We’re told, with good reason, that you only get one chance to make a first impression.
But West Virginia University, with its entry into the Big 12 Conference this season, finds itself with a rare opportunity for a “do over.”
WVU’s reputation for fan behavior is poor and deservedly so. There is a persistent element of Mountaineer Nation that believes abusing fans from the visiting team is an obligation, if not a right.
Anyone who has been to a game at Milan Puskar Stadium has witnessed it—drunken fans shouting obscenities at people who are visiting our University and our state.
It’s embarrassing.
This week, WVU Athletic Director Oliver Luck issued an open letter to Mountaineer fans asking them to take advantage of the opportunity of hosting Big 12 teams for the first time to change WVU’s image.
“The majority of Big 12 visitors will be making their first trip to West Virginia,” Luck said. “I believe very few have any preconceived notions of our state, so as a collective Mountaineer community, we have a chance to change some of the negative behavior of the past.”
Cynics will say Luck is naïve to think behavior will change. They may be right. Fan behavior in general is getting worse, whether it’s the irate parent berating an umpire at a little league game or fans rioting and setting vehicles on fire after an NBA championship.
Psychologist Tamara Avant says mob mentality combined with alcohol causes people to lose their self-awareness. “The group seems to make some behaviors acceptable that would not be acceptable otherwise,” she writes.
Perhaps you can’t fight psychology with a public relations campaign, but you can appeal to rational, well-meaning Mountaineer fans—of which there are many—to make an extra effort to be good hosts so at least some of the boorish behavior is offset by genuine hospitality.
That’s not too much to ask, and we know how to do it.
Just last month, a Pittsburgh newspaper reporter wrote a glowing piece about how the Fayetteville mayor and his family came to her rescue when she was stranded by the power outages and gasoline shortages caused by the derecho.
“The people of West-by-God-Virginia trumped nature’s whims,” wrote Karen Kane of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “She could have her way with her wind and her hail, but they would have their say, too. And what they had to say was, ‘Sit down and have a cool drink and let us help you find your way home.’”
Granted, it may be more difficult in the competitive environment of a football game to reach out to the fans of a rival school, but WVU loyalists have been given a rare opportunity to start fresh.
“Let’s all make a pledge to go out of our way to welcome those fans to Morgantown and to West Virginia University,” Luck wrote. “Let’s make sure that we extend a friendly hand at the tailgates, invite visiting fans over for something to eat and thank them for coming to our beautiful state.”
We’re West Virginians. We’re good at this. We can do it.