By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — Bill Stewart could get to liking this big time coaching thing.
Like you turn on your TV and there he is front and center, all spiffed up in Sunday best, sitting with his bride and dining at Stefano’s in a commercial.
Then last week, he jumped on a plane and flew off to New York City where he got to rub elbows with the likes of Lou Holtz and Tim Tebow and Don Nehlen and try the chow at some big ol’ hotel they call the Waldorf-Astoria.
And that was just the first stop on his journey, for next, as the weather turned cold and blustery, he headed south to Florida, undoubtedly sitting in the shade of a swaying palm tree, sipping on a pina colada and wondering if ol’ Bill Kirelawich was warm enough back home.
That he was second banana in the biggest thing to hit Jacksonville since Ponce de Leon marched on through there in search for the Fountain of Youth, it hardly bothered him because he was being paired with a man who actually seemed to have discovered said fountain.
His name is Bobby Bowden and he is the featured attraction in this year’s Gator Bowl, which matches Stewart’s West Virginia University Mountaineers with Bowden’s Florida Seminoles, a game that makes a perfect circle out of Bowden’s coaching career for he got his start in the big time as WVU’s head coach back in 1970.
Indeed, young Billy Stewart actually was a WVU freshman at that time, playing on Bowden’s freshman team coached by Donny Young.
With this being the final game of Bowden’s Hall of Fame career and coming in the state of Florida, it is safe to assume that the Mountaineers are playing second fiddle in this one-man band.
“It’ll be a tribute to him,” Stewart acknowledged Saturday morning after a hard-knocking practice in the Caperton Indoor Facility. “It’ll be a frenzy.”
A Florida Frenzy, if we could be alliterative for a moment.
Stewart got a whiff of what it will be like when his team arrives in Jacksonville right after Christmas for the New Year’s Day Bowl when he was at the press gathering there this week.
“It was like Bobby Bowden Day in Jacksonville,” Stewart admitted. “It’s like I told our team, the only people there on our side are those who love the old Gold and Blue, just our faithful.”
The Mountaineers are the Washington Generals to the Seminoles’ Harlem Globetrotters in this matchup.
Not that this is anything strange for a Mountaineer team in a bowl game.
While they travel well, they travel alone.
Think about for a minute. They played Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, only to have Hurricane Katrina wipe out New Orleans and have the game moved to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
Atlanta is in Georgia, the opponent was Georgia.
Ooops.
Then last year, West Virginia was matched up with North Carolina in something called the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
Anyone want to guess where that is located?
Charlotte, which is in … that’s right, North Carolina.
It sort of figures that if you are Mountaineer you spend your life trying to climb mountains.
“Wait ‘til we walk in there and there’s 75,000 people and 15,000 of them are for us,” Stewart said. “We’ll be the villain.”
And …
“That’s just the way we like it,” Stewart said.
The Mountaineers have been pretty good when running uphill. Ask Georgia, if you don’t believe it. Or Carolina.
And there is good reason that this year they are not the darlings of the arena, even though they bring in a 9-3 record, a star player in Noel Devine and face a disappointing 6-6 Florida State team.
See Bowden is bigger than big.
“Talk about a role model for coaches,” Stewart said of Bowden. “Think what he has meant to so many young people over the years. I mean, there were people handing him their babies there. He means the world to football.”
And that’s fine with Stewart. Go ahead and honor Bobby Bowden, salute the time he coached and the national championship he won and the Heisman Trophy player he coached.
All that’s fine and dandy.
“I’d just like to win the game,” Stewart said.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
