MORGANTOWN — The two most lasting moments of Sunday evening’s Super Bowl were abnormally easy to identify.

First, was when the final second ticked off the clock and all America other than those from the metropolitan and suburban Philadelphia area were put out of their misery. This, of course, was truer in Kansas City, be it Missouri or Kansas, than elsewhere, but watching that game and its halftime show was an exercise in endurance.

And the other, which actually ranks first in the hearts of Americans everywhere, other than in Pittsburgh, was the Rocket mortgage company’s use of the song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in a television ad that included the 65,000 fans on hand in the New Orleans Superdome singing along karaoke style.

It was heartwarming, symbolic evidence that the song which has become as much a part of the image of West Virginia’s athletic program as is Jerry West himself, and with its inclusion in this it lifted what had been the state song into a national symbol of our country itself.

It was a gamble for the mortgage company to go behind the traditional parameters that define Super Bowl commercials, which in and of themselves have been national treasures for Mean Joe Greene flipping his Steelers’ jersey to a young fan in exchange for a cold Coca-Cola to Coke’s other memorable 1971 ad “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” ad.

No one knew how the Super Bowl crowd would react and there was deep discussion of the use of the ad up until two weeks before the game and the 15 extra seconds it ran was paid for by Rocket … But like Martin Luther King, the company had a dream of unifying a badly divided nation for at least a moment and felt the song best served that purpose.

“It is unprecedented, but because of the affection America holds for Take Me Home, Country Roads, that in itself is mitigating some of the risk,” said Jonathan Mildenhall, Rocket’s chief marketing officer in a recent interview. The ad was his baby, just as the song was John Denver’s, just as he sang it live 45 years ago at the opening game of Mountaineer Field in Morgantown.

Mildenhall has no ties to WVU or the state. He is from Leeds, England, went to college there before post-graduate study at Harvard. But like so many West Virginians, he knew the song to be a one-of-a-kind anthem to accomplish what he set out to do.

“We are using the Super Bowl as a moment of unity,” Mildenhall said before the Super Bowl. “Let’s be honest, ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ is one of very few songs, probably — I can only think of “Sweet Caroline’ — that when you play it anywhere in the world, everyone sings.”

It certainly is of interest that he would even dare put Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”, the song rival Pitt uses at its sporting events as a sort of 5 and 10-cent store substitute for “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, song that would give the Super Bowl that “moment of unity” he was looking for.

Had they done that, you surely would have heard from Erie, Pa., to Charlotte, N.C., the altered version of “Sweet Caroline” echoing from every West Virginia household as they tried to play it.

See, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is that unique classic that is both fun to listen to and fun to sing, it is as American as it can get and it is as down home as you can find anywhere.

The world was Mildenhall’s oyster when he went looking for the right number. He could have done a medley of Wilbert Harrison’s “Going to Kansas City”, Fats Domino’s “Walking to New Orleans” and Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom” but what was going to America together best was “Country Roads”:

Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain mama

Take me home, country roads

The song is more than a state song, more than a school song, more than West Virginia’s song. It is the world’s song.

A friend within the last year told me that he had been in Japan and requested that a Japanese band play “Country Roads” in a bar and they obliged without having to look it up. Truth is, it’s a favorite in karaoke bars there and has covers of the song across the world.

It worked to perfection, too.

This is what Mildenhall put forth on social media after the Super Bowl:

“To come out of a commercial break and see a stadium full of fans already owning your commercial, and interpreting it in their voice, was incredibly thrilling. Brands are so much more impactful when they tell great stories but also inspire people to act. It is just the start of how Rocket is going to become one of North America’s most respected and admired brands.”

And with it, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” will ride the rocket ship to fame and what better company than Rocket Mortgages, considering that Homer Hickam Jr. wrote the book turned movie “Rocket Boys” and that Chuck Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier and that less four months ago West Virginia’s Emily Calandrelli became the 100th woman to go into space.