Better than tasers, DOGS !!!

[E.T.]

WVU insults student body during USF game

LJ Ulrich

Columnist

It's time that West Virginia University left the dogs at home.

Just consider the scene at Saturday's game against South Florida. One would think that dealing with the Bulls was bad enough. Late in the fourth quarter, however, police K-9 units tromped onto the sidelines, their snarling dogs in tow.

The few die-hard students who actually showed up to the game shifted their attention from their beloved football team to the nasty German shepherds, who never seemed to shut up. Proof of the unwarranted distraction has been posted at http://www.youtube-.com/watch?v=j4PGWrFIQWw.

Never mind a hobbled Pat White's stab at last-minute Morgantown magic. Saturday, senior students were subjected to the worst of insults, not just a loss at home, but an unnecessary and inappropriate display of intimidation. Were students going to storm the field? No - not after a squeaker win against USF, and especially not after a loss. Such force had no place on the field that day. In fact, the insensitive and impractical intimidation did nothing but spur anger and questions among the best of fans, and illustrated the wide credibility gap between the student body and the authorities in Stewart Hall.

Remember last spring?

When WVU President David Hardesty took to the hardwood of the Coliseum last spring to honor the Sugar Bowl Champion football team, the packed house - and especially the student section - greeted him with a shower of voracious and unnecessary boos.

Minutes later, as the halftime celebration ended and Rich Rodriguez ushered his boys off the fl oor to make room for John Beilein's, a dejected Hardesty returned to his seat and wondered aloud, "What did I do now?"

It's a legitimate question to which there stands a plethora of answers: record enrollment, modernization of a sprawling campus, national academic recognition, first-rate medical facilities, booming outreach to the state of West Virginia, a respected athletics program, a courageous and successful campaign to save the Big East Conference and so on …

Unfortunately, a vocal minority of the student body will never give credit where credit is due, and instead point to the 2003 football riots - and, of course, to WVU's heavy-handed reaction - as Hardesty's legacy.

Part of the problem is that students cannot forget about the tensions of the past. Salt is continually thrown on old wounds, even while the people who once left Milan Puskar Stadium with bruises on their bodies and mace in their eyes are almost all gone.

While students at Cincinatti, Louisville and Rutgers can storm their fields after big wins and are met with backslaps and jubilee, WVU students are warned away with stone-faced cops and snarling dogs - even on days when students stay home, or when WVU loses.

What's the point?

Next Saturday night, WVU will find itself poised to play spoiler in a night game against Big East-leading Rutgers. It will mark Hardesty's final chance to show how far both the University and its students have come since those dark days of 2003, to turn around the unfair criticisms of his legacy and to finally move on.

Students don't need to take the field, but they deserve the right to leave Mountaineer Field with their dignity. Hardesty is the only person on campus with the power to make it happen. It's time to recognize our time and place in Mountaineer history, to turn a page on those long-past riots, and move on.

It's time for Hardesty to pick up the phone and say, quite frankly, "Keep those dogs away from my kids. Keep them home."

http://www.da.wvu.edu/XMLParser/printstory.phtml?id=24937

YouTube link isn't good.

[ksquire]

Geez, no wonder we won. Barking dogs are such a distraction.

[Zonald]

Take out that dash...

[outrunner]

Take was one of the most annoying sounds ever.

[mutt]

Better than dogs...?      ROCKY 2!!!