The Enlightened Redneck

Posted on 03.02.13 by Danny Glover @ 12:14 am

And he had a spectacular football career for the West Virginia University Mountaineers.

Here are two videos that capture the essence of Tavon’s senior year in 2012 — the first being the biggest game of his career and one of the best individual performances in college football history, and the second being a recap of great clips from the whole season:

We Mountaineers salute you, Tavon! Thanks for the memories.

Filed under: Sports and Video and West Virginia
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WVU’s Big 12 Bust

Posted on 12.30.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:36 pm

Every diehard West Virginia University fan was excited about our debut season in the Big 12 four months ago, and the Mountaineers justified our enthusiasm early in the season with five straight wins, including back-to-back, high-scoring, come-from-behind thrillers against Baylor at home and Texas in Austin.

But the season fell apart after those first two Big 12 games. The Mountaineers, plagued by a horrendous defense (one of the worst in the nation) and an offense that couldn’t make big plays at key moments, lost five straight Big 12 games. WVU closed the season with two wins over the bottom dwellers of the Big 12, Iowa State and Kansas, lifting the spirits of us fans.

Then came yesterday’s Pinstripe Bowl, where the Mountaineers decided to embarrass themselves one last time against former Big East rival Syracuse. This Yahoo Sports analysis sums up the pitiful performance nicely, albeit painfully:

The Mountaineers defense was awful, as always. It is a poorly coached unit with not a lot of talent, which is a horrible combination. Teams like Baylor and Syracuse worked to get better on defense and put forth a good showing in the bowl game. West Virginia didn’t look like it really cared how bad its defense was, and it didn’t look like it took any steps to fix it in the time before the Pinstripe Bowl. The offense usually keeps the Mountaineers in games, but that wasn’t the case against Syracuse.

[Quarterback Geno] Smith looked like he was bothered by the snowy weather, but that’s nothing that will be excused by NFL teams evaluating him. … He had poor pocket awareness on many plays, never seeming to figure out where the Syracuse rush was coming from. He was sacked in the end zone twice for safeties, which is something that shouldn’t happen to a highly skilled senior quarterback.

Adding insult to injury, the newspaper in Weirton, W.Va., published an embarrassing typo that put the bowl loss in comedic perspective: “WVU loses bowel.” We Mountaineers fans, who endured ridicule even after a record-setting Orange Bowl victory one year ago, had to laugh to keep from crying.

Now we have to eight months to see if Dana Holgorsen, who has taken WVU football fans on a two-year roller coaster ride using players recruited by his predecessor, Bill Stewart, can coach the Mountaineers out of the Big 12 basement. Considering Holgorsen coached a team with great potential at the beginning of the season to WVU’s our worst record since 2001 (3-8), count me among the skeptics.

Filed under: News & Politics and Sports and West Virginia
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Mountaineers Fans Gone Bad

Posted on 10.08.12 by Danny Glover @ 3:27 pm

Burning couches to celebrate a momentous sports victory is funny in theory. That’s why West Virginia University fans are still laughing at the Sprint commercial several years ago that poked fun at the Mountaineers’ couch-burning tradition.

But in reality, couch-burning is no joke. It is riotous behavior that incites troublemakers and burdens the city governments who have to deploy police and safety personnel to control the fans. Morgantown, the home of WVU, is so fed up with the misbehaving students in the city that it may slap a financial penalty on them to help cover the costs of constant post-game parties.

Speaking with a reporter hours after hundreds of revelers set fires and attacked police officers, [Mayor Jim] Manilla said efforts to tone down the post-game party atmosphere have failed. “Whatever good has been done in the past has been all wiped out,” he said. “We’re getting close to an injury or loss of life.”

… Manilla said he has been thinking about bringing the idea of a “student impact fee” to Morgantown City Council. If a $20 fee is assessed for each WVU student each semester, he said enough money would be raised to pay for extra public employees. With an enrollment of nearly 30,000, that would equal about $1.2 million in revenue for the city annually.

The mayor aired the idea after WVU defeated Texas 48-45 and students literally set the streets of the city on fire in celebration. Worse, they threw rocks and bottles at police trying to keep the peace and picked fights with others in the streets. Similar troubles arose after WVU defeated Baylor 70-63.

I witnessed this kind of behavior firsthand as a WVU student and reporter for the local Dominion Post. WVU defeated Penn State 51-30 that year in a rare victory over Joe Paterno’s team. The victory was so sweet that students charged the field with 49 seconds left, and those last seconds of play had to be cancelled — an embarrassing display of unsportsmanlike conduct that was follow by more unruly behavior in the streets that night.

