“'New' Mountaineer Field Helped Shape Today's West Virginia Football

“’New’ Mountaineer Field helped shape today’s West Virginia football program” By Doug Walp It’s May, 1979. The age of free love is all but over. Tension still lingers as many continue to struggle to put the horrors of Vietnam behind them. Michael Jackson has just released the notorious “Off the Wall” album that will shape his career. McDonald’s has just served the first Happy Meal. But in Morgantown, W. Va., a great deal of attention is centered around a small and fairly insignificant plot of land fixed between the law and medical schools of the flagship learning institute of the state, West Virginia University. The stretch of property, which currently serves Morgantown residents as a community golf course, is about to be forever transformed into not only one of the most iconic landmarks of the city, but the entire state of West Virginia. On a foggy, drizzly day in Morgantown, Jay Rockefeller, serving in his first term as governor of the state, treads across the soggy lawn of the Morgantown Country Club. The dreary Morgantown Thursday is symbolic of the previous four football seasons for West Virginia’s football team – depressing. And while a great deal of attention is fixated on the groundbreaking, it’s not necessarily positive attention, as many members of the West Virginia faithful are dismayed to see the football field moved away from historic the downtown location, which had served as the Mountaineer football program’s sanctuary since 1924, to the new location. But somehow, the 42-year old governor is able to at least temporarily put that out of his mind as he peers through his thick-lensed, black-framed glasses for the cameras. Rockefeller thrusts his shovel into saturated, spongy earth, lifts up and manages a smile for the photo opportunity. As Rockefeller pierced the earth that fateful day, he also sparked a radical transformation for West Virginia football. The beloved program had seen marginal success over the years, but its supporters and its Athletic Director Dick Martin demanded more. “We have a ways to go,” Martin admitted. “There’s no question the program now is not where we want it to be.” The new stadium, the largest on-campus football field in the Big East, would help them get there. Construction hardly ever stopped between Rockefeller’s shovel hitting the dirt in May of ’79 and the Mountaineer’s home opener in September of 1980. In fact, then Mountaineers quarterback Oliver Luck later recalled as many as 115 people working feverishly throughout the stadium on Sept. 5, during their final walkthrough before the home opener. Rockefeller returned to the plot of land he had initially broken ground on, on Sept. 6, 1980; but it was much different than he had left it on that soggy Thursday morning more than a year ago. Instead of being surrounded by a handful of West Virginia University officials and a few reporters, his audience was a capacity crowd of 50,150 on a hot, gorgeous Morgantown afternoon. The governor addressed the crowd first, and was followed by the late Sen. Robert Byrd – but the crowd’s enthusiasm ascended to another level altogether when the darling of West Virginia John Denver arrived dramatically by helicopter, singing “Country Roads” in unison with over 50,000 other West Virginians. The quarterback Luck, who now serves West Virginia University as its Athletic Director, recently recalled how important that day was for the evolution of the West Virginia football program. “I remember that very well,” Luck said. “Everything was new: The stadium, the coach, our uniforms, the system and the yet-to-be-finished facilities building. Even the ‘WV’ logo was new.” “We bussed out there from old Mountaineer Field, where we had spent the whole preseason.” Luck and first-year Head Coach Don Nehlen, recently hired from Michigan, led the Mountaineers to a memorable debut victory over Cincinnati in the first game played at the new field, 41-27. Mountaineer Field in Morgantown watched as West Virginia took its first steps to revolutionizing college football within the state after that unforgettable first home victory. “It was a big day for my team, because there were 50,000 people there. That in itself was something,” said Nehlen. “Our kids were used to only 19,000, or 20,000 at their games, and all of a sudden there were 50,000. Wow!” West Virginia went on to their first non-losing season in five years in 1980, and finished 9-3 in each of the three seasons following that. Then, in 1984, Mountaineer Field again witnessed yet another drastic transformation within the West Virginia football program. On a late October weekend in Morgantown, Mountaineer Field was absolutely enveloped with enthusiasm during one of