MORGANTOWN — Anyone who has ever been inside a football locker room, no matter what level, knows that there is one thing you will always find in there — those inspirational signs that coaches like to hang.

I like to think I’d be a millionaire if I received a dime every time I saw a poster that read “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dog” or “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

You see those signs so often that they seem to lose their true meaning. They become just words on the wall, yet as simple as they are, those phrases carry very true messages about what it takes to win on the athletic field.

Think about them for a minute. It wasn’t Michael Vick that put the sign about dog fighting up, but the message is that if you happen to be not quite as big, not quite as talented — an underdog, so to speak — you can still win if you try your hardest.

And as for winners never quitting and quitters never winning, that’s just another way of putting forth the message in the great George Gipp speech, that Ronald Reagan repeated so well as he played the Gipper on his death bed, talking to his coach, Knute Rockne:

“I’ve got to go, Rock. It’s all right. I’m not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys — tell them to go in there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.”

In other words, when the going gets tough, the tough get going ... and haven’t we seen that somewhere?

Well, we are now in the year 2010 and even the corniest of inspirational speeches remains in vogue, the only thing changing being the delivery system. Indeed, instead of a piece of cardboard and magic marker spelling it out, you now get it from your coach if his name is Bill Stewart in a tweet.

It’s sort of a 21st century way of taking the locker room with you wherever you go. If you are a West Virginia football player, be you at the library or in a downtown club, you’re liable to hear a little beep and get the following message:

CHAMPIONSHIPS are Won by those who Embrace Hard Work and Have the Discipline to Tolerate Discomfort.

Stewart has taken to sending out such tweets on a more or less regular basis, little inspirational reminders that camp is just about three weeks away.

And what kind of message is he trying to get across?

The one above, for example, begins with the word that has become the goal of this year’s team, a Big East championship. But it won’t be handed

to the Mountaineers, they must win it and to do that Stewart reminds them that they must embrace the hard physical training of the summer, coming at moments when you can’t see the starting line, let alone the finish line.

Discomfort? Try running up law school hill or doing some of the torturous work strength coach Mike Joseph has in store for those players or try running 7-on-7 drills in this 90-plus degree summer heat and you understand the message.

The messages keep coming, most of them trying to encourage the team’s leaders to step forward. Stewart has expressed that his biggest worry is whether this team, that will be run by a sophomore quarterback, will have the leadership necessary to win.

Hence, there came this tweet:

LEAD by WHO You Are ... WHAT You Are ... WHERE You Are Going ... and WHAT IT WILL TAKE to Get You There! All GREAT TEAMS have GREAT LEADERS.

No explanation necessary, really. All Stewart is trying to get across is that leaders develop naturally and that you can’t put on false airs and expect to fool those who are as close to you as are teammates.

“Failure to Prepare is Preparing to Fail” ... Who Is going to LEAD?? WV FOOTBALL 2010.

Another Stewart tweet, letting his team know that it can win games played in September and October by the way they work in July and August and that how they approach each game on the practice field is how they will win it.

OUR Certainty Must be Greater than Everyone’s Doubt ... Remember Attitude, like Toughness, is a Choice ... Without LEADERSHIP there is No TEAM.

Yet another tweet, this one preaching that confidence and approach aren’t things that happen, that they come from within and take a conscious effort to develop.

And finally, Stewart has sent out a tweet that is a challenge, a challenge for this team to go where no others have gone, perhaps all the way to a national championship.

Do Not Go where the Path may LEAD, Go Instead where there is No Path and Leave a Trail ... LEADERSHIP ... 2010 WVU Football.

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