At that same time, WVU students were complaining of unfair, albeit unrelated, treatment at the hands of city officials. The confluence of events inspired me to write an op-ed that still seems relevant 14 years later as unruly Mountaineers are causing trouble in Morgantown. Here is what I wrote:
(more…)

Filed under: Government and News & Politics and People and Sports and West Virginia
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Why We Home-School, Lesson #43

Posted on 05.29.12 by Danny Glover @ 8:23 pm

We have seen the value of homeschooling in the successes of parents and children from our own community, including 6-year-old Lori Anne Madison, who this week will become the youngest person ever to compete in the National Spelling Bee:

Sorina Vlaicu Madison, Lori Anne’s mother and primary teacher, said she and her daughter have no problem eschewing books and academic pursuits if the outside world is more inviting or their minds are tired. That means swim lessons, play dates, time for games like Angry Birds on the Kindle, and visits to an indoor play center called Kids ‘N Motion.

Madison, who teaches health policy at a local university, laughs at the assumption that she has driven her daughter to spelling heights, perhaps by sheer will or intolerance for failure. “You can’t drill a 6-year-old,” Madison said. “You can’t really force them to do anything.”

Lori Anne earned her spot in the national competition by winning the Prince William County, Va., spelling bee. Most of her rivals this week will be at least twice her age.

Lori Anne’s educational success is not unusual in the homeschooling world. Her peer group regularly excels in competition. Here’s just a short list:

Evan O’Dorney, who earned $100,000 by winning the Intel Science Talent Search at age 17 — this after winning the National Spelling Bee at age 14.
A team of seven students who won the world championship of robotics, a field where homeschoolers often excel.
Calvin McCarter, who won the National Geographic Bee at age 10. A few years later, homeschooler Nathan Cornelius won the bee at age 13.
Emily Vanasdale, a winner of the National Center for Women and Information Technology Award.
Amy Anderson, who won the U.S. Girls’ Junior Golf Championship and who surprised the professional golf world by finishing with the lowest score in the first round of the 2011 U.S. Open.
NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, the first home-schooled student to win the coveted Heisman Trophy while at the University of Florida

You can read plenty of other success stories at the website of the Home School Legal Defense Association, or just Google the phrase “homeschooler wins” and watch them fill your screen. Students who get their education at home are especially good at winning spelling bees.

(Read previous “Why We Home-School” lessons.)

Filed under: Grammar and Home Schooling and Human Interest and News & Politics and Sports and Technology and Why We Home-School
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Bill Stewart, True Blue And Gold

Posted on 05.21.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:08 pm

Some days I’m more proud than others to be a West Virginia boy and a West Virginia University alum. Today, as mournful Mountaineers remember former WVU football coach Bill Stewart, is one of those days.

Stewart died on a West Virginia golf course this afternoon while playing in a charity tournament with Ed Pastilong, the former WVU athletic director who took a chance and hired Stewart as head coach in 2008. At age 59, he was much too young.

Mountaineers have spent the past several hours filling their corner of the Internet with tributes to Stewart. The most popular is Stewart’s “Leave No Doubt” speech, which inspired a Mountaineers team rocked by the cowardly betrayal of Rich (Gotta Get Richer) Rodriguez to an upset victory in the 2008 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl:

This photo also has been saturating my Facebook feed:

But this clip really captures the blue-and-gold enthusiasm that all Mountaineers loved about Bill Stewart, even those fans who didn’t think he was a great coach:

Two quotes from the Associated Press story linked above add context to that clip:

WVU athletic director Oliver Luck: “Coach Stewart was a rock-solid West Virginian and a true Mountaineer. His enthusiasm and passion for his state’s flagship university was infectious.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.: “Bill was a proud West Virginian in every sense of the word, and he was the best cheerleader this state ever had.”

Everybody could see it, including non-West Virginian sports writers like ESPN’s Brian Bennett, who today explained why Stewart’s legacy at WVU is more than wins and losses:

Nobody loved West Virginia more than the New Martinsville native who spoke reverentially about “the old Gold and Blue” every chance he got. You could have never pictured Stewart leaving the Mountaineers for a supposedly bigger job the way Rich Rodriguez did before the 2008 Fiesta Bowl. …

He was a people person, through and through. On one of my first spring visits, we sat in his office talking for more than 90 minutes even though he had to attend a high school coaches’ clinic that was underway. He asked me more questions than the other way around. On another visit, I was scheduled to drive back to Pittsburgh at the end of the day. Stewart worried that I would be driving into storms and kept checking the weather reports throughout the day. He asked me to let him know that I got back safely that night. How many BCS conference coaches would do that?

