INDIANAPOLIS — It is different in West Virginia, different in a way that we will never know. We are a city of divided loyalties in New York, a region of fractured alliances. We have nine pro teams to divide, and among our ranks are plenty of Cowboys fans and Dolphins fans and transplanted fans.
In West Virginia, there is no confusion. It is all about the Mountaineers. It is all about this team. West Virginia is an enigma to many people. Maybe you know it as the key state that launched the Kennedy campaign in 1960. Maybe you know about Jerry West, Zeke from Cabin Creek, who led WVU to within a point of the NCAA title a year earlier. Rod Thorn, the Nets’ general manager from Princeton, W.Va., once described West Virginia as simply and as lovingly as someone possibly could describe their home state.
“West Virginia,” he said, “is a great place to be from because once you’ve had some success, the entire state adopts you.”
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They have adopted this basketball team, which roared through the Big East Tournament, fell just shy of earning a No. 1 seed, then made that snub a moot point by cruising through Buffalo and Syracuse, by toppling the presumptive tournament favorite, Kentucky, and reaching the Final Four for the first time in 51 years.
After capturing the Big East, the Mountaineers returned at 2:45 a.m. and were mobbed at the airport by thousand of fans, then thousands more back at WVU Coliseum. As this Mountaineers momentum has picked up speed, these players have turned into a wild combination of Elvis in 1956, John Lennon in 1964 and David Cassidy in 1971.
It’s just different there. Duke, as rabid as its followers are, doesn’t even own its own state; North Carolina does. Michigan State provided a splendid diversion for Detroit at last year’s Final Four, but they always have to fight being Michigan’s little brothers, and also have the Red Wings, Pistons, Lions and Tigers to contend with. And though Butler will have much of the in-person love this week . . . get real. This is the same city Peyton Manning calls home.
“You have to kind of spend a little bit of time in our state to realize,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, a Morgantown native. “But athletics are everything in the state. We don’t have professional franchises. There’s not really anybody else there to root for. I think it’s inherent. I think there’s such a strong bond between the university and the people of West Virginia, and it goes back generations. I can remember sitting on my grandfather’s lap listening to West Virginia football and basketball games. I think a large part, if not all of the state of West Virginia, grew up like that.”
Joe Starkey, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, told of a wonderful story this week that summarizes this fealty perfectly. John Fleming was the owner of a popular Morgantown store called The Book Exchange and the younger brother of Jack Fleming, who broadcast West Virginia games for years. Fleming died last week.
At the funeral on Tuesday, the Rev. Dr. Ken Ramsey presented his eulogy. At the end, he veered off course ever so slightly.
“I know it’s a funeral,” Ramsey said. “But . . .”
Maybe, in another place, in another state, what followed would have been considered inappropriate. But at Hastings Funeral Home on Tuesday, when Ramsey said, “Let’s go . . .,” the people in attendance, all of them schooled in all things West Virginia, knew exactly what to respond.
“Mountaineers!”
And that chant is never contained to just one, so the celebrant and the congregation went back and forth a couple of times. As Morgantown mayor Bill Byrne related to Starkey, “That is a measure of what this means to people.”
In New York, we can try to temporarily adopt the Mountaineers for our own because they’re from the Big East and there’s three kids on the roster from New York and two from Jersey and one from Mount Vernon. But make no mistake: This team belongs to West Virginia. And they aren’t much inclined to share, truth be told.