MORGANTOWN - In Boone County, they're calling it "The Pond Fork Defense."
With pride.
The WVU Mountaineer defense, that is.
It's being called that in honor of Van's favorite son, West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson.
"Yep, I heard that," Gibson, aka "Gibby" said on Tuesday. "Matt Borman, one of our associate ADs, texted me that. I had no idea, but heard about it this morning."
And?
"It's good," Gibson said. "Obviously, they're paying attention. It's good they're proud of something we're accomplishing here, putting a name on it and having some fun. It's good to see."
It's especially good to see in light of the hard times Boone Country is currently experiencing. The 10-mile stretch near Wharton once held more coal mines than any area in West Virginia. Now, however, there are idle railroad cars. There is poverty. There are laid-off or unemployed coal miners.
Back in June, WVU basketball coach Bob Huggins took his basketball team down to hand out donated food. Cars lined up to 85 North to receive the relief. In all, 2,000 meals were given out that day.
Yet Gibson is the homeboy, the shining light for Van. And he's trying to give back as well. In July, he presented a check of $25,000 to a Boone Memorial Hospital building project while in Madison for a Mountaineer golf outing and pig roast.
And he's apparently not done.
"We're working on some things right now to do a toy drive and Christmas dinner," he said. "We're still going through some things here to get that straightened out. Got a lot of people who are going to help me out with that in December. Hopefully, it will get off the ground. Right now we've got about $25,000 raised and hopefully we'll get more."
Gibson said it's tough to see what's happening in his former neck of the woods.
"It's just sad right now," he said. "When I was going through there the coal mines were booming in the 1980s. We had great facilities [at Van High]. We had a great following in athletics. Just great people in the community. It's a special place and I hate to see it the way it is - people not working and struggling - right now."
So he's trying to help - as well as coach defense for the No. 10 Mountaineers.
"I grew up in the area and they're struggling right now," Gibson said. "Coal is down and they're hurting for money. Just being in a position to be able to help out my hometown is something I wanted to do. I wanted to do something special. Helping the hospital is good because of how hard these guys worked their whole lives. If they need medical attention, hopefully this helps. Glad to be able to do it. Glad I could."
And, yes, by the way, he still hears from his Boone County friends.
"A bunch," Gibson said. "I still have great friends there. My brother, Chuck, still lives there. He and his family were up for the last [TCU] game and I got to spend some time with them and it was good. But I keep in touch with a lot of people from down there."
So, what, you may ask, is Pond Fork?
"Pond Fork is the stream that flows through there," Gibson said. "It runs through Madison, Van, Bim, Wharton, Barrett, all those little towns."
It's a stream that's stocked by the DNR with trout upstream for 6 miles to the Wharton Bridge. So it's used for fishing. It's used for floating.
And, now, apparently, stopping Big 12 offenses.
Contact Mitch Vingle at 304-348-4827 or mitchvingle@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @MitchVingle.