CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Over 500 WVU fans, supporters and donors made their way to the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center Monday evening to hear from coaches, players, and administrators within the athletic department.
The 2025 MAC Scholarship Dinner gave attendees the chance to hear from a panel of WVU coaches consisting of head football coach Rich Rodriguez, men’s basketball coach Ross Hodge, women’s basketball coach Mark Kellogg, men’s soccer coach Dan Stratford, and volleyball coach Jen Greeny. Former WVU basketball player Jonnie West, son of the great Jerry West, also spoke, along with WVU athletic director Wren Baker.
“I always love this event, I love coming to Charleston,” Baker said. “We’ve got such a great support base here.”
Baker says getting outside of Morgantown and visiting other parts of the Mountain State has been something he’s enjoyed doing since he took the WVU job.
“I think I’m up to like 30 counties now,” Baker said. “When I first came here, I had not really spent much time in the state, and so, I wanted to get out and see this beautiful place that I was moving my family to and putting down roots for.”
Baker says an athletic department being backed by an entire state is a luxury few teams enjoy, and they want to take advantage of it.
“It’s awesome. We have such a unique situation in the way that the entire state rallies around the Mountaineers and loves WVU. There’s no other Power (4) teams, no pro teams, so that gives us an opportunity to really have a statewide following.”
The dinner comes just weeks before WVU’s coaches caravan, which takes coaches to four in-state locations as well as Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. to meet with more fans and supporters. Baker says it’s more vital now for coaches to interact with the WVU community than ever before.
“I need them to connect with our fanbase because we need resources. That’s the world of college athletics now and so putting them on the road and mobilizing them is important. There’s only one of me, but when you add up all of those coaches, they can make a lot more contacts and they can shake a lot more hands,” Baker said. “The reality is, when people hear the needs directly from the coaches, a lot of times they’ll dig deeper than they would even if it were coming from me.”
Rich Rodriguez was one of the coaches that had a line of people waiting to speak with him or take a picture, as he’ll coach his first game with the “Flying WV” across his chest since 2007. Rodriguez says the new era of college athletics is not always easy to manage, and WVU needs all of the support it can get to compete for titles in the Big 12.
“Every time you’ve had any athletic program, boosters and supporters have been important, but now it’s even more critical and they can get more involved than ever before,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not easy to manage all of this that’s going on right now, but as I told my staff, the goalposts have moved, and we’ve got to move with it. We’ve got tremendous support from West Virginia.”
New men’s basketball coach Ross Hodge was another hot commodity Monday night. He says Mountaineer faithful has welcomed him with open arms over these last few weeks.
“From the moment that we got here, the people in Morgantown and around the entire state of West Virginia have been so welcoming to myself and my family,” Hodge said. “You can really feel their passion for their university and this state.”
Hodge, who comes to Morgantown from North Texas, says both fanbases showed him and his staff support, but events like the Scholarship Dinner show why WVU is a big step up.
“The similarities would be with the quality of people. Both fanbases have really, really good people that you could connect to, and you could tell it was important to them,” Hodge said. “The biggest difference is the amount of people here and the amount of support that you have.”
Like Rodriguez, Hodge believes WVU supporters can truly make a difference for his team.
“There’s never been a time that support can directly impact college athletics as much as now,” Hodge said. “It’s always been so meaningful to have people really give any part of themselves, whether it’s their times, whether it’s their talent, whether it’s their treasures. Everybody can give something, so it’s nice to get out here and get a chance to meet people and help them understand how important they are to everything we’re doing.”