MORGANTOWN — They had just rushed in off the field on a warm Saturday afternoon, the sweat still rolling off their foreheads and burning their eyes, the sound of 18,000 fans still echoing in their ears.
They reached the locker room in Milan Puskar Stadium and gathered around Coach Bill Stewart for his post-game comments on their performance in the annual Blue-Gold scrimmage.
“OK, men, that was a great first half,” Stewart began.
He looked at their faces, jaws were dropped. Eyes were wide open.
First half? They’d been out there for how long, two hours maybe.
“We got this big crowd today. We’re going go out there and do Oklahoma drills, circle up and do Bull in the Ring. Then we’re gonna put the ball down and really get after it. We’re going to scrimmage.”
He looked out at the faces again. No one had any idea what was going on.
This was halftime?
Stewart then broke into a smile.
“April Fool’s Day,” he said, three weeks late.
They were too shocked to even laugh.
“We believed him at first,” said sophomore running back Noel Devine. “Then we laughed. That was just coach being coach.”
“I tell ‘em, if I don’t say Boy Scout’s or Cub Scout’s honor, don’t trust me,” Stewart said.
It proved to be the perfect end to a perfect day, for Stewart understands that as important as what went on during the Blue-Gold Spring Game was, it was far from the most important thing.
“Our motto is it’s all about chemistry,” Stewart said to the media later.
There has been a culture change in the football office at West Virginia, a serious one. The old coaches are gone, new ones have come in. New players are to be absorbed. New positions learned.
This isn’t about football, it’s about brotherhood.
This is the way Stewart put it, as only he can:
“We have great plays. You’ve seen them for years. We have pretty playbooks. Oh, they’re gorgeous. All decorated, gussy stuff. We have great players, tremendous players. We have great coaches, the best coaching staff. I challenge anyone to find a better one.
“But right now the most important thing in Mountaineer football is chemistry. The bonding, the brotherhood, the association with classy young men doing the right thing every single time.”
The idea now is to get the team buy into the system, to the coaching staff and, most important, into each other.
Last year’s team was close. It had great leadership in senior players like Owen Schmitt, Marc Magro, Ryan Mundy and Eric Wicks. It had dreams of a national championship to push it and a maniacally-driven coach to drive it.
Much is different now. Patrick White is clearly the team leader, a role he cherishes. Other leaders, especially on the defensive side, must be found, for a team without an on-field leader is a team that really can’t succeed.
But a team’s strength is made up from an indefinable something that comes from the interaction between coaches and players, between players themselves. It is a strength of character that will almost always outweigh athletic ability without character.
This must be built in the spring, then in the weight room in the summer and finally in summer camp.
And, as much as a team may believe it has it, it won’t know until it trails Louisville by four 28 points in the fourth quarter or until it is given little chance against Oklahoma in a bowl game.
The worst of times bring out the best of teams.
Jokes like Stewart’s serve to loosen things up in a locker room that is trying to earn an identity. It relaxes players to the point that they can enjoy each other as well as their accomplishments. Make no doubt that those who had problems in the spring game left with a smile on their face rather than spending the next three months worrying about their mistakes.
It is now up to the players to do their part. They must weave a moral fiber among themselves that can withstand the trials and tribulations that lie ahead. They must welcome new starters and learn to trust them. They must welcome new teammates and help them along, integrate them into the group and install in them the same positive attitude and drive to win that has carried past teams.
“I think this team has really come together as a unit. We’re a close-knit group, maybe more than last year,” punter/placekicker Pat McAfee said.
Boy and Cub Scout honor.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
WVU coach, players built bond in spring
- Bob Herzel
-
-
Notre Dame stops WVU, 55-51
If Kevin Jones could have scored 20 points against Notre Dame on Wednesday night before a disappointing crowd of 9,258 in the Coliseum he would have joined Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley in the West Virginia record books.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: It’s unfair to consider Truck villain
The zero next to Truck Bryant’s name stood out like an obscene gesture during a Super Bowl halftime show.
Some even said he was M.I.A. as West Virginia University lost a heartbreaker, if not a season-breaker, to Notre Dame, 55-51. -
Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU
That it is a crucial game in a season that seems to have nothing but, today’s 9 p.m. visit to the Coliseum by a streaking Notre Dame team comes with a historical footnote in the history of West Virginia University basketball.
Kevin Jones enters the game having scored 20 or more points in nine consecutive games. -
WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
A source within the Mountaineer athletic department said on Tuesday that the matter was nearing a conclusion and also told the Times West Virginian that West Virginia would be reinstating a golf team to compete in the Big 12. -
HERTZEL COLUMN: WVU, Irish strikingly similar
Consider, if you will, that it is Nov. 25 past, that the West Virginia University basketball team is running a routine drill four games into its season, getting ready for the Akron game when Kevin Jones goes down in a heap on the floor, his ACL torn, his season over.
-
WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win
Perhaps it is what has kept him going through a West Virginia basketball career with as many turns as a trip to Pineville down in Wyoming County, but Truck Bryant enjoys being Truck Bryant.
-
WVU finds a way, wins in overtime
Truck Bryant made the headline plays, including a 3-point shot with 3.3 seconds left to play, as West Virginia saved its season with an 87-84 overtime victory at Providence, but the subheads had to be reserved for Deniz Kilicli and a pair of freshman guards.
-
Mountaineers face critical test today at Providence
The schedule tells you it’s another game in the marathon run that is the Big East season, a trip to Providence to play a team with only two conference victories, but somehow everyone connected with the West Virginia University program knows today’s noon meeting with the Friars is much more than that.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Jones on the brink of WVU history
On the one hand there is yesterday’s Warren Baker, who entered the WVU Athletic Hall of Fame in the latest class for the work he did from 1973 to 1976, and on the other hand there is today’s star Kevin Jones, who has emerged from the shadows of the likes of Joe Alexander and Da’Sean Butler this year to carve his own niche in Mountaineer basketball history.
- More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
Notre Dame stops WVU, 55-51