But that’s how Stewart was, a genuinely nice and thoughtful person. His players — some of whom, like Noel Devine, had wildly different backgrounds — clearly loved him as a father figure. Players, media members and others who knew him got used to receiving daily inspirational text messages from Stewart while he was coaching.

As Bennett said at the end of his touching essay, “There was no head coach like Bill Stewart, and there weren’t many people quite like him, either.”

Filed under: Adoption and Business and Culture and Human Interest and Media and News & Politics and People and Sports and Video and West Virginia
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Storytelling The Ken Burns Way

Posted on 05.17.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:02 pm

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns knows how to tell stories. He has told them brilliantly about defining political and cultural moments in American history — the Civil War, the sport of baseball, jazz music, World War II, national parks and Prohibition.

Today in a short Washington Post film, Burns shared his thoughts about what makes a great story. Here are the highlights, with the film embedded below:

“The common story is 1+1=2. … The real genuine stories are about 1 and 1 equaling three. … The things that matter most to us — some people call it love, some people call it God, some people call it reason — is that other thing where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
“The stories that I like to tell are always interesting because the good guys have really serious flaws and the villains are very compelling. My interest is always in complicating things.”
“All story is manipulation. … Is there acceptable manipulation you bet. People say, ‘Oh boy, I was so moved to tears in your film.’ That’s a good thing? I manipulated that. That’s part of storytelling. I didn’t do it disingenuously. I did it sincerely. I am moved by that, too. That’s manipulation.”
“We tell stories to continue ourselves. We all think an exception is going to be made in our case, and we’re going to live forever. And being a human is actually arriving at the understanding that that’s not going to be. Story is there to just remind us that it’s just OK.”

Filed under: Entertainment and History and People and Sports and Video
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How The Legendary ‘Flying WV’ Was Born

Posted on 05.15.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:58 pm

I was born more than a decade before West Virginia University football players started sporting the current logo on their helmets, but I don’t remember seeing what came before the “Flying WV” we Mountaineers cherish today. Now I know the story behind that storied logo, which has made WVU “one of the top royalty-producing colleges in the country.”

Jake Stump of the WVU Alumni Magazine unearthed the details in what he called “hardnosed, investigative (ahem) journalism.” It all started in 1979 with the arrival of new football coach Don Nehlen to the campus. The old football uniform, helmet and logo, with “WVU” overlaying an outlined map of West Virginia, had no pizzazz, so Nehlen commissioned one to make a statement.

The details of the logo’s past remain murky even after Stump’s research because Nehlen and the other people behind the vision and the design don’t remember events exactly the same. But the story is fascinating anyway (at least for Mountaineers fans like me). Here’s the heart of it:

What we now know and love as the “Flying WV” was born on a sheet of wax paper. John Boyd Martin’s main inspiration? Mountains. Yes. West Virginia has mountains. WVU’s mascot is a mountaineer. Such an obvious fit.

“The first thing I did was play around with the initials,” Martin said. “When you put a W and a V together, you had mountains. They may call it the ‘Flying WV,’ but to me, it depicts mountains.”
(more…)

Filed under: 1980s and Advertising and Business and Culture and Human Interest and People and Sports and West Virginia
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Best Basketball Buzzer-Beater Of All Time

Posted on 03.13.12 by Danny Glover @ 1:05 pm

A couple of years ago, I posted video of “the worst football play in history.” The video, which perfectly illustrated the agony of defeat, went viral on YouTube thanks to a link from Yahoo Sports about a year after I posted the clip. A 31-second clip from a newscast earned me more than 1.2 million views.

Today, just in time for March Madness in college basketball, I have a video that showcases the other side of the sporting equation — the thrill of victory. It’s a clip of a high-school athlete who earned his team the state championship with a remarkable tip-in at the buzzer:

If that doesn’t get you in the mood for a three-week run of hoops mania, nothing will!

Filed under: Sports and Video
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The Politics Of WVU Football

Posted on 02.08.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:50 pm

Despite being a freshman senator from a small state, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin keeps landing on the front page of Politico, one of the premier publications in Washington. But he’s getting all the attention for picking a college football fight, not for doing anything monumental for America.

