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Bailey's
Take on Pirate Sports
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From the Anchor Desk
Friday, September 27, 2002
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By Brian Bailey
Sports Anchor of WNCT-TV 9 |
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WVU game conjures up emotional memories of '99
©2002 Bonesville.net
East Carolina opened the 1999 football season with West
Virginia on a sun drenched Saturday afternoon in Charlotte.
Little did we know the game would have such a foreshadowing
effect on the rest of the season.
It was a hot Saturday afternoon for the Pirates and the
Mountaineers. Those who made the trip were very appreciative of the sunshine
after a brush with Hurricane Dennis the week before.
The game was an outstanding one for East Carolina. The
Pirates opened their season with a victory, then their jubilant fans started
making the trip home shortly after the game.
When we left Greenville, Hurricane Dennis was weakening out
in the Atlantic. But on the way home we found out that Dennis must have been
a Pirate fan, and he was making tracks to the west in the form of a Tropical
Storm. In fact, he was pounding Greenville as the Pirates and the
Mountaineers were getting set to kick it off from the Queen City.
Brian Meador and I were in WNCT-TV's big, microwave live
truck on the trip. Our plan was for me to drive, while Meador edited our
game package. We would then head to Greensboro, and send our story back via
satellite through fellow CBS affiliate WFMY-TV.
Dennis was as mad as a hornet for missing that East Carolina
game. He did make the State game that night, and made life miserable for the
Wolfpack in the rain.
We were successful in our trip to Greensboro, but the rest
of the night was a scary trip.
Tropical Storm Dennis pounded the entire state, and the wind
was literally blowing the big truck all over the place. I really thought we
would end up in a ditch at some point, but somehow we made it home.
I’m sure other Pirate fans have memories of that wild trip
home as well.
Ten days later, Hurricane Floyd struck and we were into the
“Flood of the Century”.
On the heels of the WVU game, the Pirates would win at South
Carolina, and then spend a vagabond week in hotels before whipping Miami in
Raleigh.
These were great memories.
I still say it was all because Dennis wanted to catch a
little Pirate football.
Pirates like Morgantown turf
East Carolina’s coaches and players are looking forward to
playing on West Virginia’s “Field Turf”.
It is an artificial playing surface, but it is the premier
turf to play on.
“It’s fantastic,” said Pirate Coach Steve Logan. “We have
seen it at Army and at Cincinnati. The players really like it. It is so much
different then the old stuff.”
Logan continued, “It is field turf, which everyone is a big
fan of, especially the players. The last time we were up there, I believe
that we had three broken legs on the offensive line by the time we got back
on the airplane. So that is a lot less likely to happen. The Astroturf they
had was very sticky, it gave very little and if you got hit in the lower
leg, you were not coming up. The field turf is just a wonderful product.”
I’ve always thought that the Pirates really look forward to
games on the fake grass. Talk about speed. Some of it is mental, that these
guys think they are faster on the carpet.
The truth is that if you think something is real, then many
times it is, and that thought process should make the Pirates that much
quicker this weekend.
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Brian Bailey.
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02/23/2007 01:23:18 AM
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