Published: March 29, 2009 03:48 am      

Mountaineer gender-neutral WVU mascot

Rebecca Durst about to become second woman to have that role

MORGANTOWN — According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the word mountaineer is defined as:

(1.) A native or inhabitant of a mountainous region.

(2.) A person who climbs a mountain for sport.

It is a gender-neutral word.

West Virginia University’s mascot is a Mountaineer. The school says “the mascot symbolizes the proud and rich heritage of the Mountain State and its people.”

It is a gender-neutral mascot.

Rebecca Durst is not gender neutral.

She is a 20-year-old woman about to enter nursing school.

She is also the new Mountaineer, the second woman since the tradition of having a Mountaineer mascot started in 1927.

What’s the big deal?



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The idea came out nowhere on Aug. 30, 2008, opening day of the football season. West Virginia was pounding on Villanova.

Rebecca Durst and her friend, Caroline Park, were among thousands of yellow-shirted “Maniacs” in the upper deck at Milan Puskar Stadium.

“The only sober ones, I think,” she would remember.

At some point during the game, she turned to Park and said, “I really want to be down on the field. I want to be part of something bigger. Maybe I can be the Mountaineer.”

It is one thing to have an idea. It’s another thing to act on it.

You need something to move you forward, especially when the odds are stacked against you.

What pushed Rebecca Durst over the edge and made her decide to enter this male-minus-one world?

“My love for the state and for the university pushed me over the edge,” she said.

OK, she couldn’t grow a beard, but other than that, what was there that would work against her becoming the Mountaineer?



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The moment of truth came at the final home basketball game of the regular season, WVU against Louisville.

Four students were finalists in the competition for the Mountaineer mascot, including the incumbent.

Nerves were on edge.

Before the announcement, Durst had spoken with Natalie Tennant, the first and then only woman to hold the post, being named in 1990 and having parlayed it over the years into becoming a TV anchorwoman and the West Virginia secretary of state.

No one complained about her gender as she pursued those jobs, but she’d been harassed and ridiculed during her reign as Mountaineer.

“She warned me,” Durst related as she sat at a seat in the Coliseum, a physical education class going on down on the floor below, the scoreboard proudly displaying the tradition Mountaineer mascot — a male, but one without a beard — high above.

“Even though a lot of time has passed there are still a lot of traditional fans,” Tennant had told her. Some won’t accept a Mountaineer who is a woman.”

Could that really be, almost 20 years later? Two women had been national secretaries of state. A woman running for president of the United States was now accepted as the norm. There were women giants of industry, women astronauts, women sports announcers and combat soldiers.

Surely the world was ready for another woman Mountaineer.

Her name was announced as the winner.

Most fans cheered.

Some booed.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.



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Rebecca Durst grew up in Point Pleasant, a West Virginian through and through.

She says she first became aware of the Mountaineer when Tennant held the post even though she was only a toddler.

She grew up “a huge WVU fan,” which one would suggest is one of the main qualifications for the job.

She got it from her family, although they didn’t get up to Morgantown often for games.

“One of the reasons I wanted to be the Mountaineer was my grandfather had never been to a basketball game at the Coliseum,” she said. “What better way to get him here than if I were the Mountaineer.”

Rest assured that Sonny White will be Morgantown bound next basketball season.

In some ways, all the fuss about her gender is absurd. Her grandmother, who died when she was 12 years old, passed down a .243 rifle to her.

Talk about someone living the Mountaineer tradition.

“She went deer hunting, squirrel hunting, rabbit hunting,” Durst said. “I was too young to go with her before she died.”

But she was hooked on the life.

“I’ve gotten some rabbits,” she said. “I don’t have the patience to deer hunt.”

But she’s comfortable with a rifle in her hands — “It’s a muzzle-loading rifle, not a musket,” she said of the Mountaineer’s firearm – and in the hands of others.

While the second amendment is currently under siege, at least in the eyes of the gun lobby, she has her own thoughts on the matter.

“It’s something the mountaineers had to survive,” she said. “A rifle was part of their daily life. Guns can be used responsibly.”

On April 17, the day before the annual Gold and Blue scrimmage, the Mountaineer’s rifle will be passed to her at a traditional ceremony. The next day she becomes the Mountaineer.



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The Mountaineer has great meaning to her.

She has gone over to the Mountainlair since being elected and stood at the statue that welcomes students and visitors.

“I looked at him and thought, ‘We’re pretty much partners in crime, buddy,’” she said.

Asked what the Mountaineer symbolizes to her, she answers:

“I think of it as symbolizing strength and endurance. It looks like it has been through a lot, but has come through with a positive view. It looks like he is standing on top of a mountain, and the view is pretty good from there.”

Rebecca Durst wants to do more than just be a symbol.

“I want to give the Mountaineer a voice,” she said.

This will not be a feminist voice, if it is a feminine voice.

“I will put every ounce of energy into being the Mountaineer,” she said. “I’m a passionate person about every endeavor I take on.”

She’s taken on a big endeavor, one that will eat into her time, maybe even make her spend an extra year in nursing school, but it’s worth it to her.

And if there are boos, well, she has an answer

“I remember what Jarrett Brown said when they booed him during the Syracuse game,” Durst said, referring to the WVU quarterback on the day he filled in for Patrick White.

That would be “some (fans) are passionate. Some are straight knuckleheads,” adding there were far more passionate fans than knuckleheads.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.