"Let's Roll Out the Carpet!

Former West Virginia University coach Fred Schaus always enjoyed showmanship and he introduced one of college basketball’s great traditions in 1955 when the team began running out onto a gold and blue carpet during pregame player introductions.

The idea was passed along to Schaus by WVU fan and team supporter Alex Mumford, who was the director of marketing for the Wunda Weve Carpet Company in Greenville, S.C.

“I tried to do this and I tried to do that and the carpet was one of those things,” Schaus recalled in 2005, a few years before his death. “We were trying to sell tickets and if something extra could develop with the carpet, that would certainly fit into that mold.”

West Virginia University continued this tradition during the George King years in the early 1960s before the practice was discontinued in the late 1960s. Former Mountaineer player Gale Catlett revived the great tradition when he returned to West Virginia in 1978, and it has once again become a highlight attraction during pregame introductions at the WVU Coliseum when the public address announcer exclaims, “Let’s roll out the carpet and greet the Mountaineers!”