Rich Stevens is a Wheeling native and is a 26 year veteran to journalism with special emphasis on WV and OH sports. He now shares his talents in the secondary education field in the Kanawha Valley area.I try to shape my opinions by logic and common sense, but even the most hardened objectively thinking human can unknowingly have a skewed angle of reality.
I think I have handled my responsibility reasonably well as a West Virginia small-town sports scribe (let’s face it, they’re all small towns in the Mountain State), whose passion always has been high school athletics.
I’m taking a head-first dive into teaching, but have found it is increasingly difficult to separate myself from a career that has shaped my personality and attitude toward sports on a local and national level.
A 13-year stint in Wheeling as a sportswriter and sports editor at the Intelligencer and another 13 years in Charleston as a sports writer and assistant sports editor at the Daily Mail have provided me with a unique look at life near each end of the state.
There’s Wheeling, a two-time state capital that is known for the Suspension Bridge, Capitol Music Hall and Mail Pouch Tobacco.
Then there is Charleston, the reigning state capital’s largest city that boasts the Capitol Complex’s golden dome that has been the permanent government seat since wrestling it once and for all from Wheeling in 1877.
Nothing has puzzled me more than the pointless tug-of-war that has occurred between the state’s former and current capital cities, particularly in the world of prep sports.
Make no mistake, this civil conflict has been ongoing since long before the state high school football championship games were moved from Charleston to Wheeling in 1994.
But, let’s not discount the impact this event has had on the relationship between two of the larger cities in the state.