Here’s a snapshot of Manchin’s first appearance on Politico’s cover last October, in caricature, after he accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of playing political games to try to deny West Virginia University an invitation to the Big 12 football conference:

The Big 12 ultimately picked WVU over McConnell’s alma mater, the University of Louisville. But today, Manchin and McConnell were back on Politico’s front page because McConnell reportedly is bitter about last year’s spat — so bitter that he talked Manchin’s 2010 campaign rival, Republican John Raese, into challenging Manchin for re-election this fall:

In a private confrontation on the Senate floor late last year, things got heated quickly, according to people familiar with the episode.

McConnell read aloud to Manchin a quote from a university official who said “no improper political influence” had been exerted as each senator was lobbying to get his team the plush conference spot. And McConnell demanded a public apology from Manchin for suggesting that the GOP leader may have acted in an “inappropriate or unethical” manner that could warrant a Senate investigation into his Louisville lobbying efforts.

Manchin refused to back down and said he would always stand up for West Virginia’s rights — not to mention the Mountaineer’ football team. The two senators have barely spoken since.

I like Manchin’s spunk and his loyalty to the alma mater we share. I also realize that McConnell may well have done what Manchin accused him of doing and is simply unwilling to admit it. But without any evidence to support the accusation, save the word of fellow West Virginians who had an agenda, Manchin shouldn’t have leveled the charge, repeatedly.

He should be the bigger man now and do what he can to build a relationship with McConnell, up to and including an apology for his previous comments. Then the two senators should get back to work representing their states on more important matters.

Filed under: News & Politics and People and Sports and West Virginia
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Jay Leno Was Wrong About W.Va. — Again

Posted on 01.16.12 by Danny Glover @ 2:19 pm

I’ve had my work published in some of America’s top publications, including The New York Times, but there’s something special about seeing my byline for the first time in the local newspaper I delivered as a child — and in defense of my fellow West Virginians and Mountaineers.

After writing a blog post about Jay Leno’s West Virginia jokes, I asked the executive editor of The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register if he would be interested in publishing a column on the issue. He agreed. It ran in print yesterday and went online today.

Here are excerpts from the column (with one background link added by me):

For one magnificent moment after the Orange Bowl on Jan. 4, West Virginia University and the entire state of West Virginia were the talk of America. Sports fans were in awe of the Mountaineers, who set record after record in one of the greatest football games in college history.

We West Virginians should have known the hillbilly bashers wouldn’t let us bask in the glory for long, and sure enough, the predictable slam came less than 24 hours after the final whistle.

“And West Virginia beat Clemson in the Orange Bowl last night by a score of 70-33,” Jay Leno said in his “Tonight Show” monologue the day after the game. “West Virginia scored 70 points? Huh, West Virginia? They don’t score that high on their SATs.”

Leno apparently holds to the comedic philosophy that when all else fails — and the “Tonight Show” has been one big fail after another for the past two years — just tell a West Virginia joke. …

Leno hasn’t yet sunk as low as Vice President Dick Cheney, who scored a cheap laugh in 2008 by characterizing West Virginia as a state full of inbreeding rednecks. But he’s sliding toward that gutter. His latest jab alienated the West Virginians who still watch Leno and further infuriated those who long ago tuned out the “Tonight Show.” …

But that’s OK. We West Virginians don’t need the affirmation of entertainers or politicians or anyone else who finds joy in insulting us. Most Americans voted against West Virginia before the Orange Bowl, and as our Mountaineers boasted at the end of the game, most Americans were wrong.

They always are when it comes to Almost Heaven.

Read the whole column at the newspaper’s website.

Filed under: Hatin' On Rednecks and Media and People and Rednecks and Sports and West Virginia
Comments: 4 Comments

How To Make A Slingshot Crossbow

Posted on 01.12.12 by Danny Glover @ 12:43 pm

Remarkable redneck ingenuity is on display in this video, which demonstrates how you can turn your Christmas tree into a deadly slingshot crossbow:

Filed under: Holidays and Human Interest and Hunting & Guns and Rednecks and Sports and Video
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Obie’s Revenge

Posted on 01.12.12 by Danny Glover @ 12:51 am

The Orange Bowl is juicing the controversy over last week’s sacking of mascot “Obie” for all the cheesy, pun-filled comedy its worth.

During the game, West Virginia safety Darwin Cook tackled Obie after a fumble recovery and 99-yard touchdown return. Obie made as many highlight reels as Cook, especially after Cook admitted that he knocked the mascot down on purpose to send a message.

