The Inaugural Continental Tire Bowl

Because I don't have anything interesting to talk about today, I'll take you on a journey back in time...all the way back to December of 2002. Whew...ancient history...

Anyway, 2002 marked a major turnaround for Coach Rodriguez and Mountaineer football. The Mountaineers finished the season 9-3 and received an invitation to participate in the first Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte, N.C. to face the reviled Virginia Cavaliers. A sellout crowd of 73,535 watched on as Virginia STOMPED the Mountaineers by a score of 48-22. So, I won't focus on the game...instead, I will talk about the night before the game...and the trip to The Waffle House.

On December 27, I embarked, along with Justin and Robbie, for the great State of North Carolina. It was supposed to be a pretty simple trip...take I-79 to US 19 and then follow I-77 to Charlotte. No big deal...except about 40,000 other people decided to make the same trip. Shortly after entering Virginia, we were stuck in traffic. And I mean standstill traffic. It was miserable...

What would typically be a 6 1/2 hour journey turned into a 9 hour trek. Not good...but, we finally made it to Charlotte. But, by the time we got there, all the major celebrations of the night were complete and downtown was pretty dead. We did walk to streets for awhile and happened to run into some people from Fairmont and Morgantown and that at least passed some time.

Around 2:00 a.m. or so we headed back to the hotel. Kinda hungry, we decided to venture across the 6 lane highway to a Waffle House across the road. Ah, Waffle House...the 24-hour beacon of hope to the late night traveler. Such a clean and pleasant restaurant...or not.

You would think there wouldn't be a lot of people out in the middle of the night. You'd be wrong. Waffle House was packed...I mean standing room only. We happened to get the last empty table but this place was packed. The chef...yeah, he looked like he just got out of the prison cafeteria. Maybe this was his community service. The waitresses...not much better. We ordered without incident and got out food. Others had to wait as the cook refused to make more food. His words: "I'm not doing any more cooking until you women get back there and wash them dishes. I'm done until we get some more dishes." To which the women had a few choice words but they washed the dishes.

Safety...not a concern. This Waffle House had security. I'm not talking like mall security...I'm talking a fully armed security guard who was constantly checking out people...waiting to take action. Oh yeah, I feel great in a place that has to have armed security.

The restroom...I didn't go in but I heard it was, ummmm, I'm just glad I didn't have to go in there. The rest of the patrons...well, let's just say we were in the minority in the place.

But, I guess at the end all that matters is how the food was. So, how was the food? Not bad. That's all I've got to say about that.

So, my best memory from the Continental Tire Bowl...The Waffle House.