A familiar voice weighs in on the Backyard Brawl

Fourteen years after poking fun at West Virginia fans, Don Ireland still isn't sorry.

"I made a couple of fun little comments, good-natured in humor," said Ireland, the Pitt football public-address announcer from 1984-99.

Ireland gained national attention during 1994's Pitt-West Virginia football game -- aka the Backyard Brawl -- after making what many considered to be disparaging remarks over the Pitt Stadium loud speakers about Mountaineers fans.

Among them:

• "Attention fans: There is a tractor in the parking lot with its lights on. License plate EIEIO."

• "This is a reminder to all fans that smoking is not permitted inside the stadium. That includes cigarettes, cigars and corncob pipes."

He's still fondly remembered by Pitt fans as "the EIEIO guy."

"I always looked at it as kind of what you would do with your brother or cousins -- kind of rib each other in a good-natured way," said Ireland, who grew up in Turtle Creek but now lives in Denver. "I always announced with the rule that I was never gonna say anything that would get my mother or my pastor mad at me."

His mother and pastor didn't get angry.

But many West Virginia fans did, said Steve Douglas, president of the WVU alumni association.

"It hit a nerve," said Douglas, who was at the '94 game. "I wasn't offended. I thought it was funny. It's a part of the rivalry. What would it be without some good jokes• Of course, West Virginians have a hard time with our backwoods stereotypes."

Douglas said he did a double-take after Ireland's jokes.

"It was one of those things that you first heard it and said, 'What did I just hear?' and 'Wow, that guy really said that,' " he said.

Pitt Athletic Director Oval Jaynes wasn't amused, issuing an apology to West Virginia University officials.

Within a week, Ireland had resigned -- it was falsely reported that Pitt fired Ireland. But after two weeks of public outcry, the university offered him his job back, Ireland said.

"You can have fun to a point. You've got to be careful. West Virginia is very sensitive about being called 'country hicks,' " said Beano Cook, a former Pitt sports information director who is now an ESPN college football analyst. "He crossed the line a little bit, but ... He did it all in fun. He didn't do it to be vicious."

Ireland continued announcing football and four other Panthers sports until retiring for good in '99.

"I didn't just get 15 minutes of fame out of it," Ireland said. "Fourteen years later, we're still talking about it."

He saw hundreds of sporting events at Pitt. None was better than the annual Backyard Brawl, he said.

"Every year, you gotta look at the Backyard Brawl and say, 'Who really knows?' I want Pitt to win, but as history tells us it can get rather crazy," he said. "That's why it's one of the greatest rivalries in the nation. The fact that I was able to say a couple of little silly lines that still make people laugh and smile today, well, maybe I made the world one eyedrop of water better."

Additional Information:

101st Backyard Brawl

Who: Pitt vs. West Virginia

When: Noon today

Where: Heinz Field, North Side

Of note: The rivalry is the 14th oldest in the nation. Pitt stunned the No. 2 Mountaineers last season, 13-9, erasing their hopes of playing for the national championship. Pitt leads the series, 60-37-3.