The Dance is Going Viral

[StillWarriors]

I've been watching for this. Buzz is now the lead story on Deadspin, a great sarcatic sports site for those not aware of it.

http://deadspin.com/5888238/marquette-coach-buzz-williams-flirted-with-death-by-dancing-in-front-of-wvu-students-after-last-nights-win

[connie]

Love the comment:

"Well, they said it would never happen but it did. West Virginians found a Buzz they didn't like."

[timinatorx3]

Those WV fans meant business, that air pillow could have really hurt somebody. Glad Raftery was okay.

[Chicos' Buzz Scandal Countdown]

Love the comment:

"Well, they said it would never happen but it did. West Virginians found a Buzz they didn't like."

+1

[LON]

http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2012/02/25/marquette-coach-buzz-williams-nearly-incited-a-riot-by-dancing-on-west-virginias-court/

[TallTitan34]

Nice link!

It has the video of Buzz playing the drums!

[robmufan]

Love the "hold me back, bro" mode!

[madtownwarrior]

this dude sure loved it...

http://www.cardchronicle.com/2012/2/25/2823706/buzz-williams-bids-west-virginia-adieu

[Les Nessman]

this dude sure loved it...

http://www.cardchronicle.com/2012/2/25/2823706/buzz-williams-bids-west-virginia-adieu

"Man can't buy underwear. Balls don't fit." Amazing way to end that article.

[Warrior3211]

http://deadspin.com/5888238/marquette-coach-buzz-williams-flirted-with-death-by-dancing-in-front-of-wvu-students-after-last-nights-win

Love this.

"And who doesn't love a daredevil?"

[mu_hilltopper]

Another perspective from a local ..

http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/140599743.html

Mountains of misunderstanding in Buzz's dance at WVU
By Jay Sorgi
CREATED 1:00 PM
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Chocolate or Vanilla, Buzz?
MORGANTOWN, WV - A passionate coach following up on a tradition of a celebratory dance to a song he reportedly grew up loving after one of the hardest-fought victories in his tenure.

An opposing fan base that interprets that dance to an unofficial state song as stomping on the possible grave of their team's NCAA tournament chances.

A broadcaster getting pelted by individual students who took their anger too far, and a video of it that went viral.

All because of a multitude of misunderstandings involving Marquette's basketball coach and particular students who are proud of their West Virginia Mountaineer heritage, all following a passion-filled 61-60 Marquette victory Friday night.

Yours truly, a Marquette alumnus who has covered the team over my tenure at Newsradio 620 WTMJ, not only attended that game, but watched it with my wife and her family who come from West Virginia.  They take similar pride in calling themselves Mountaineers.

In other words, I've been exposed to many inside and passionate perspectives on this series of events.

Emotional response spawned from emotional Marquette win

To begin with, there's differing perspectives on how the game went down.

Those on the Marquette side will tell you the emotion comes from persevering from the team's own transgressions committed before the game - three starters missing the first half on a suspension Williams doled out for violating team rules.

Marquette fell 15 points behind West Virginia before Darius Johnson-Odom, Junior Cadougan and Vander Blue came back after halftime and turned the double-digit deficit into a 61-60 triumph.

To be sure, that evoked incredible passionate and joyful response from Marquette's side of things.

The Mountaineer perspective, of course, involved a response that's just as passionate, but on the other side of the ledger.

"We don't play a whole game," Huggins told the Daily Antheneium (WVU's student newspaper) after the game.

"We take plays off. When they run the ball at you, and you can't get back and stop them, you're not going to win."

Seconds after the game, there's your palette of emotions.

Buzz's two-step triggered powder keg

Then add Buzz Williams starting his dance that's a bit of a tradition of his after a big Marquette victory.

ESPN television cameras took video as he did what's often referred to as a two-step celebration dance in the middle of the court, right by the WVU logo and about 25 yards away from the West Virginia students section.

As of Monday morning, more than 243,000 people clicked on the YouTube video of the incident.

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He did it to the song "Country Roads," co-written and performed by John Denver in the early 1970's.

After taking ownership of mistake on national television, Williams spoke later in a press conference, saying he was dancing to a song he enjoys because it reflects his country roots that happen to be thousands of miles from Morgantown, WV.

"How I grew up, it was really in the country and that was one of my favorite songs growing up," Williams said to everyone who attended his postgame press conference.

As someone who has followed Marquette's program from far before Williams' tenure as head coach, and someone who has witnessed his background, beliefs and character in action, I believe him when he says that.

He has proven to be a man of integrity over the years since he took over for Tom Crean, so like many around Brewtown - particularly Marquette alums - I take him at his word.

However, Williams' critical misunderstanding was that he didn't understand the depth the song has, not only at that university, but in the state of West Virginia.

