Posted on 12/30/2002 7:03:59 PM PST by GeneD
Gov. Bob Wise on Monday demanded an apology from the University of Virginia because a pep band lampooned his state's rural image during the halftime show of a college football bowl game.
Saturday's Continental Tire Bowl pitted the University of Virginia against West Virginia University. At halftime, Virginia's student-run pep band staged a parody of The Bachelor," with a male Virginia student choosing between two female contestants.
The contestant said to be from West Virginia wore blue overalls and pigtails, had a talent for square dancing and declared a dream to move to Beverly Hills, Calif. -- a reference to "The Beverly Hillbillies."
"This type of performance merely perpetuates the unfounded stereotypes that we in West Virginia are fighting so hard to overcome," Wise said in a letter to University of Virginia President John T. Casteen.
University officials said Casteen would issue a statement Tuesday. Adam Lorentson, the band's director, did not return telephone messages Monday evening.
Leonard Sandridge, the university's executive vice president and chief operating officer, called the performance "inappropriate" and said it offended fans of both teams.
Sandridge declined to say what, if any, sanctions would be imposed on the pep band. In previous years, officials have barred the band from marching at halftime of home games.
Ken Haines, the bowl game's executive director, said the pep band is not welcome at future Tire Bowls.
He said he approved a five-paragraph script band officials presented before the game, but "their performance was more embellished. The execution by the pep band was not in the same tone that we were led to believe."
Virginia won Saturday's game, 48-22.
The pep band poked fun at West Virginia at halftime of the last Virginia-West Virginia football game, in 1985. That performance, a parody of "Family Feud," included derogatory references to indoor plumbing and birth control.
Happy New Year, dude...MUD
Amen! All we need to do is rewrite the tax laws (go, Rob Capehart! see www.wvppc.org) and institute some tort reform, and I think "almost heaven" will be even closer to perfection.
I'm sorry, but you ARE Appalachians, as much as they are. (WVU happens to be closer to Pittsburgh and Cleveland than the Deliverance types you seem to believe make up most of the state.)
But then, I guess I shouldn't expect an actual geography course to have ever made up so much as a semester of a UVa student's academic past.
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