The Daily Athenaeum Interactive

Lost program searching for identity

Matt Gatewood
Associate Sports Editor

When I first stepped foot on this campus as a student in August of my freshman year, the athletic program was at its highest point in a decade. The basketball team was coming off an exhilarating season which resulted in a Sweet 16 appearance and the football team, preparing to host No. 1 Ohio State, was ranked as high as No. 6 in some of the preseason magazines.
It was a great time to be a Mountaineer.

The football team lost three regular season games and may have underachieved, but still finished strong and made a decent bowl game. The basketball team struggled mightily, but no one expected much success after losing all five starters from the previous year.
In my sophomore year, the football team nearly won at Miami and had No. 2 Virginia Tech on the ropes, yet still finished 4-7. The nomadic basketball team was also competitive, but again failed to make the postseason. Junior year was considerably better with the Music City Bowl victory and a NIT berth, but then there was this year.
It started with the worst football season since the pre-Nehlen era. Although still unsure as to why the game was supposed to change after a bowl victory, it did. Most would probably agree that the change was not for the better. The team was everything except competitive and lost to perennial Big East doormat Temple.
Still, fans have reason to believe that last year was only an aberration because of the new offensive and defensive systems and that greener pastures lie ahead.
As the anticlimactic football season concluded, fans’ attention shifted to the incoming basketball recruiting class. A 7-2 start had all fans expecting greatness. To say that the wheels then fell off would be an understatement of epic proportions. The wheels not only fell off, but the bus hurdled the guardrail and nose-dived off the cliff into a massive canyon. Unfortunately for everyone associated with the athletic program, it finally hit the canyon floor last Friday. Dan Dakich, the man who was to turn around a reeling team, decided instead to renege on his commitment and return to Bowling Green.
Are Ed Pastilong and David Hardesty to be blamed? No, for they put together a financial package good enough to get Bob Huggins from Cincinnati. Based upon some recent statements from Huggins, it is obvious that West Virginia made every possible effort to accommodate him. Pastilong and Hardesty then probably hired the best available coach in Dakich.
The problem reaches far beyond two individuals, to almost everyone associated with the athletic program. It starts with the average fan, who now thinks losing is acceptable if there is a valid excuse. For example, it is OK to lose if the team is playing on the road, or against a top 20 team. Every time a loss occurs, regardless of the sport, fans are quick to issue an excuse.
In the last four years, the athletic program has suffered from a progressive decay that climaxed Friday. It is the climax because no one has an excuse for this loss. No one can explain why a coach looking for a jump-start to his career chose to return to a no-name MAC school rather than take over a team just four years removed from the Sweet 16. Suddenly, everyone realizes that the excuses of the past have piled up and the program is in dire straits.
In only four years, the term Mountaineer has gone from a symbol of exuberant pride to the brunt of nationwide jokes, most recently on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption. What once was a proud program is now a program searching for an identity … searching for someone to step up like Don Nehlen did in 1980 and return the program its tradition of winning.

Matt Gatewood can be reached at:
Matthew.Gatewood@mail.wvu.edu

Pass us your thoughts. E-Mail DASports@mail.wvu.edu

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