MORGANTOWN — Ryan Boyd is frustrated. He’s standing on a wind-blown corner of the parking lot outside the West Virginia University Coliseum, waiting for the bus that will take him to the airport and then on to Phoenix for a Sweet 16 engagement with Xavier University.

He’s frustrated because he won’t get to do his thing at the U.S. Air Arena and — not to toot his own horn, which he does quite well, by the way — he knows the Mountaineer basketball team will suffer because of it.

About now, one suspects, you are scanning your WVU basketball roster, looking for Ryan Boyd.

You see Da’Sean Butler and Joe Mazzulla and Alex Ruoff, and, of course, Joe Alexander. But Ryan Boyd? He doesn’t seem to be there.

Yet when it comes to West Virginia basketball, he’s the best thing to come out East Bank High since … well, since Jerry West. In fact, West used to live on the same street his grandmother lives on.

True, he’s never made a shot at WVU. He’s never even taken one. And when I tell you who he is — and if you’ve ever attended a WVU game at the Coliseum you do know him — you will realize how lucky you are that he doesn’t come out on the floor wearing a basketball uniform.

It’s time to let you in on just who this Ryan Boyd is.

First, a clue.

It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A.

It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A.

Now you know. Ryan Boyd is the YMCA guy.

The routine is a WVU classic. During the first called time out of the second half, the jolly — eh, how do you say this and be politically correct? — well-rounded Boyd comes prancing out onto the court in front of the student section and leads them through the Village People’s hit “YMCA,” bringing down the house when goes into his hip-thrusting part of the act.

But for this game, the only thrusting Boyd will be doing is of the slide on his trombone that he plays in the pep band, for he says the NCAA doesn’t play music at the half.

So, as you stand on that corner awaiting a bus, you note that he doesn’t need the NCAA to be playing music.

“You have your own band,” you tell him.

“I know,” he answered, “and we’ve talked about that but we don’t know what kind of trouble we’d get into.”

Trouble. He’d probably find himself on American Idol next year.

Boyd is not the original YMCA guy at West Virginia, although you might not have noticed. When he came to school as a freshman there was fellow in possession of the same physical assets as has Boyd by the name of Patrick David.

They were similar in build, obviously similar in their personas and, strangely, Boyd points out that when David graduated he became an admissions counselor at the university, just as Boyd is now doing.

After David left, Boyd began doing his “YMCA” routine while sitting in the band.

“If you’re gonna do it, go out on the floor,” the members of the band urged him, the athletic department passing on its blessings.

And so it was four or five years ago that Boyd’s star began to rise as he walked out onto the court at halftime as the Village People began to crank it up.

“That first time was nerve-wracking,” he said, sounding like a bride coming back from her honeymoon. “I didn’t know how I’d be accepted.”

He was accepted then as he is now, with a loud roar from the students.

His moves became as appreciated as Alexander’s turnaround jump shot, Mazzulla kamikaze drives through the late and Ruoff’s smooth 3-point shots.

He had arrived, something that he once wondered about.

“A lot of things drive me. When I was in kindergarten I had a teacher who told me because I came from up the creek that I’d never amount to anything but a coal miner. I just decided at that point in time that I could do better,” he said.

It wasn’t easy. He had played in a 30-member band at East Bank in a graduating class of maybe 140. When he came to WVU he found himself knowing just one other person in a band that numbered 350 members in a school of then 25,000 students.

“It was a little bit overwhelming,” he admitted.

He came as a music major but changed to liberal arts, obtained a degree and has become a fixture at the game, loved by the WVU fans, hated by the opponents.

“The comments from WVU people are all positive. ‘We love your enthusiasm. It’s a great part of the game. It brings a great atmosphere to the game.’ From the opposing fans it’s not so nice. I get a lot of weight comments, but I just let those roll of my back. I’ve dealt with those for a long time,” he said.

This week he’ll just blend in with the other pep band members, frustrated at his inactivity, hoping the players can get the fans revved up without his help.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.