The United States Men’s National Soccer Team brought “Take Me Home, Country Roads” to the World Cup, highlighting the University’s long-standing tradition of singing en masse following wins.
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From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Improbably, the state song of West Virginia has become the anthem of the U.S. World Cup team.
“It’s crazy,” said John Antonik, historian for WVU Athletics. “It’s phenomenal. Obviously for people here in West Virginia, it’s so meaningful.”
It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” released by John Denver in 1971, to West Virginians.
“We teach it to our babies when they’re learning to talk, we have T-shirts, people sing it together to celebrate all kinds of things, and also at funerals,” said Sarah Morris, author of the 2025 book, “Lessons from ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’” and an English professor at WVU. “It’s kind of everywhere.”
Reese Allen, of Bridgeport, is the official WVU Mountaineer mascot this year, meaning that when in character, he wears a buckskin outfit, a coonskin cap, and carries a musket. He played soccer growing up, and has followed coverage of the World Cup and “Country Roads.”
“What an amazing moment to just see and hear it,” he said. “As a West Virginian, I’ve identified with that song forever, because it’s so special to our state.”
From The Washington Post op-ed:
But it all leads home to West Virginia, and that’s what makes us natives so proud. “Country Roads” got a second life beginning in the mid-2000s, thanks to cable sports television. Following home victories, West Virginia University football players began staying on the field and singing the song, as fans in the stands stood, swayed from side to side, and did the same. ESPN and other networks usually aired at least part of the postgame sing-along. It was a new school tradition, but the way fans so comfortably slipped it on made it feel a century old.
It was just before the 2026 World Cup kicked off that the song got its next big boost, this time from social media, and again, thanks to the Mountaineers. After the opening-game victory for WVU in this year’s College World Series, some two minutes of the baseball team and its fans singing “Country Roads” were televised.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The song has long been a stadium staple, especially at WVU, where fans sing it after victories. This summer, it has taken on a broader role: a familiar American singalong attached to a national team trying to make a deep run at a World Cup on home soil.