MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Six Mountaineers football players visited the WVU Children’s Hospital on Wednesday afternoon as the annual Gold-Blue game is coming up on Saturday.
Safety Darwin Cook jumped into a game of air hockey with one of the patients, Ryan Hess of Grafton.
“He caught me off guard at first because I thought I was about to dominate — I wasn’t going to take it easy on him,” Cook said. “But he tore me up. He’s got an extra little rocket in that arm. He was playing very terrific.
“It was fun,” Hess said. “I got ahead, he came back and then finally it was tied up at 9-9 and I scored after about five minutes of playing for the final score.”
A portion of the proceeds from Saturday’s Gold-Blue game will go to the WVU Children’s Hospital.
“It puts a lot of things in perspective,” Cook said. “Everything happens for a reason and I just feel like everyone is put in a certain situation for a certain reason and they’re blessing — everybody’s a blessing. I like doing stuff like this. It’s fun.”
And those extra funds from the spring game for the hospital will have plenty of use.
“It’s so important and crucial to our mission to be able to take care of all the children in the state that we have,” said WVU Childrens Hospital director Cheryl Jones. “Everything in this room has been pretty much donated through either a gift of money or the item itself. We wouldn’t be able to have any of this without donations that we will receive on Saturday.”
Tickets are $10 for Saturday’s game and can be purchased at the Milan Puskar Stadium north and west gates on game day with cash or a check. Tickets also can be purchased in advance online at WVUGAME.com or at the Mountaineer Ticket Office located in the WVU Coliseum. Gates open at 1 p.m. Saturday with a 2 p.m. kickoff.