Latest news with #WVU
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
West Virginia football lands recruit commit named SirPaul ‘Jesus in Cleats' Cheeks
The West Virginia Mountaineers have officially added the greatest name in the history of their football recruiting. SirPaul Cheeks committed to WVU on Tuesday. Even better, he goes by the nickname "Jesus in Cleats." Advertisement Potential blasphemy aside, that's pretty sweet. SirPaul is a running back from Chesterfield Varina High School in Virginia. He's 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds, and his other finalists were Virginia Tech, Kentucky, Pittsburgh and Minnesota. In his junior season, Cheeks had 1,495 all-purpose yards and 18 touchdowns to go along with six interceptions. Cheeks also runs the 100-meter dash, with a personal best of 10.63 seconds.
Dominion Post
a day ago
- Sport
- Dominion Post
Defensive line Edward Vesterinen calls WVU home and didn't want to leave, boosting room of fresh faces
MORGANTOWN — Once Rich Rodriguez was announced as the new head coach of West Virginia, players on Neal Brown's 2024 roster had a decision to make. Leave in the portal and start over, or take a chance on Rodriguez with a lot of unknowns to follow. Defensive tackle Edward Vesterinen was one of the many players forced to make the difficult decision. However, for him, it wasn't too hard. 'After the season ended, I was uncertain on what was going to happen,' Vesterinen said at Big 12 Media Day. 'What am I going to do? I gave it a chance. I stayed for the spring, and I was happy with the spring, so I decided to stay.' The spring wasn't the only factor leading to Vesterinen staying. Vesterinen also enjoys the small town and nature. He mentioned how he enjoys Monongahela River, Cheat Lake and Cooper's Rock. Vesterinen is from Helsinki, Finland, which is over 4,000 miles from West Virginia. There's not much recruiting of football from Finland, so the only Power Four offer Vesterinen received was from WVU back in 2020. His other offer was from UMass. 'I wasn't heavily recruited coming up from high school in Finland,' Vesterinen said. 'West Virginia was my only Power Four offer, so I took it. It ended up being the best decision of my life.' Now, Vesterinen becomes one of the only starters on WVU's defensive line to return for the 2025 season. Defensive coordinator Zac Alley's focus for the defensive line is to create more sacks and tackles for loss, which was a weakness under Brown. Vesterinen leads Alley's attack, and when Vesterinen heard Alley was chosen as defensive coordinator, it gave Vesterinen even more reason to stay. 'He's definitely a mastermind on the defense,' Vesterinen said. 'When I was talking to Rich Rod in January, and he was telling me that we were getting a SEC defensive coordinator, that kind of got my hopes up. I was getting really excited. Once we landed Zac Alley, and now we've been through spring ball, and I see how he runs his defense. I'm really excited.' To help Alley's goal of generating more sacks, Rodriguez and the DC went to work in the transfer portal. In the fall, Rodriguez made a splash and landed UTSA pass rusher Jimmori Robinson. Robinson had 10.5 sacks in 2025, which was eighth in all of college football. Most of the players ahead of him are now in the NFL. In the spring, Rodriguez added more depth to the defensive line with Missouri's Eddie Kelly Jr. and Incarnate Word veteran Devin Grant. Vesterinen said it's taking some time learning all the new additions to the D-line room. 'There are so many guys that there aren't really many clicks, like, friend groups anymore,' Vesterinen said. 'Everybody's new and everybody has to make friends. That many new people creates an atmosphere of getting to know each other better.' Despite it only being a couple of weeks since the new transfers, who were added in April, Vesterinen was able to list pretty much every player in his room. Defensive line coach William Green spends the most time with the line and is witnessing the gelling of the new group. Green has his work cut out for him. There are high expectations for the defensive line, especially with the addition of highly anticipated Robinson, set to make an immediate impact. Just two months before the season, it sounds like the defensive line group is in good shape, especially with WVU veteran Vesterinen back for 2025. 'I'm really happy for the D-line group,' Vesterinen said. 'Especially the new defensive line coach, William Green. I would call him a technician. He's a very developmental coach, who I'm very happy to have.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
SpaceTrek engineering camp fires up at WVU
MORGANTOWN, (WBOY) — A new engineering camp at West Virginia University kicked off over the weekend, giving 24 high school students hands-on experience with the field of aerospace engineering. As described on the program's website, 'SpaceTrek is a residential summer program in space systems engineering for young women entering 9th—12th grade or entering college as a freshman.' Specifically, the program focuses on students in Appalachia and got its start at Morehead State University, but this year the program is making its debut at West Virginia University. David Martinelli, an engineering research professor at WVU and director of the SpaceTrek program there, said that exposing students to new challenges and environments is one of the main aspects of the program, particularly for students from smaller towns or those who are unfamiliar with engineering. However, Martinelli believes that just because a student might not have an established interest in engineering doesn't mean they are less capable of learning more. 'The technical fields are available for just about anyone, and universities are well equipped to meet students who have a reasonable aptitude in math and science, but meet them where they're at, and take them to the point of being able to perform in the workplaces in engineering,' Martinelli said. Alex Rhodes, a teaching assistant professor at WVU who is helping to run the SpaceTrek program, said he wants the students to learn that being an engineer is not as unachievable as it might seem. EXCLUSIVE: An up close look at the Green Bank Telescope 'I think the biggest learning outcome of this is to show students in high school that […] they're capable of doing these aerospace engineering jobs,' Rhodes said. 'These are within reach, something that they can handle.' During the camp, students will learn skills like soldering and wiring as well as other things like teamwork and planning. On Thursday, the students will put their skills to use and build a series of small weather sensors called 'CricketSats,' which will be launched via weather balloons and monitored remotely by students. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
