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Morgantown, West Virginia – What a joy it is to get to watch two proud West Virginians dominate opposing offenses for the Mountaineers! All players on the team become de facto West Virginians after playing for our state, but to see native West Virginians play for the state that they grew up in and love, it’s magical.
It’s a really big deal that Darius and Dante Stills are Mountaineers. Like, a really big deal. They are the role models that all young athletes in West Virginia today should look up to. Educators throughout the state should be teaching about them during class. Schools should have posters of them hanging in the hallways. They grew up in the state as Mountaineer fans, they were profoundly successful throughout their junior high and high school careers, and then they decided to stay home and play college football at West Virginia University. They literally could have gone anywhere in the country to play football but they stayed home. They did it the right way and they should be celebrated for that.
You tell me who will have a greater impact on today’s youth and the future of West Virginia: Darius and Dante Stills or…Chuck Yeager? The Stills brothers or…Mary Lou Retton? This might be hard to grasp and it may seem like hyperbole but it’s not. While Retton and Yeager may have more national/international fame, neither have done as much for the state of West Virginia as the Stills brothers.
Darius and Dante Stills are homegrown elite talents that have made a real impact on West Virginia University, which is frankly unheard of in our state. The fact that they both chose to play in Morgantown when they had offers-galore from other universities is an enormous achievement not just for them but for the state of West Virginia.
The Stills brothers have tremendous expectations on them, but whether they live up to all of the preseason hype and awards, they are real trailblazers. They have shown West Virginia’s in-state talent that you can stay home and be successful while leading WVU to success. Darius and Dante are likely a very big reason that the Mountaineers landed in-state talents Zach Frazier, Sean Martin and Wyatt Milum.
When the Mountaineers take the field on Saturday, West Virginia fans should really appreciate that two homegrown young men that have done it the right way will line up on the defensive line because we may never see anything like this ever again.
Cover Photo by: FOTOSBYFRENCHIE
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