Remember the last time Virginia and West Virginia played a football game against each other?
That one, back in 2002, at a bowl game in Charlotte, ended with the governor of West Virginia demanding an apology.
“This type of performance merely perpetuates the unfounded stereotypes that we in West Virginia are fighting so hard to overcome,” the governor, Bob Wise, wrote in a letter to then-UVA President John Casteen, over what turned out to be the final performance of the UVA Pep Band.
The Pep Band’s sin: staging a skit based on the TV show “The Bachelor” that featured a faux WVU coed in overalls.
Seriously, the school’s mascot is a bearded guy dressed in buckskin, toting a rifle, and they get their panties in a bunch over “unfounded stereotypes”?
This all comes to mind today as we try to process the announcement that Virginia and WVU have agreed to a two-game, neutral-site series – guess where: Charlotte! – with the games to be played in 2026 and 2032.
The 2026 game replaces a previously announced game with Notre Dame on the 2026 nonconference schedule.
The 1985 Pep Band skit at halftime of a game with WVU won by UVA, 27-7, involving toxic gas, also led to a request for an apology from James Manchin, at the time the state treasurer of West Virginia, and the uncle of you-know-who.
It might be time to get the band back together, is what I’m saying.
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Chris Graham
