While I regularly pretend to know nothing about football with comments like “is that the sport with the oblong ball?,” I occasionally give myself away as a football fan, even as I deplore its undue importance to higher education.

Today I want to go on record as being a Marshall University football fan who is pleased with the hiring of “Doc” Holliday as the new head coach, even as I note the absurdity of a $600,000 per year salary for teaching young men how to hang on to an oblong ball.  (Having said that, hanging on to an oblong ball can be quite a feat.  Just ask any Mountaineer fan who watched the Auburn game.)

Besides having a cool nickname, Doc Holliday seems to have made favorable impressions virtually everywhere.  Yet despite this, I’m reading vitriolic comments from both the Marshall University and West Virginia University faithful attacking the choice because of this local boy’s toils for West Virginia University or his new-found allegiance.

Unless they are playing Marshall University, I cheer for the Mountaineers.  Unless they are playing West Virginia University, most of my Mountaineer friends cheer for the Herd.  I really don’t understand the ill will of some fans toward the other school.

This is one MU and WVU fan who wishes Doc Holliday the best.

PS: For those of you wondering from whence the title of this post comes, those words are reputed to have been the last ever uttered by the other, only slightly-more-infamous “Doc” Holliday.