The question posed to WVU quarterback Skyler Howard after the win over Iowa State last Saturday was innocuous: “Senior Day is up next. What are you thinking looking ahead, knowing the next one is the last one?”
That’s the ultimate softball for departing seniors who typically wax nostalgically about running onto Mountaineer Field for the final time, but Howard did not follow the script.
“One more opportunity to get booed, you know, walking out there with my mom,” Howard said. “I wish I could just go out there and play the game instead of doing the ceremony and everything that happens on Senior Day.”
“Senior Day is good and everything for the guys who really feel welcome and feel at home. The guys in the team room, that’s good. Send the seniors out the right way,” he said. “I just want to play some ball. That’s all. That’s what I’m going to do Saturday and that’s what I’m going to do in our bowl game.”
Howard, who came to West Virginia with a chip on his shoulder because no college recruited him out of high school to play quarterback, apparently still carries a grudge. To his credit, he has used the slight as motivation. He has willed himself to become one of the all-time statistical leaders as a quarterback at WVU.
But apparently the few times Mountaineer fans have booed their team during Howard’s tenure have made an indelible mark. Perhaps for someone who has always had to disprove the doubters, the occasional fan expression of discontent is a painful reminder.
From that perspective, Howard deserves props for honesty. He has heard the boos, he doesn’t like it and he’s saying so, rather than spouting worn out clichés that do not represent his true feelings. Frankly, sports would be more compelling if more players and coaches avoided the overworked false narratives.
However, big time college sports would not exist without fans, and fans have an increasingly larger stake in the game because of the escalating cost of attendance. A Mountaineer fan who drops $1,000 for tickets, food and lodging to bring his family to Morgantown for the weekend may feel he’s perfectly within his rights to express displeasure during the game.
Additionally, crowd psychology is at work. Social scientists have well-established theories of how the crowd can overtake an individual’s sense of self and cause people to behave in ways they would not otherwise.
Would a fan booing the Mountaineers, or specifically Skyler Howard, stop Howard on the street and express their feelings face-to-face? Skyler should also know that the limelight invites criticism, as well as accolades.
But loyal fans and their teams have a symbiotic relationship; one cannot exist without the other and therefore each should give the other some latitude to be who they are.
Howard, although a Texas native, strikes me as the iconic West Virginian—proud, hardworking, overachieving, sensitive to slights and, when necessary, brutally honest. We know that Skyler Howard has given Mountaineer Nation everything he had, and that’s worth cheering Saturday, even if he leaves campus with the sounds of the occasional boos still ringing in his ears.