very first night games at the new field on homecoming weekend in Morgantown. New lights glared down on the 60,285 fans who were packed into the recently expanded stadium, as thundering cries of “Let’s Go” were answered by the equally boisterous “Mountaineers” chant from the opposite end of the stadium. The small college town, whose population was not even half of what fills the stadium that evening, had the college football nation’s undivided attention as the up-and-coming Mountaineers hosted the heavily favored No.4-ranked Eagles and their golden-boy, Heisman-candidate, Doug Flutie. The notorious quarterback was in the midst of his best year of football in 1984. In fact, by the end of the year, Flutie would have received the highly coveted Heisman Trophy, as well as the Maxwell Award, and the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award. “Doug Flutie is as good as anybody I’ve ever seen,” said Keith Jackson, one half of ABC’s top announcing crew leading up to the kickoff. Once the game started, Flutie consistently eluded pressure from the Mountaineers in the first half, methodically grinding down the defense and the previously crazed Mountaineer Field home crowd. And in the closing minutes of the first half, Flutie broke containment once again and found receiver Kelvin Martin in the end zone for a 42-yd touchdown. The life was sucked out of Mountaineer Field as Boston College’s extra point made it a 14-point lead as the Boston College players started to taunt the rattled West Virginia fans heading into the locker room. The life would prove to be only temporarily extinguished at Mountaineer Field; however, as an incensed West Virginia defense took the field and control in the second half, reinvigorating the Mountaineer faithful. Then, finally, linebacker Matt Smith flew through the line of scrimmage like a man possessed, wrapped up Flutie for the first time of the day and sacked him much to the jubilation of over 60,000 at Mountaineer Field. “They got Flutie! They got him that time! All afternoon they’ve been chasing him, all afternoon they’ve pursued him,” yelled Jack Fleming on perhaps his most famous call in over 50 years as the Voice of the Mountaineers. “And they got him! At the twenty-six and a half yard line – The first sack of the ballgame!” West Virginia continued to throw blitz after blitz at Flutie, bringing as many as nine guys at a time, and Boston College failed to score at all in the second half. “They came with nine men at times – something no other team ever did,” said Flutie, “We couldn’t get anything going on offense.” Late in the fourth quarter, notorious West Virginia tailback John Gay received a handoff from Kevin White, ran over a defender, through the end zone into the arms of hundreds of Mountaineer fans already packed onto the field, putting the Mountaineers ahead 21-20. The already frenzied crowd erupted into an absolute state of pandemonium. The noise was deafening and the walls of Mountaineer Field shook as West Virginia took the lead for the first time, eventually holding on to win by the same score. When the final whistle blew, tens of thousands of people jumped over the fence and sprinted out onto the field, tearing down goalposts, hugging players, crying and singing “Country Roads”. It was utter bedlam in Morgantown after one of the biggest and most memorable victories in West Virginia history. Today, nearly 30 years later after “We got Flutie,” things continue to change for the Mountaineer football program, but always for the better. After substantial donations by the late Milan Puskar to WVU for both athletics and academics, the university altered the name of the field to acknowledge his unmatched generosity to Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium. Before the 2004 season, 18 stadium suites were added to the North end zone; the same end zone that the mass of students mobbed John Gay in when he ran in for the go-ahead touchdown against Flutie’s Eagles. In 2008, a partnership between the WVU Foundation and Panasonic, together with donations from Ben and Jo Statler and another anonymous donor, resulted in a state-of-the-art, $5 million video and score board. And in 2012, Mountaineer Field will likely bear the symbol for the Big 12 conference symbolizing its continued evolution of the West Virginia University football program. One thing that hasn’t changed since even the earliest days of Mountaineer football is the West Virginia fans’ pride and fervor. The pride and intensity of West Virginia’s fans that lived at the “old” downtown Mountaineer Field came over on the bus with Nehlen and Luck to New Mountaineer Field when it was opened in 1980, and still lives on there today.

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