Wheeling Bids To Keep State Football Championships in the Friendly City

WHEELING -- After 30 years of the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission football state championships calling Wheeling home, the Friendly City will have to renew its efforts to host the season-ending event with new faces at the helm, and with heightened competition across the bow.

After the conclusion of this past year's championships -- which saw Martinsburg, Fairmont Senior and Williamstown lift trophies high -- Wheeling's latest contract to host the Super Six ran its course, and the SSAC board of directors will now consider new bids from cities across the state hoping to be awarded the championship slate.

Wheeling has been the recipient of the board's approval for the last three decades. On Wednesday at the WVSSAC's office in Parkersburg, Ohio County Schools Assistant Superintendent Rick Jones and Wheeling Park High School Athletic Director and Football Coach Chris Daugherty will head a group trying to keep the streak going. Wheeling submitted its formal bid Jan. 9. Come Wednesday, the group will present its pitch to a room full of decision-makers who they must convince.

It's a challenge both Jones and Daugherty are familiar with, though both are stepping up to fill new roles this go-round.

The pair are taking over from Dwaine Rodgers and Greg Stewart, who had been co-directors of the Super Six for the past 15 years.

"I have worked off-and-on with the Super Six for a long time," Jones said. "The people who have done all of the work for years- the Bernie Dolans, the Dwaine Rodgers, Greg Stewarts, all of the volunteers, a lot of them are now retired and kind of made this their last Super Six.

"It's a good time because that was the end of the latest contract. Myself and coach Daugherty are going to be the co-directors and go make a proposal, a bid for three years with an option for a fourth, for the Super Six - though the name's going to have to change because there's going to be eight teams next year."

The WVSSAC recently approved expanding school classifications to four tiers for most sports, including football, meaning there will now be four championship matchups including eight teams.

The group working on the bid include, among others, Jones, Daugherty, Ohio County Commissioner Zach Abraham, John Marshall principal Jason Merling, and Marshall County Federal Programs & State Assessment Director Casey Storm. Jones said that he hopes to involve Marshall County in the process as more people will be introduced to the area for an eight-team weekend.

Jones' most recent experience with the event comes over the last eight years, where he and Daugherty have worked as liaisons between the county school system and the championships.

"There are going to be various people that will be in place if we win the bid to help with different things," Jones said. "Taking care of officials, hosting different teams, being in charge of hotels, there will be a whole group of people who go into this that have done it before, and some replacing people who are leaving."

When it comes to the Super Six over the past 30 years, it takes a village. And when it comes to the future of the state championships, it may take more than that.

Various other cities have asserted themselves as competition to Wheeling - at least three others, according to Jones.

Bluefield, headed by West Virginia Del. Marty Gearhart, will try to coax the WVSSAC to highly-regarded Mitchell Stadium down south. Charleston, the city that had been home to the state championships for years prior to Wheeling taking over, is set to make another run at hosting. Morgantown and Huntington, home to West Virginia University and Marshall University, respectively, are also making a joint bid where the event would alternate between the cities for the duration of the contract.

Jones said that each bid will get 30 minutes to present to the WVSSAC board of directors - made up of principals from across West Virginia and select individuals appointed by the state - and that his presentation will center on what Wheeling has accomplished, and how they hope to continue to improve.

"A lot of it will be continuing on what they've done," Jones said, in reference to the work of people like Rodgers and Stewart. "All the teams have hosts, when they come in their locker rooms are already set up with their uniforms hanging in their lockers and it's a really great scene. Our county just bought a new $400,000 jumbotron, in large part for the Super Six, that's a big investment from the county. We continue to improve our stadium as much as we can.

"We want to try to use Oglebay Park a little bit more, just because it's so beautiful there. We have several things, there's an academic breakfast that will honor academic achievers throughout the state. There's a lot that goes into it and we'll just try to, with new people, enhance it where we can, and keep it the same on the things that really are as good as you can do."

Jones said the aforementioned jumbotron, installed for the start of the school year and utilized during the Super Six to show replays, challenges, graphics and adverts, will be a significant point.

"It's phenomenal," he said. "I don't know if there's a nicer one in the state. I'm sure there's not."

As Wheeling continues to try and outdo themselves in the face of new contenders, people like Dwaine Rodgers, a former athletic director and coach at Wheeling Park as well as being co-director of the championship committee, recall what the event was like before Wheeling.

Rodgers was a coach at Park for the 1991 Class AAA championship game when the event was in Charleston, where it had been, at that point, for years.

"We came down, nobody was there to meet us," Rodgers said."We got sent to go find where our locker room was, we saw some old man - 'Sir, we're Wheeling Park, where's our locker room?' He walked us to the end of the stadium, opened a door for us, there were hangers and chairs everywhere and okay, here's our locker room. Got the guys in there, had our pre-game, played the game, got on the bus and went home.

"That got the wheels turning for some people from Wheeling - Eric Carder, Sam Mumley, Howard Corcoran, Bob Dunlevy - they just thought it needed to be more than just that, and that was the beginning. They put out a bid, they won, and we've had it since then. Rightfully so, it should be more than that. If the SSAC decides to take it somewhere else, I hope they do what we do and maybe one thing better. We made it into more than just a game."

Since 1994, the high school event has ballooned in a production unlike any other in the state. Jones recalled working with volunteers for lodging teams, feeding them, getting hosts for each team ready to meet any request, providing them hats, shirts and other memorabilia, housing cheerleaders, putting on the academic achievement award breakfast, preparing a meeting facility at Wheeling Island Hotel for athletic director association and board of directors, accommodating media, arranging team doctors, and on and on.

Does Wheeling have some sort of "incumbent advantage," having taken on the event for decades? Jones and Rodgers believe that's possible.

"When you've done this for 30 years, I don't think people understand the work that's attached to every facet," Jones said. "The meetings and the volunteers in the community who donates money, the sponsors that make this happen. That's the greatest advantage to Wheeling, the people."

"Wheeling has put on a phenomenal experience for 30 years," Rodgers said. "We have turned it into so much more than it used to be. There's so many people that volunteer their time to do this. We also host the golf state championship here. In the past, people have asked us to look at hosting wrestling. Wheeling has provided, and it'll always be one of those cities that does phenomenal work."

Rodgers had been co-director for the last 15 years, and has been involved with the championships in some capacity for as long as it has been in Wheeling. As he steps away now, he hopes the best bid wins.

"I know people talk about having it at Morgantown, at the WVU facility," Rodgers said. "I get that. But I think that's part of the reason it left Charleston. Laidley Field was so huge, the environment wasn't there. Wheeling Island gives you that - let's be honest, this is a high school tournament. Wheeling Island Stadium holds 10,000, it's a great atmosphere. I can't see that kind of atmosphere at WVU's stadium, it's so big.

"I hope the SSAC makes sure that, whoever bids on this, your bid has to be better than Wheeling's bid," he continued. "That's all I'd ask. I hope we don't go back to the type of event it was when it was at Charleston. It was just a game."

Jones says he expects that the board will come to a decision not too long after Wednesday.

"I just think it's a really nice setting for football state championships," he said. "Probably unlike anywhere else."