Don Nehlen to join an illustrious list at WVU

Now, Nehlen’s name will be added to that illustrious list.

“I didn’t know what to think,” said Nehlen when WVU director of athletics Wren Baker stopped by his house to give him the news. “It sounded pretty good. It’s a great honor. I’ve been retired a heck of a long time.

“I think some of my former players, spearheaded by my neighbor (former WVU and NFL quarterback Jeff Hostetler, who is also Nehlen’s son-in-law), kept putting pressure on them to do something for a long time,” chuckled Nehlen during a recent interview with the “MetroNews Statewide Sportsline.” “Wren was very receptive of the idea.”

The honor for Nehlen will take place when the Mountaineer football team entertains Cincinnati on Saturday. That’s a very appropriate opponent for the ceremony because Nehlen had a lot of connections with the Bearcats.

Raised in Canton, Ohio, Nehlen graduated from Bowling Green in 1958. He got his coaching career started in the high school ranks back in Canton before he received his first college opportunity at the University of Cincinnati in 1963, as UC’s backfield coach in helping head coach Chuck Studley’s Bearcats to a 6-4 record.

Though he spent just one year at Cincinnati, that started him on a path in which he would eventually become one of the 30 winningest Division I college football head coaches of all time (202-128-8) between his nine years at Bowling Green (1968-76, 53-35-4) and 21 years at West Virginia (1980-2000, 149-93-4).

Nehlen not only got his college coaching start at Cincinnati, but his WVU career began against the Bearcats as well. West Virginia’s 1980 season opener in Nehlen’s first year was against UC.

The game also served as the inauguration of the brand-new Mountaineer Field, featuring all the pomp and circumstance that goes along with such an occasion. Besides the ribbon cuttings and pregame speeches, John Denver was flown in to perform the state’s ballad, “Country Roads.”

“There isn’t any question that in that first game against Cincinnati, I was as nervous as I don’t know what,” recalled Nehlen, who would go on to lead WVU a home record of 90-37-4 in his time coaching the Mountaineers that included just two seasons with losing home records (1-5 in 1986 and 2-5 in 1990). “If you don’t think I was nervous, I was.”

Nehlen’s pregame nerves were all for naught, as his West Virginia squad ran away to the 41-27 victory over the Bearcats. He never lost in any of his five meetings with UC.

“First of all, I had to leave the pregame and go out and sit on a platform with the Governor (Jay Rockefeller) and listen to John Denver sing something. He was a pain in the butt, I’ll tell you that. He grabbed his $25,000, came in and sang and said thank you, no thanks, and left.”

(Editor’s note – According to a noted John Denver historian, the singer did not want to come to new Morgantown at all that day because it was his wedding anniversary but he eventually agreed.)

The new stadium was undergoing some finishing touches right up to kickoff between WVU and UC on the afternoon of Sept. 6, 1980. The locker rooms and such were still not completed yet, as the teams had to use trailers that first season.

For a while, it was touch and go whether the football operations center in the south end zone, which became known as the Facilities Building and is now called the Puskar Center, would be constructed at all.

“The site preparation cost so much, they ran out of money before they could build the building,” remembered Nehlen, as the stadium was built on the hilly location of the WVU golf course. “Governor Rockefeller said, ‘Come on down to the mansion and I’ll raise you however much money you need.’ The Governor had 17 guys there, and we raised $1.3 million in about an hour and built that building.”

The turnaround for Mountaineer football started that September day in 1980 against Cincinnati. The program had suffered through four straight losing seasons until Nehlen arrived and pretty quickly things took off. WVU had just four losing seasons during Nehlen’s 21-year reign in comparison to 13 bowl appearances.

He set the standard and built the foundation. In the 23 years since Nehlen retired, West Virginia has had only five other losing regular seasons.

Though his wife Merry Ann died in 2019, Don remains in Morgantown surrounded by his two children – son Dan (who is a long-time staff member for the Mountaineer football team) and daughter Vicky – as well as his five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren (with two more on the way).

“When I think back over the years, it was amazing,” concluded Nehlen, who will be 88 years old in a month and a half. “I still get phone calls from all my guys. Those 21 years, man o’ man, you talk about a love affair.

“The wins and losses dissipate; they really do. Back then they meant a lot, but now, so what! I remember the bus rides and the plane rides more than the actual games. I remember how much fun we had.”

Nehlen has had plenty of other honors in his career. He was the AFCA Coach of the Year in 1988 and was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame in 2003 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2005.

Now his former players and his many fans will have a chance to celebrate his legacy on Saturday (2:30 p.m. on ESPN+) when the name Don Nehlen is placed on the Terrace facade inside the stadium he helped make famous.