Name-a-Day Calendar, October 21: West Virginia Mountaineers
Page 349 of 365
Chosen in: 1915
Chosen by: Student Fred B. Deem, kinda
West Virginia University was founded in 1867 and began playing modern intercollegiate athletics with the birth of their football team in 1891. Their first teams were usually known as the Snakes (or the “Snakers”), though this appears to have been specific to football. By the time the men’s basketball team debuted in 1903, it had fallen out of use.
The next time West Virginia’s teams adopted a nickname, it stuck for good. In 1915, students Fred B. Deem ‘15, Earl Miller ‘15, and Ed McWhorther ‘16 wrote “Hail West Virginia” to serve as the school fight song, with the lyrics by Deem and the composition by Miller and McWhorther. The second verse of the song, and usually the only verse that’s actually sung, is as follows:
“It’s West Virginia, It’s West Virginia,
The pride of every Mountaineer!
Come on you old grads, join with us young lads!
It’s West Virginia now we cheer!
Now is the time, boys, to make a big noise,
No matter what the people say!
For there is naught to fear; the gang’s all here!
So hail to West Virginia! Hail!”
The word “Mountaineer” in the second line refers to West Virginia’s state nickname: The Mountain State. West Virginia is located entirely in the Appalachian Mountains and has the highest average elevation of any state east of the Mississippi River. In this roundabout way, that state nickname ended up becoming the university’s athletics nickname as well. After the song was published, people started calling West Virginia’s sports teams the Mountaineers and it stuck.
Since 1934, West Virginia has famously been represented by a rifle-wielding, deerhide-wearing student known simply as The Mountaineer.
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