By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN —
There is a website out there in cyberspace entitled “Crazy Fans of College Football” and when it comes up the No. 1 photo is of a West Virginia fan at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl three years between the Mountaineers and Oklahoma.
It is a super close-up of his face, which is painted blue with no fewer than 16 gold flying WVs across his cheeks, nose, chin and forehead.
It is as good a visual of what is truly a fan as you can find.
The word fan, of course, is a bastardization of the word “fanatic”, which brings us to one Michael Witt.
Now we will not make any claims that Michael Witt is the No. 1 Mountaineer fan around, nor that in speaking with him you are overcome with his outward passion for the school that is located in the city in which he lives.
However, if you have seem him zipping around town, you have no doubt where is loyalties lie for Witt drives one of the wackiest, zaniest vehicles you will ever come across.
There are, of course, in Morgantown any number of vehicles with Mountaineer decorations on them, but they mostly are the kind of cars you see every day on the highway, simply wearing a different brand of lipstick, so to speak.
But Witt drives what you can call, for better or for worse, “The Stewmobile.”
“They call it a Wild Fire,” he says, beginning to explain just what this rather bizarre looking automobile is. “It’s a 650 motorcycle. It’s what they use in China for a taxi cab.”
The vehicle is, indeed, an automobile body built over a three-wheel motorcycle, that gets Witt 72 to 75 miles a gallon and that can go up to 80 miles an hour. It is bright red in color and has WVU markings on it, including the Flying WV and the phrase “Stew ’em up, Bill” on the side.
Let us first get into how Mike Witt landed this piece of Mountaineerbelia.
One day he was buzzing by Steve’s Auto Sales up on The Mileground in Morgantown, owned by Steve Bellman.
“There it was, just sitting there,” he said.
Bellman had five of them and says he can special order more.
He decorated this one with Bill Stewart, the Mountaineer football coach, in mind.
“I’d drive it to the football games and park it there for the advertising. I didn’t want to sell it, but I had a knee replacement and I can’t drive a standard shift any more,” Bellman said.
Witt knew right away he had to have it, so he worked out a deal to purchase it.
First of all, it’s a good, economical means of transportation from his home up on Grafton Road to Blacksville No. 2, where he is employed as a coal miner.
That appealed to the practical side of Witt.
But it’s more.
“It’s the only car in town like it. It’s fun,” he said. “Everyone at work loves it. I get crazy mileage, it’s fun and easy to maintain. I’ll be taking it to the games this year.”
Obviously, he has been a Mountaineer fan but now the fire that burned inside him flickers even stronger, especially since the day that Coach Bill Stewart walked into Cheddar’s.
“A friend of mine, she works at Cheddar’s as a waitress, and I guess he came in one day for lunch and she showed a picture of it on her phone,” Witt said.
Stewart’s reaction?
“That’s something else,” Stewart said, laughing at the sight.
And so it is that West Virginia has yet another legend to go with Big Cat and the Mountaineer Maniacs and the zanies who, on occasion get out of hand and give the school, the city and the state a bad name with their behavior.
It is proof that being a Mountaineer fan can be fun and harmless, that it can be a participant sport without a need to call the gendarmes for protection.
And more than that, it can get you from Point A to Point B without using up very much gasoline.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
