I feel very confident that the '23 recruiting class will be the best we've signed here."

That may be, but the big question is whether they will be here in '24 and '25.

"I'll say this," Brown said. "The best is yet to come."

If you don't believe in yourself, who will believe in you?

"I want to leave with this: In 154 days òòò½ÊÓƵ” that's what it is; we've got the countdown going òòò½ÊÓƵ” in 154 days we're going to show up at Heinz Field and have a damn good football team line up, a group of guys who believe and are committed to the university and the state and play their asses off for the name on the front and not on the back."

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (òòò½ÊÓƵ News) òòò½ÊÓƵ” The rebranding of Rich Rodriguez as a major college football coach has begun.

Again.

We've seen this before ... first at Michigan after his escape into the night to get away from his alma mater after a crushing, embarrassing defeat to Pitt, the one team he couldn't lost to, not as a four-touchdown favorite, not with a match up against Ohio State for the national championship.

Didn't work. Three years and he was gone.

On to Arizona. Again, didn't work. Oh, the football was fine, but there were some personal innuendoes tossed around, things unproven and denied as recently again as this week.

But he had outlived his welcome.

He was out of football. He came back at Ole Miss and coached quarterbacks òòò½ÊÓƵ” especially son Rhett òòò½ÊÓƵ” at Louisiana-Monroe assisting Terry Bowden.

But things change in sports, in this era often within the twinkling of an eye. Don't believe it?

òòò½ÊÓƵk Tiger Woods. òòò½ÊÓƵk Muhammad Ali. òòò½ÊÓƵk Kobe Bryant. òòò½ÊÓƵk Alex Rodriguez.

It happens and now Rich Rodriguez is trying to add his name to the list at Jacksonville State, newly brought into FBS football as a member of Conference USA.

He said in his introductory press conference on Wednesday that this wasn't a move made as a first step back to the big time, but once you've smelled the roses, it's hard to live off the smell of petunias.

When introduced at the press conference, he reached right into the bag of coaching humor as the sound of a standing ovation began to die down.

"I hope you're still standing in nine months," he said.

"I'm not looking for the next thing," he told the gathering. "I've been there, done that. I think some of the most memorable moments of my coaching career were when I was at Glenville State College, which was a little Division II school in the early '90s.

"Building that program up and seeing us win championships and stuff like that are probably still our greatest memories."

Certainly, greater than his exit from òòò½ÊÓƵU, which will probably disqualify him from ever coming home no matter how much success he has. Oh, there are those who would take him back òòò½ÊÓƵ” after all, they were years of great success until the trap door sprung open and fell through.

But if he is to rehabilitate himself and his reputation, what better place to start than to remind this upstart school of his roots at Glenville State.

However, stop me if you heard this one many years ago.

"Glenville State was the best program in America to take over," Rodriguez told the boosters, administrators, players and media on hand. "They went 0-10 the year before, got shut out seven times and only scored 20 points the whole year. So, my first year there I got a standing ovation on the first play and I'm like 'Hell, I ain't never leaving, this place is beautiful.'

"We won one game, which is the best coaching job I ever did in my life. We went 1-7-1, I think."

Rich Rod was letting them know he was one of them. Underdog, country boy who could take an upstart like Jacksonville State òòò½ÊÓƵ” which did upset Florida State this year òòò½ÊÓƵ” and show the way to the top.

Rodriguez's next head coaching job was at òòò½ÊÓƵU, down the road from where he grew up and from Glenville, and he had to build his program, which would be a complete departure from the legend he was replacing òòò½ÊÓƵ” Don Nehlen.

The start was rocky.

"I think we won three the first year, then nine the second year. That was good, because I was from òòò½ÊÓƵU, then won three and was not from West Virginia, then won nine and I was a homeboy again.

"Then came Michigan," he said.

We were eager to hear more about òòò½ÊÓƵU and how he walked out on the team and school the moment they needed him most, completely changing the history of the football program, but he wasn't going public with the behind-the-doors antics that went on then.

He moved on to his experience at Michigan.

"Oh, don't get started on Michigan," he said. "That was a little more difficult than I thought coming into it. We thought we had it going in the third year and had everybody coming back, but we didn't see the fourth year."

And so it went ... Rich Rod, who had become a man without a home when he left òòò½ÊÓƵU, promising this would be his home, without really promising.

Is he looking at it as his last job in his career, he was asked.

"Absolutely. If you will sign me to a lifetime contract," he joked. "There's so many crazy things going on in football and coaches say 'Never say never' but I tell every young coach that you should take every job and treat it like it's the last job you're ever going to have ... because it might be. That's what I'm doing.

"The difference with me, I've had the big jobs and all that. Now, you put a 10-year contract in front of me, old Coach Rod is going to sign it, just so you know. It might not be 10 years for $110 million, but nonetheless."

The problem is, when you think back on his exit from òòò½ÊÓƵU, as long ago as it was, do you think he really can be tied to Jacksonville State by a 10-year contract?

There's still some rehabbing he has to do to sell that to the people up here who backed him with their hearts and souls, people who eventually would have even forgiven the loss to Pitt if he kept winning 10 and 11 games a year.

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (òòò½ÊÓƵ News) òòò½ÊÓƵ” Former West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez will be named the head coach at Jacksonville State as that program makes the move to FBS for the 2023 season, according to reports.