“When I saw him, I felt like he was doubting us, too, so I smashed him,” Cook told the Dominion Post in Morgantown, W.Va. “Oh yeah, that was on purpose because he was doubting us. I had to tackle Obie.” Only later, in an on-field interview, did Cook learn that Obie was a girl.

Today the Orange Bowl published tweets that featured a photo and video of Obie supposedly being released from the hospital after a week of recovery. Obie is none too happy with Cook and apparently plotting revenge.

“We have one angry orange. This could become a very juicy situation,” a reporter said in a mock Orange Bowl report.

Filed under: Just For Laughs and People and Sports and Video and West Virginia
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Jeff Casteel To Leave WVU For Arizona

Posted on 01.10.12 by Danny Glover @ 10:35 pm

The announcement won’t be official until tomorrow, but thanks to some sharp online investigation, West Virginia Illustrated broke the news tonight that Jeff Casteel is leaving his job as defensive coordinator at West Virginia University to take the same job at the University of Arizona.

The publication confirmed the news by poking around the website of Arizona’s sports information department, finding internal pages with biographies not only of Casteel but also of three WVU assistant defensive coaches. “Perhaps the best part of each page is that the first sentence for Casteel states that he was hired on Jan. 11,” which is the day Arizona will announce its final defensive hiring decisions. Here’s a screen shot of Casteel’s bio page:

Casteel, who played football for the Wildcats in our hometown of Paden City, W.Va., will be a Wildcat once again in Arizona, where former WVU coach Rich Rodriguez was recently named head coach. Just days ago, after WVU’s record-setting Orange Bowl victory over Clemson, Casteel gave a noncommittal answer to a direct question about his future: “I hope I’m going to be back” at WVU in 2012.

That was an unlikely outcome when he gave the answer and now looks as deceptive as it seemed at the time. I can understand him not wanting to talk to the press about job prospects, but there’s an honest, oft-used dodge to such questions: “No comment.” I wish he had taken that approach.

I respect Casteel because he stuck with WVU after Rich (Gotta Get Richer) Rodriguez abandoned the Mountaineers in such underhanded fashion four years ago, and I want to wish our hometown boy well in his new job at Arizona. He certainly managed his departure far better than Rodriguez.

But at the end of the day, Casteel has chosen to reunite with a man who has no class. I “hope” the Arizona Wildcats continue their losing ways in the Rodriguez-Casteel era.

UPDATE, Jan. 11: It’s official – Rodriguez just stole Casteel and two more coaches away from WVU because all of those he took with him to Michigan for three losing years weren’t enough. The other coaches are David Lockwood (defensive backs coach) and Bill Kirelawich (defensive line coach). Now it’s time for WVU to build a new and better defensive coaching staff.

Filed under: News & Politics and Sports and West Virginia
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Jay Leno’s West Virginia Jokes

Posted on 01.06.12 by Danny Glover @ 9:17 pm

I remember going to a Jay Leno performance in Morgantown, W.Va., back in 1990. I enjoyed the show immensely, and so did thousands of other fans. Somehow I doubt Leno would be welcomed back with open arms to the home of West Virginia University now after his joke last night at the expense of WVU and West Virginians.

About six minutes into his monologue, Leno took this potshot at me and my peeps:

And West Virginia beat Clemson in the Orange Bowl last night by a score of 70-33. West Virginia scored 70 points? Huh, West Virginia? They don’t score that high on their SATs. That’s unbelievable. That’s amazing; that’s amazing.

The ignorant and stereotypical wisecrack drove many West Virginians to Leno’s Facebook page and to Twitter, where they have been voicing complaints about his attack on the people of the great Mountain State. Here’s a sampling of the responses: (more…)

Filed under: Entertainment and Hatin' On Rednecks and Just For Laughs and Sports and Video and West Virginia
Comments: 9 Comments

The Sacking Of Obie The Orange

Posted on 01.05.12 by Danny Glover @ 8:22 pm

One of the most memorable plays from last night’s Orange Bowl — the 99-yard touchdown by West Virginia University safety Darwin Cook after a fumble recovery — ended with one of the most humorous moments in college football history: Cook sacked “Obie,” the Orange Bowl’s mascot.

“I didn’t know you were a girl,” Cook told the mascot when he hugged her on the field after the game. “I apologize.”

Filed under: Just For Laughs and People and Sports and Video and West Virginia
Comments: 1 Comment

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