Gould competing for WVU Fan Hall of Fame

Gould
ELKINS — Local native Stanley Gould is among eight die-hard West Virginia University fans who are battling it out to become a member of the prestigious Ultimate Mountaineer Fan Hall of Fame.
Voting for the first round of the contest started on Wednesday and will conclude on Monday. Gould, who is seeded No. 7 in the bracket-style competition, is facing off against the Braxton family, who are the No. 2 seed.
The tournament features a total of three rounds and at the end of competition, the winner will receive a WVU shopping spree along with the opportunity to meet WVU and College Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Huggins.
Gould, who is a resident of the Elkins Rehabilitation and Care Center in Elkins, is looking for help from the local community. Votes for Gould can be made at go.wvu.edu/umfvote. Voting will continue through each round until the tourney concludes with the finals on Feb. 24 at 4 p.m.
The tourney field is made up of Ultimate Mountaineer Fan winners from the past 10 years. Gould earned that honor back in 2012, when he was selected as part of Mountaineer Nation Day. With that victory, Gould received a pair of game day passes, two suite tickets in the alumni box, and parking for the Kansas game.
He also received a WVU prize pack consisting of a Commemorative WVU Orange Bowl helmet and football, an official 2012 WVU Fan Shirt, and other officially licensed products.
“In 2012, Stanley was selected as the first Ultimate Mountaineer Fan,” said Donna Jones, director of activities at ERCC. “They (WVU) have taken all the Ultimate Fan winners up to 2022 and he will be competing against them to be put into the Hall of Fame. Stanley is very excited and I would like to encourage the folks in our community to go online and vote for him because every vote counts.”
Gould has been a WVU fan his entire life and is especially fond of Huggins and the Mountaineer basketball team. Gould is a former basketball coach himself, previously leading the charge at Valley Head School as the grade school coach. He once missed a friend’s wedding to watch a WVU athletic event.
“There is no bigger WVU fan than Stanley. He’s a true Mountaineer through-and-through,” Jones said. “If he would win, he would get to go down to a basketball game in Morgantown and meet Coach Huggins and some of the players. So he’s very excited that he may get the opportunity to do that.”
Gould’s room at ERCC looks more like a museum than his living quarters, featuring a tremendous amount of WVU memorabilia.
Gould’s favorite facility at West Virginia is the WVU Coliseum, but his top choice for an event that he attended was at Mountaineer Field in 1988, when he watched WVU defeat Penn State. His favorite Mountaineer player, past or present, is Major Harris.