The college football world and greater sports world awoke Sunday to the surprising news of the death of Jasper Howard, a starting defensive back on the Connecticut football team.  It has been quite heartening to see everyone rally around the UConn team and offer their support.  We sometimes get too wrapped up in a game and it’s outcome (I know I used to), but events like this remind us of the things that really matter in the big picture.

I’m also heartened to see the overall compassion coming from Mountaineer Nation, set to host the Huskies this Saturday.  We have a fan base whose overall impression is, um, less than stellar nationally, but this week has been filled with stories, posts, and thoughts about honoring Howard and the grief stricken team.  There will be a moment of silence, pregame embraces, and helmet decals aplenty.  I’m reading stories of students selling #6 armbands and sending the proceeds to Howard’s family, the Rubber U vendors donating proceeds, individuals making their own armbands, and I’m sure there’s much I’m missing.

Here’s hoping for a good and safe game Saturday, one to help take the Huskies minds off the tragedy of this weekend and escape to a different world for a few hours.

It’s been darn near impossible to turn on a news show or check web sites without some reminder of all the famous deaths these past few days.  Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays – the wires are dropping BREAKING NEWS like raindrops.  I have to admit that I feel the worst for Mays and his family, both because he made his living busting his ass to sell his products and because we’ve been intrigued by his show “Pitchmen” on Discovery Channel. It was interesting to watch the behind-the-scenes efforts it took to find a product worthy enough to sell.  His was also the most sudden passing – McMahon was much older, Fawcett had been dealing with terminal cancer for years, and Jackson had become a weird medical configuration may years prior.

Elsewhere….

- Just heard Obama praising the House of Representatives for bravely passing the climate bill over “Washington politics.”  Baloney.  It is well publicized that the narrow approval of the bill required a heavy amount of horse trading with Democratic leadership to nervous rank-n-files who represent actual people who will suffer actual harm from all the rhetorical religion.

- Oh yeah….if I could, I would punch out anyone else who uses the argument “reduce our dependency on foreign oil.”  This phrase has long since passed “weapons of mass destruction” as a cultish phrase meant to confuse mindless recitation from true philosophical debate.  I do think that we have a duty not to be wasteful and stupid with our environment, but I’m a global warming skeptic. I don’t think mankind is capable of putting the Earth through the kind of punishment in 150 years that the planet has absorbed in 4 billion years.  Even so, if you disagree with me I ask you to frame your points in your own words rather than spout boilerplate.

- College football kicks off in a couple of months (my own counter was activated today), but for some reason I’m not jacked up like I normally am.  I have neglected my two message board accounts, I rarely read the sports pages web-wide, and I don’t check out my local stories.  I don’t know why this is.  Maybe I feel less excitement over The Painter.  Maybe it’s the amount of personal and professional stress I’m under.  Maybe there’s too many things going on elsewhere.  Whatever it is, I should probably try to shake it.

- Two weekends past, two weekends of seeing old friends and sharing good memories.  It’s been tiring, but a joy to reconnect.  We were a little disappointed that this year’s gatherings didn’t line up, but hopefully we can get them better aligned in the future.

- Baseball season is finally over for Garrett this year, and what a monsoon it was.  Thanks to our highly aquatic weather I have no idea how many games were washouts.

- It’s amazing how far Ethan has progressed in the past year with his issues.  We still have the occasional bad days, but it’s rewarding to see all the positive changes.

This weekend was the first time that either ESPN version of Gameday, football or basketball, had come to Morgantown for a live broadcast.  (Gameday is the Saturday 11am show that “prepares” viewers for the games to be played that day.)  I had been moping around the house several days with a nagging cold, and finally gave up around lunchtime Friday in favor of several resting hours after noon.  I was feeling pretty decent that evening when a buddy called and asked if I wanted to go to the Coliseum Saturday to watch the show.  I agreed, then took more meds to keep the cold down.

And I’m glad I did – I don’t know that I’ve seen many more impressive events in The House Jerry Built than Saturday.  I was there for the first conference game against Georgetown in 1995, the first conference home win over Syracuse later that season, Senior Night for Kevin Pittsnogle & Co., and the UCLA upset, and the emotion from about 4,000 students & fans was on par with any of them.  Heck, there was almost as much pride from the crowd as there was in the Georgia Dome.

We got there around 9am and the students filled the normal season ticket holder sideline seats front to back all the way up the lower section (the upper decks were taped off, as was the back half of the seating basket to basket).  My friend & I decided to head down to the permanent baseline seating over the new ribbon boards,where we got front row seats and a good side view of the set.  We wound up being in the upper left corner of the shot when Rece Davis was standing in front of the “bubble team” whiteboard.  Terry can be seen waving, and my gut appears right in the corner edges.  Obviously they took most every pre-taped shot with the students and most of the freebie handouts went over there, although we did get our paws on some of the State Farm sponsored “Go Mountaineers!” scrolls.  (Did no one research our slogans???)

Watching all the choreography & rehearsals gives a fresh perspective on how these shows run, and the producers have it all down pat.  Around 9:15 or so Rece came out to shake hands, sign autographs, and pose for pictures with the students.  He chatted up most of the front row and appeared to genuinely enjoy himself.  About 9:30 the show ringleader came out to get the students revved up, to pick out the pep band songs, to encourage the students to sing & cheer, and how/when to do it.  Surprisingly, this came from the guy who seems like the biggest ass of the group on camera – Digger Phelps.  He came out dancing to AC/DC with the Dance Team, made the students do the different cheers we know, listened to the pep band play and made suggestions, and generally played to the crowd.  He kept the crowd updated to know when live shots would occur during “Sportscenter”, and even encouraged noise when Jay Bilas was doing a live interview to mess with him.  (Jay would remark on-screen that he couldn’t hear what the studio announcer said because of the crowd). I’ve always pictured Digger as the on-set prick, but he was the most impressive of the group.