"Country Roads," unofficial West Virginia anthem, evokes great passion in underrated state

My own first exposure to the depth of passion people in West Virginia have about that song came about five years ago.

My wife and I were meeting with someone when the song came over the radio.

It seemed at that moment as if people there just stopped and took time to sing along and enjoy it.

Many people, if not most, who call West Virginia home would call that song the state's unofficial anthem.

It's even played twice during big WVU athletic events.

The West Virginia Mountaineers' marching band plays it during home football and basketball games, and the John Denver version traditionally blares over loudspeakers at both Mountaineer Field after football games and the West Virginia Coliseum after basketball games.

The song brings out the same level of pride for people in West Virginia as the Mountaineers do - a chance for that state to receive positive national recognition.

Often that push for uplifting reinforcement comes in the face of the unfair stereotypes West Virginia often gets from the grand majority of Americans who haven't been there (unlike yours truly), that the state houses a bunch of unsophisticated country bumpkins that the rest of the world might call "bush league" or worse.

(It's not like Milwaukee and Wisconsin don't get that stereotype of being behind the times or not-so-cosmopolitan.  You can cite Milwaukee being called "Bushville" during the 1957 World Series against the New York Yankees, or the national media panning Milwaukee for how the city organized and held the 2002 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.)

In the case of the song, it's about the natural beauty and warmth of the people - something I have often personally experienced in my travels there.

Those are things that West Virginians take incredible pride in.  They also take pride in the Mountaineers, who have made it a regular tradition to compete for, if not reach, BCS bowl games and Final Fours on the only national sports stages the state gets (save Marshall University, a high-mid-major football and basketball program).

But unless you live in West Virginia, have lived in West Virginia, travel to West Virginia (which most people in our nation don't make it a point to do) or are close to someone from West Virginia, it's hard to fathom those passions.

Though Williams reportedly knew "Country Roads" was a postgame tradition at WVU, he probably had no perspective on the depth of those passions.

Williams discovered them rather quickly, as in the midst of an already emotional series of events, he started dancing on what became an unperceived but real powder keg.

As Williams experienced the boos, catcalls, angry epithets and items thrown from the West Virginia students section (with one projectile hitting ESPN color commentator Bill Raftery), Buzz knew he boo-booed.

Angry section of intelligent students didn't think, or know of, Buzz's roots

At the same time, those who delivered the cat-calls, pointed fingers and thrown items probably were not exposed to Buzz's postgame tradition, knowledge of his own country roots.

I'm not so sure that most of the students in that section have seen video of Buzz doing his postgame victory dances.

In the same emotional moment that caused Buzz to do his dance without perceiving the insult people would take to it, those students probably didn't remember Buzz's country background or know of the  genuine good guy-ness that works alongside his disciplinarian ways.

In one sense, I can completely understand the passion and joy that brought on the dance moves and caused Williams' a lack of awareness that brought on.

I can also understand the lack of thought processing that happens when you believe someone is insulting a state heritage which you take pride in, and many in the rest of the country unfairly ridicules - the thought process that certainly went through the minds of both the specific West Virginia fans who angrily retorted at Williams and those in general who took offense to his dancing.

But know one thing about West Virginia students.  Perhaps they don't come from Harvard, but 99% of them or more are not chair-burners.

They attend a major American university.  Just like most large state schools, there are probably plenty of future scientists and Fortune 500 executives in that student body - and maybe one of those who vehemently expressed their anger might find themselves in that privileged position in the future.

There have been much worse reactions from student sections after losses and opponent' actions than how particular members of the Mountaineers' student section behaved.  Give them credit for not letting the exploding powder keg turn into an all-out melee.

Misunderstandings shadow good sides of both sides

What is all this that happened over the weekend?  Simple human nature.  Unintended insults.

I'm glad Williams immediately apologized in a very public forum, a forum that those who threw insults, epithets and objects at Williams probably will never have the chance to have.

But let's put a few misnomers about the people involved to rest.

1) Buzz Williams is a genuine, caring guy who backs up what he believes.  To paraphrase Billy Joel, he's only human and should be allowed to make his share of mistakes.  I still think that with the allowance for occasional brain fart, he still represents the brainy, caring community of Marquette University very well.

2) The people who got angry at Williams - both the student section members and those West Virginia fans who were offended - are not backwoods hicks who spend their days drinking the moonshine John Denver cites in "Country Roads," but for the most part, classy, friendly, warm-hearted people who are eager to share the good things about where they are from with the rest of America.

Neither side showed their best side Friday night.

To those on either side of this debate, don't let that create a misunderstanding in you and let your forget the good sides of Buzz Williams and Mountaineers students, or of both the fine state of West Virginia and a special univerity called Marquette University.