SAD NEWS: West Virginia announced that CJ Donaldson Jr. is Leaving immediately after Facing…..

SAD NEWS: West Virginia announced that CJ Donaldson Jr. is Leaving immediately after Facing…..

The reference to “Crimson and Black” in the song lyrics represented West Virginia’s primary football rival of the time, Washington & Jefferson, not the Pitt Panthers of today.

The singing of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” has become a well-known tradition after home football victories, and, of course, it involves the players and fans. It was first introduced by coach Rich Rodriguez during the 2002 season opener against Tennessee-Chattanooga.

But a much lesser-known tradition after all football victories is the players and coaches singing the school fight song in the locker room. It was a tradition coach Don Nehlen began here in 1980, and it was a product of the places he had played and coached during his Hall of Fame career.

At the time, Nehlen was looking for ways to boost team morale and establish a source of pride within his football program. West Virginia had endured consecutive losing seasons in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979, and the Mountaineers were just not in a very good place confidence-wise.

In fact, Nehlen was so preoccupied with wanting his players to experience any success that he once had legendary “Voice of the Mountaineers” Jack Fleming make a special recording of a “fictional” radio broadcast that was played to the team before the Rutgers game late in the season.

West Virginia had won four of its first five games and appeared headed toward breaking the streak of losing seasons until a four-game midseason slump saw its record slip to 4-5. A victory over Temple ended the skid, but Nehlen was worried about the team’s remaining two games at Rutgers and a home to Syracuse.

Losing both would mean a fifth straight losing season for the Mountaineers.

To Nehlen, Rutgers was of particular concern because he was afraid his players might take them lightly. The Scarlet Knights were coached by a man named Frank Burns, who basically ran three plays – a run up the middle, a run around the end and a pass down the middle.

So, Nehlen had Fleming announce those three plays, with the final one being intercepted by defensive back Steve Newberry. As fate would have it, that’s exactly what happened, and West Virginia went on to defeat the Scarlet Knights 24-15.

These were the types of things the always-positive Nehlen wanted his football players to experience, which included memorizing and singing the school fight song after all victories.

“When I went to play at Bowling Green, (coach) Doyt Perry did it,” he recalled last weekend. “Then, when I went to Michigan, Bo Schembechler did it, so when I came to West Virginia, we were going to it.”

The first part of winning, Nehlen correctly reasoned, is singing the fight song. When he first got here he had to learn it, and then he required everyone involved with the program to memorize it as well.