I remember the last time that Western Carolina University won a Southern Conference football game.
It was homecoming weekend in Cullowhee, and The Citadel was in town to play the Catamounts of WCU. The weather was absolutely miserable, maybe 40 degrees at kickoff, even though it was only mid October. In fact, sometime during the second half, it started to snow a little bit.
At this point, Western was still able to convince students to come out to the games. We were still kind of competitive, even though the head coach was a complete jerk as well as a tub of lard. I think he weighed at least 350 pounds. But that is irrelevant to him being a truly terrible football coach and recruiter. Either way, in the good ole days of 2009, WCU was not the joke that it is now in terms of fielding a football team. The Cats could be counted on to keep thinks close most of the time, and at least keep the student body distracted long enough to get outside on the weekends for a few hours.
The Citadel rolled into town, and I remember people talking around the parking lot where my friends and I were tailgating that we might actually win the game. The Citadel was having a down year, and WCU actually had a good chance at pulling out a victory.
Western went into halftime of the game down 10-0, and as soon as the marching band wrapped up their halftime show, the stands started to empty. This happens at every single WCU football game, and is one reason in my mind that our program cannot improve. Who wants to play at a school where the majority of the crowd is there to see a bunch of skinny kids act important for 15 minutes and then go home. The answer is nobody. Until the day that fans stay in their seats past halftime at WCU football games, they will never be good. But I digress.
For once in his life, Dennis Wagner gave a effective halftime speech or made the necessary adjustments at the midpoint of the football game. The Cats came out in the second half and put a whuppin on the cadets from the Citadel. Western shut their opponents out in the second half, and scored with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter to put the winning number, 14-10, on the board. I remember the final whistle blowing and jumping the railing onto the field along with what seemed like every student left in the stadium. Everybody ran onto the field to celebrate our first and last victory of the season. Since that day, October 17th 2009, Western has lost every Southern Conference football game it has competed in. 23 in a row.
It is hard to do anything 23 times in a row. 23 is a lot of times to do the same thing over and over again. But WCU has managed to hit the field in the SoCon and get beat 23 times in a row. It is so pathetic it almost makes you want to laugh to keep from crying about it.
Oh yea, I almost forgot: Go Cats
