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That has been replaced by moolah, moolah.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."
