The Battle for the Bell

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Marshall has a storied football program, and even if you don’t know anything about them, you’ve probably heard of the film We Are Marshall. It starred Matthew McConaughey and is about 13 years old. It was pretty popular, had lots of famous people in it. The gist is that the university recovered from a terrible plane crash and went on to represent the spirit of college football. After visiting the university for a football game, I kind of wonder whether they should’ve just let the program fold.

A football game at Marshall University has all the feel of a high school game. Take that for what you will. The people in the stands are primarily from the town of Huntington, where Marshall University is located. People can leave the game and come back in, provided they enter the correct gate and have a hand stamp. There were droves of middle schoolers roaming about, and little kids were running all over the place, up and down the stands, for the entirety of our time there. The food was subpar, but at least the prices weren’t outrageous. In an entirely apt coincidence, Marshall serves Pepsi products, whereas West Virginia University served us Coke products earlier in the day. I am a Coke enthusiast. Draw your own conclusions.

It really is a shame that we went to both schools on the same day, since it’s virtually impossible not to compare the two experiences. After such a good time in Morgantown, Huntington was a total letdown. And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the game. Full disclosure: I just graduated from Ohio University last month, and this was the visiting team. Ohio lost by two points. I am no rabid fan of the Ohio Bobcats, but they did award me with a master’s degree, so I will pull for them when I attend a football game that they are playing in. But this is the fifth game I’ve attended this season, and the home team is batting 1.000 so far. Marshall was favored to win by all accounts, and so I did not expect my school to prevail. I was just glad they kept it close for the second half.

To be fair, we did not arrive at the school until midway through the second quarter. The sun was getting low (Black Widow reference!), and since the game had already started, I thought it would be no problem with traffic. Wrong. It also doesn’t help that there is a one-way street adjacent to both sides of the stadium. This makes looking for parking a bit problematic, especially with the fading daylight. As small as the stadium is, I did not expect to have as many cars parked around there as we found. We turned right, to pass in front of the stadium, and after going two blocks past it, I told Jack (who was driving) to turn around. I had no intention of parking in this neighborhood. It was super sketch. And my perceptions were not helped by all the pedestrians walking around. Jack made the comment that it looked like the town was stuck in the 1970s. I suppose that’s what has happened to a large part of West Virginia, with the economic and opioid issues that plague the state nowadays.

We circled around and came back up the other side of the one-way street system and found a CVS at the intersection diagonal from the stadium that offered parking for $20. We found a spot easily, but no one was there to take the money. A car beside us had a paper in the window stating that they had paid to park, but I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to charge us. So we prayed for a miracle and it was granted: at least I can say that I didn’t have to pay for parking at either of the games in West Virginia today.

As we approached the stadium, something was just … off. People were already leaving in the second quarter. They were decked out in full game-day attire. Lots of green, lots of Herd. So why were they leaving so early? The score was not indicative of a blowout in either direction. Who leaves a game at this point? We did find out that people could return, but this practice is not common in college football.

Inside the stadium, the size of the concourse for concessions and restrooms was not very big. That’s when we noticed the herds of minors wandering about. Then when we got to our seats, in the end zone, the people weren’t exactly happy to see us. I don’t think it had anything to do with the Ohio apparel I was sporting; Jack had no football apparel at all. I think it had more to do with the fact that they had to make room for us. Apparently some lady did say “Welcome to our stadium” to me as I passed; I thought I heard her, but she was behind me, and Jack said that she had made the comment in my direction. So at least they weren’t inhospitable. No one pointed and laughed, even though Ohio was losing by ten points at the half. We probably sat in our seats about five minutes before halftime. And when halftime began, most of the people got up to stretch their legs. Maybe they went for snacks, or a bathroom break. Or maybe they left. And maybe they planned to come back.

All I can say is that neither Jack nor I had any lunch to speak of today. He had one of those pepperoni rolls advertised everywhere in the WVU stadium before the game started (he said it wasn’t bad, but not really worth the price). And that was the only food either of us had after leaving the hotel this morning. At this point, it was 8:00 PM. So we went for snacks and to get out of the unpleasant seats we found ourselves in. I got the popcorn and he got some nachos. They got the job done. We decided to try our luck in higher seats in the corner during halftime, and the view was much better. So were the people (or lack thereof) around us. We could breathe up here, since so many of the Marshall people had cleared out. Jack found that the Ohio people were clustered into the two sections at the end of the stadium (Joan C. Edwards Stadium has one end of the stadium opened, with no seating). So after a couple of drives in the third quarter, we decided to move down to sit with them.

The stadium, like I said, isn’t large. So it didn’t take long to get to the visiting team section. While I can’t say that people cheered as we entered the section, at least they smiled. After we got our seats, Ohio made a great play for a touchdown. Looked like these seats might be lucky! And then Ohio scored again to take the lead for the first time in the game during the fourth quarter. Things were looking up. I even learned a few Ohio cheers (including the very simply “O U, Oh yeah!”). At this point, we finally heard the elusive Marshall cheer (elusive because we hadn’t heard it all night but knew that it had to happen at some point). The opposite side of the stadium from us, where all the fancy seats were located, yelled out “WE ARE” and then our side of the stadium replied back “MARSHALL.” During this cheer, this was the loudest we ever heard this stadium. It’s amazing what all those voices in unison can accomplish. Otherwise, however, the stadium noise was not very intimidating.

As a fan of college football, my biggest problem with this experience was that the overwhelming majority of the fans were not very interested in what was going on down on the field. It felt more like the Marshall football game was just an excuse to get together and visit with friends and let your kids run wild, unsupervised. That, to me, is characteristic of a high school football game, not a college game. Combine this with the unsavory neighborhood, the lack of good facilities, and an inevitable comparison to the wonderful events of earlier in the day, and I hope that any die-hard Marshall fan can excuse my unfavorable experience in Huntington.

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