Rodriguez, who played at North Marion in high school and òòò½ÊÓƵU in college, coached his alma mater from 2001 to 2007, posting a 60-26. He led the Mountaineers to victory in the Sugar Bowl after the 2005 season and to the cusp of the national championship game in 2007.

He left for Michigan but only lasted three years, going 15-22.

He then was the head coach at Arizona from 2012-2017, but was fired after an investigation following a lawsuit from his administrative assistant.

Rodriguez was then offensive coordinator at Ole Miss and Louisiana-Monroe.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (òòò½ÊÓƵ News) òòò½ÊÓƵ” We've waited five years for this, the renewal of border rivalries. This year it's West Virginia at Maryland to open the 2021 season today after a five-year hiatus, then at noon in two weeks the Mountaineers welcome Virginia Tech back onto the schedule for the first time in four years and to Morgantown for the first time in 18 years.

Can it really have been that long?

These òòò½ÊÓƵ” along with Pitt, which comes back onto the schedule next year for the first time in a decade òòò½ÊÓƵ” are the heat of what should be the Mountaineers football schedule no matter which league they wind up in.

Why?

It's regional ... and we're not talking travel time as òòò½ÊÓƵU took a three-and-a-half-hour bus ride to College Park, which matches the flight time to most of the Big 12 home cities. It's not about geography as much as it's about demography, the type of people who live within the area.

Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania ... it is the people who give it its life and way of life.

And this brings us to a ceremony that will be held in College Park, a ceremony honoring a person who exemplifies what those who hold this rivalry dear to their hearts mean.

True, he is a former Maryland coach, and one who found himself earning that job at the wrong time, as you will see and as a 7-25 career record shows.

But there's a major crossover here, for E. Roy Lester was not only a graduate of West Virginia University, but a three-sport letterman who may have resided most of his life in Maryland but now and forever resides in the òòò½ÊÓƵU Sports Hall of Fame.

Let us begin with how this came to our attention. òòò½ÊÓƵ it is with most news these days, it caught our eye on Facebook, a message from Amy Lester Greco. Here is the text of it:

Hi and I hope everyone is doing well!! These are tough times & I pray for each of you.

On Saturday, September 4 at the òòò½ÊÓƵU/MD game, they are honoring our dad, Coach Roy Lester. Our dad was a proud West Virginian.

However, he moved to Maryland to coach at Allegheny (sic) High in 1953. In 1956, he went to the University of Maryland to be the freshman football & basketball coach.

He returned to MD in 1969 as the Head Football Coachòòò½ÊÓƵ” The year before they lost most of their players. Our dad came in & simply felt blessed to be there. He recruited 15 future NFL players including Randy White (a Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer from Maryland.

He was so pleased to be able to give Coach Ralph Friedgen his 1st job. He was always very proud of all of his players & coachesòòò½ÊÓƵ¦ including Coach Fred O'Connor & Coach Billy Joe. He went on to so much more happiness & greatness. Coach Lesteròòò½ÊÓƵ™s only goal was to make a difference in peopleòòò½ÊÓƵ™s lives. He certainly succeeded at that. We love and miss you dad.

The boys & I will all be at the game. Roy Jr, Chris, Tom Lester & I look forward to honoring our dad at the game.

Now, let's take look at the man who was Roy Lester. He came out of Spencer Highto attend òòò½ÊÓƵU, where he won letters in football, basketball and baseball, a rare feat at any school.

He was a receiver on the 1949 Sun Bowl team of the great coach Dudley DeGroot catching 16 balls for 259 yards and a couple of touchdowns. In basketball he played in 21 games and scored 27 points.

Baseball was his best sport, lettering from 1947 through 1949, batting .339 for his career.

A political science major, he played a year of semi-professional football in New Jersey for a farm team of the Philadelphia Eagles, then went into coaching, his coaching career beginning in Walton, West Virginia, before crossing the border to become a high school coach who would win three state championships and compiling 260 wins in Montgomery County.

Oh, and in the middle of his college years, he was called on to serve in the Navy during World War II and was stationed at Pearl Harbor.

òòò½ÊÓƵ the head coach at Maryland, Lester never really had a chance. The team he inherited had won only 2 of its previous 19 games, leading to a revolt among the players and the firing of his predecessor.

The school hired Lester because not only did they think he could coach, but he could bring sanity back within the program.

"My dad was a molder of men," his son, Tom Lester, told the Baltimore Sun. He loved his players -- he never cut anybody. He trusted his players and was almost like a father figure to them. he just inspired people to want to go out and win."

At the college level and caught up in difficult situation, he could only build up the talent for his successor, Jerry Clairborne, who went on to play seven bowls in the next 10 years at Maryland.

But why would Maryland be honoring an old-timer who had little success in his stint as head football coach and who is not only from West Virginia, but a member of the Mountaineer Sports Hall of Fame.

That's as modern as thinking of Roy Lester is old-fashioned, for in May, 2020, Roy Lester died of complications from COVID-19.

He was 96.

And after he died, his daughter, Amy Lester Grecko, took to Facebook to say this:

òòò½ÊÓƵœHow blessed I am to have been his only daughter. I am not a perfect person but everything good about me came from this beautiful man.òòò½ÊÓƵ