WVU professor expands awareness STEM awareness with new space camp
MORGANTOWN — Next week, the skies over Morgantown will be filled with balloons carrying tiny satellites aloft in a brand new summer camp at West Virginia University. Beginning Saturday, 22 high schools from West Virginia and Kentucky will attend a weeklong program called SpaceTrek, and immerse themselves in aerospace engineering, satellite technology and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education. The program will take place at WVU's Statler College of Engineering, and is designed for young women entering grades 9-12 or their freshman year of college. Three students from East Fairmont High will be in the program. The program also offers a preview of the college experience, with students staying in the dorms throughout. The program is an offshoot of Moorehead State University's program. While Moorehead's program is primarily designed to bring more women into STEM, David Martinelli, professor of civil engineering and director of the West Virginia Small Satellite Center, envisions expanding SpaceTrek to focus on the needs of Appalachians. 'I believe a boy in McDowell County is more disadvantaged than a girl in Morgantown,' Martinelli said. 'So, we do want to see this for boys. We think the key variable is not gender, but economic status and being captive to areas. They just have no awareness at all of all the things we have at the university.' Isabella Kudyba, 23, one of the program's student instructors, said this inaugural SpaceTrek was focused on young women because STEM is a heavily male-dominated field. While she's had a good overall experience as a woman in STEM, she once took a class where she was one of two women in a class of 40. Kudyba herself attended similar camps when she was younger, and her high school had a curriculum with engineering classes funded by a grant called Project Lead the Way. Kudyba is working on her masters in mechanical engineering. She said engineering day at the STEM camps at Penn State-Fayette was her favorite day and she enjoyed talking to the professor who led it. 'This camp is going to be a really good camp for them because the problems we're solving are really technical,' Kudyba said. 'I didn't learn how to solder in high school, I didn't know that much about circuit design, and I certainly never launched a weather balloon. The fact it's a week long camp they really get to dive into these problems and fully learn all of this stuff.' Students will spend a week on campus, taking foundational lessons in electronics, the electromagnetic wave spectrum, the atmosphere and other space connected disciplines before applying them toward the construction of a Cricket Satellite that can be launched by balloon. On Thursday, students will track their balloons and take radio frequency readings, noting how the frequency changes as the balloon climbs six kilometers into the atmosphere. 'The kid gloves are off a little bit,' Student Instructor Clarus Goldsmith said. 'It's not like, we've made this perfect little kit for you that will work beautifully and it's all Legos, and you do the blocks to code it. No, you're doing the circuit boards yourself. You're soldering all of it. We're going to explain each bit of how it works.' Goldsmith, 28, just finished doctoral work in robotics that looked at how insect legs worked, and then applied that knowledge to the design of robots that use legs for locomotion. Goldsmith said by the numbers at WVU, there are about 20 women in the Mechanical Engineering Department. They said it's important to start talking to young women in high school about STEM and going into STEM. Even then might be too late, since some women might have already made up their mind that they are bad at subjects like math. Martinelli said they're working on figuring out how to make SpaceTrek more modular, so it can be rolled out to other campuses and demographics. His goal is to make sure students all throughout Appalachia have an awareness that STEM can be a career path for them. West Virginia as a whole has a low college attendance rate, and Martinelli hopes to target the counties with a 20% college attendance or lower for the program. 'I'm a college professor and I'm the first to admit college is not for everyone,' he said. 'But I believe it should be higher than 20%. We think there are some college worthy K-12 students that don't get presented with the idea and pathway. We want to meet students where they are and get them across those first key barriers.'
Dominion Post
4 days ago
- General
- Dominion Post
Melvin Rexroad Jr.
Mr. Melvin Rexroad Jr., 101, of Morgantown, passed away peacefully Thursday, July 3, 2025. He was born August 13, 1923, to the late Ruth Marie Brand and Melvin was predeceased by his wife of 63 years, Helen Keffer up in Easton, Mel graduated from University High School in 1941 and began his studies at West Virginia University before being drafted in served with the 312th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Corps across the Southwestern Pacific. At the conclusion of World War II, Mel returned to WVU, met Helen, and graduated with a degree in engineering in 1949. While at school, he was a member of the golf team and Phi Kappa Alpha graduation, he joined the family business, Rexroad Heating and Cooling, presiding as president until his retirement in active citizen of Morgantown and an avid WVU sports fan, he loved being a member of the Morgantown community. He will be remembered for his love of his wife, Helen, and the rest of his family; his deep care for others; and his quick sense of is survived by his daughter, Paige Rexroad Canfield and husband William Bradford Canfield of McLean, Va.; granddaughter, Sumner Bradley Canfield of Nashville, Tenn.; sisters- in-law, Nancy Morrison of Atlanta, Ga., and Mary Lee Leiser (Bill) of Doylestown, Pa.; as well as numerous nieces and family wishes to thank Mel's caregivers for their generosity of spirit, and his hospice team from WV Caring for their loving lieu of flowers, donations may be made, in memory of Helen and Mel Rexroad, to Greater Love Family Outreach Ministries, P.O. Box 1181, Morgantown, WV 26507; or WV Caring, P.O. Box 760, Arthurdale, WV for a private graveside service are being handled by Hastings Funeral Home. Send condolences at
