@wrwlumpy: I got my degree at WVU back in 1971. I had not heard that factoid about snake handling Pentecostal churches in WV. I always assumed that Tennessee was the capitol. The issue of snake handling was, in fact, the first question I had when I first attended a Pentecostal church in Pennsylvania. Knowing that so few of them do that, I feel a bit embarrassed by it now. But it does not stop me from having a joke at my own expense.
As for opposition to slavery, I was told at my first football game in 1966, that that was the reason for the cheer, "WEST -- BY GOD! -- VIRGINIA!"
I have not been back there for a while, so I don't know if they still use that cheer. In the mid-60s, boys wore sport coats to the games (with boutonnieres on their left lapel) and gave their dates a corsage. A quaint tradition that had pretty much gone away by the end of the decade.
WVU had their protests against the Vietnam conflict back then, but it was still a campus where the leaders of the SDS were on civil terms with the Army and AF officers who ran the ROTC. I rather liked that the VP of Student Affairs could engage a student leader outside of the student union (the Mountain Lair) to ask if his parents had seen him on TV in the midst of a protest rally. I happened to overhear that exchange, and in the jaggedness of the 60s, it gave me a good feeling to think that regardless of what was happening across America, things weren't going to blow up too badly in Morgantown.
The last time that WVU went to a Final Four, they knocked off Kentucky. They've beaten Duke in the tournament, as well. I think they are a good replacement for Mizzou, although their depth of talent in football is still getting to where it needs to be for the Big XII.
