WVU's Coal Rush Uniforms Have Significant Meaning
October 10, 2024 - Uniforms matter.
They matter to the men who wear them, to the fans who watch them, to people who make them and the stores that sell them.
That is why Saturday night’s West Virginia football game against Iowa State at Milan Puskar Stadium has been designated a “Coal Rush” game where fans are urged to wear black.
Now West Virginia’s colors are old gold and blue, as you know.
But around these parts, black has meaning. Coal is black. West Virginia mines coal. It employs coal miners.
The state flower is the rhododendron, according to the state legislature, even though probably fewer people know that than can spell it. The state tree is the sugar maple. The state animal is the black bear and, whether they ever went so far as to pronounce it, coal is the state mineral.
That is one of the reasons every so often on the sporting fields, the team will wear black. This Saturday is no different as they honor the coal industry.
Now when they do this there is often controversy and those attuned to social media make a big deal about it. Outside of West Virginia these days, coal has come under fire from environmentalists.
I’m smart enough with a 26505 zip code to just let an argument drop to be addressed on the editorial pages rather than in sports pages.
Sports are for fun and uniforms are part of the fun segment of sports known as fun and games.
And, besides, players like wearing black, fans like wearing black and the university and the merchandisers know they have a gold mine, not a coal mine, by creating a market for new merchandise.
Might even call it “black market merchandise.”
Does it really matter what you wear?
Well, yes and no.
To be honest, if it did, WVU’s football team would wear gold jerseys all the time and maybe, if they so desired, rotate the color of their uniform pants.
The team’s notes tell us that since 2001 when WVU wears gold jerseys they have won 30 games and lost only 9, no matter what color the pants are.
Blue jerseys are far more common and have had a successful run with 66 wins and 35 losses. Broken down by pants color it is blue jerseys and gold pants is 33-16; blue jersey and white pants 11-7; and blue jersey and blue pants, 32-12. That’s 66-35, which ain’t bad.
Neal Brown, the coach who interestingly enough, has never pushed for a ‘Neal Brown Night” where they wear brown jerseys, is fired up about Saturday’s upcoming game.
“We need to play well at home, and we hope we get a really good crowd,” Brown said Monday. “It’s a ‘Coal Rush’ game and the players are excited about that and the uniforms.”
But he also injected a bit of sanity into the discussion, when he added, “but none of that really matters. What matters is preparing this week to go out and play at a high level and continue an upward trajectory as we go through the season.”
In sports, clothes do make the man, but the uniform jersey plays a key part in the way a player feels about himself.
If I may digress for a while, back in the days of junior varsity high school baseball, our uniforms held a certain status.
They were called “fish nets” by the coaches and the players because they were hand-me-downs, former varsity uniforms, which had been recycled for so long that there were enough holes in them to warrant the “fish net” moniker.
We wore them with pride.
There is nothing, though, like putting on a uniform with your name and your number on your back and wearing the school colors. If it didn’t mean something, why would WVU and other sports franchises be retiring the numbers of their greatest players and why would there now be a clamor for WVU to retire Pat White’s uniform jersey?
Numbers weren’t always on the backs of jerseys. You go back to the early sports films from the 1920s and before and players didn’t have any numbers.
Legend has it that the New York Yankees started it and that Babe Ruth wound up with his famous No. 3 jersey because in those days the No. 1 jersey went to the leadoff hitter, the No. 2 to the second batter. Ruth batted third, Lou Gehrig, who wound up No. 4, was the clean up hitter.
Those kinds of uniforms, game worn, became valuable, none more than Ruth’s 1932 jersey that he wore for his “called shot” in the 1932 World Series against Charlie Root and the Chicago Cubs. That jersey sold earlier this year for $24.12 million, making it the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever.
Think what a West Virginia fan would pay for the jersey Major Harris wore on his “wrong way” run against Penn State or what an authentic Jerry West WVU jersey would go for today.
Sometimes we all wonder why WVU ever goes away from its team’s colors and the tradition of the Flying WV logo. It matters.
Two years ago ESPN ranked the most iconic of baseball uniforms. No. 1 was the Dodgers uniform and the reason had much more to do with tradition than design.
What makes it so great: These are classics for a reason. The Dodgers have had the same basic uniform look dating back to their days in Brooklyn, aside from the change from the “B” to the “LA” on the caps, and the names added to the backs in 1972. The Dodgers script, the red numbering and the clean white look remain one of the most pleasing designs in all of sports.
The New York Yankees uniform was ranked No 2, and again, it had more to do with tradition than style:
What makes it so great: The Yankees’ logo is one of the world’s most recognizable, and the uniforms the team wears are no different. The logo appeared on a New York City Police Department Medal of Valor, designed by Louis Tiffany of Tiffany & Co. It is believed, though there is some disagreement, that it was adopted by William Devery, then one of the team’s owners and a former chief of the NYPD. No matter the era, you know a Yankees uniform when you see one. The Yankees have won 27 World Series titles wearing essentially the same uniforms.
So, enjoy the “coal rush” but know there’s a lot more to it than just wearing black.