Bob Knight came out around 10:30-ish to a standing ovation.  He didn’t really play much to the crowd, but did address the a couple of times.  First, he wanted to let them know that they were making an impressive amount of noise, that they needed to cheer like that during the game, and that they needed to make sure “Huggins doesn’t wear that goddamn suit!”  He would later tell a Digger story (probably told everywhere) that Digger walked into a glass door at dinner and the crew did CPR on him.  Digger then noted that Bobby didn’t let on about throwing a chair at the door, and Bobby says that he threw the chair at the door “so the dumb son of a bitch couldn’t walk into it again.”

Nobody really seemed to care about Hubert Davis, and while he smiled & waved at the applause he didn’t make much of an effort to break the wall.  I was most surprised that Jay Bilas did not do much with the kids.  He came out just before the 10am Sportscenter, didn’t address the crowd or acknowledge them beyond a nod or two, and almost acted like they weren’t there other than to disrupt his earpiece.  I expected more.

As for the production itself, they keep it outwardly simple.  Digger would call for a specific cheer/song right before the live Sportscenter views and everyone got rolling.  After the last look-in, all five castmembers were in place and they ran a couple of rehersals.  Mostly the producers were trying to decide in what order to present the Mountaineer rifle fire, the somersaulting cheerleaders, and the WVU flag carriers.  They ran it a few different times with the cheering & band until they quickly settled on the shots they wanted, which went off without a hitch and looked seamless on my DVR playback.  During the show the crowd did a damn fine job of staying loud as asked, and the cast kept smiling as a new cheer would rise up.  Occasionally, as a segment switch was upcoming a producer would either signal the kids to ramp it up or ask the cheerleaders to.  During commercial breaks, however, you could hear a pin drop.  Most of the crowd had been camping out since Wednesday evening, sleeping on a concrete sidewalk, and catnapping before the cameras rolled.  When the lights did come on, though, they were as loud & boisterous as ever.  They needed those couple of minutes to catch back up.

The loud boos for discussions with Pitt and Michigan were completely spontaneous, but the cast took it in stride knowing what was coming.  Yes, Beilein did leave the program much, much healthier than he found it but that doesn’t mean we have to like Ann Arbor.  Oh, and there might have been something about football in there too.

All in all, it was an amazing experience and I’m glad I was talked into going.  Lots of fans have been wanting to see the football version on campus for some time, and hopefully the crowd support the producers saw this weekend (coupled with an interesting schedule) brings us a little more in-focus and visibility nationally…at least the good kind.  (I’ll resist discussing the regional inferiority complex of the state for now.)

It’s just too bad that the final score did not reflect the mood of the day.

As if we don’t hear enough propaganda every hour of every day, he’s taking over the airwaves on Monday in prime time to take more softball questions from pre-screened reporters about why many of us are so evil that we want the feds to actually CAREFULLY CONSIDER how much of our money they’re about to waste.  Like with most things in this world, though, there both a bad & good side to Monday night:

Bad – he’s pre-empting a new House episode on Fox, esily the best series on TV, for his latest dog & pony show.

Good – pre-empting House eases the pressure on my satellite tuner, allowing me to watch our boys take on the ugly thugs from Pitt in HD while still recording the rest of CBS Monday.

Eight days from now WVU Football 2008 will close the books on a lost season at home against USF.  On that day we not only say good-bye to the prolific Pat White and his Senior class teammates, but to a season filled with inconsistency, incompetency, and a complete lack of growth from August 30th to now.  This team, at least offensively, is no better today than it was when the season opened, and by some measures worse.  The dominating running game crumbled before our eyes during the changeover from Rodriguez to Stewart/Mullen.  Linemen who could open bus sized holes for lightning fast runners suddenly couldn’t block a pile of leaves.  The “tinkering” with the offensive gameplan to include more passing wound up throwing out babies and their bathwater, further confusing the players.  The much hearlded effort to find receivers and fullbacks was as effective as Republican campaigns.

To be fair, hopes of a national title were irrational this year given the talent leaving and the other turmoil.  However, there was enough left behind to win a still paper thin conference.  Organ grinder monkeys could find nine wins and an Orange Bowl berth with this team.  The players played bad at numerous stretches this season, but in the end Bill Stewart is responsible.  He and his staff mismanaged game clocks, game situations, and basic game theory over and over again.   I said in January this was an emotional hire, but that I was going to give him a chance this year before taking a permanent stance.  Well, I’m ready.  I was ready before today, but this is the final straw.  He is not the man to lead this program.  All he had to do was keep his hand on the tiller, to keep what was built.  Instea, he crashed and burned.  OK, maybe not Hindenberg burn, but a nice steady Atlanta.  We need new blood, and we need it now.

It’s too bad that this year was wasted for the defense, because they turned in a downright dominating year.  Unlike the offense they got better each game, showed that they could make adjustments to the game situations, and introduced a number of players to the limelight.

Maybe they’ll get the offensive support they deserve next year.  If we have a new coach and OC, it just might happen.