HE FIELDS QUERIES ABOUT THE OLD STADIUM

Byline: SANDY WELLS

Workers built Mountaineer Field in 1923-24. Brook Miller, 89, recalls his days on the construction crew of old Mountaineer Field. Miller says he is the only living member of the 1923 crew.

"I was talking to a fella last night, and I said, "Did you ever go to the football stadium up in Morgantown, the old stadium? 'He said, "Oh, yes sir. I went dozens of times. I had a front seat right up where I could see everything that was going on. ''Brook Miller pauses, relishing the effect of his next sentence. He loves asking people about old Mountaineer Field, loves watching for the raised brows, loves waiting for the surprised, respectful expressions. "I told him then that I helped build it.

'Brook Miller is 89. He worked on the railroad, worked in a glass plant, worked as a maintenance man, owned a restaurant, worked in a tire factory and worked for 34 years as a mechanic for the power company. But nothing Miller did in his long, working lifetime commands more attention than the laborious months he spent on the stadium construction crew. "I imagine I'm probably the only one still living who worked on that project,' he says with a tinge of pride. In December of 1923, 18-year-old Miller reported for work at the ravine that would be transformed into a state of the art football stadium, a $713,000 showplace later described by authorities as one of the most beautiful in the country. "There wasn't anything down there then, just a hollow,' he said. "It was a natural place for a field. 'The crew used the latest construction techniques, of course. "We had an old steam shovel which we wore out, a bunch of mule sand scrapers and a concrete mixer. I don't know if the mixer was any good or not, but we got by with it. We mixed a lot of the concrete by hand. 'Miller's assignment was building the concrete wall on the lower end of the stadium. As the wall got higher, the crew propped boards against it to form a kind of runway. "You'd get back there with your wheelbarrow loaded with concrete and take a run and shoot for the boards. If you made it to the top, you dumped your concrete and came back. Sometimes you made it, and sometimes you didn't. 'Like the postman, he made his rounds with the wheelbarrow through all sorts of weather. "It was cold that winter. Back then, snow came along and stayed for three months, but you worked right a head. 'He made $3.50 a day.

When he left Morgantown six months later, at the end of June1924, the stadium was only half finished. By the time WVU played the inaugural game against West Virginia Wesleyan on Sept. 27, Miller was in Akron, Ohio, making $4.50 a day in a tire factory. He saw the stadium a few times over the years, but never once went to a game. When they tore down old Mountaineer Field in 1984, concrete wall and all, Miller didn't feel the first twinge of regret. "Things change. The way I feel about it, that was progress. 'Not everything changes. On return trips to Morgantown, Miller sees some buildings he passed as a 19-year-old construction worker. "Some of those buildings are 100 years old. They were already old when I was working there. 'Progress did consume the boarding house where he lived, an area now occupied by the Evansdale campus and the hospital. And now, all the roads are paved. "Tankfield Road where the truck ran away has a four-lane highway coming down through there. 'What's this about a truck running away? Well, like anyone who ever lived in Morgantown, Miller became all too familiar with the high ups and low downs of Morgantown streets. He came to Morgantown in 1920, first to work in the glass plant, later as a maintenance worker for the city. "When I was with the city, we had a wreck. We had an old truck. We were coming down a steep grade and the brakes gave way. One fella was killed. "There were about five or six of us on the back of the truck, and we all got hurt. We jumped off the back, hit on our feet and ran for maybe 40 feet, then we fell end over end. I was so skinned up I went home with hardly any clothes on. 'A working man with a seventh-grade education, he watched the antics of WVU students with curious fascination. He wasn't always impressed with what he saw. "I watched them a lot. When the freshmen came there, the ones that been there a while had great big old paddles, and they lined up and ran those freshmen between the paddles for maybe a block. Later they ruled against that. It was too much punishment.

'Miller says he wasn't cut out for college. He believes God had other plans for him. "The Bible says you are given different talents. My brother could read something one time and he'd have it. I'd read something four times and still couldn't remember it. I guess I just wasn't gifted to that. But if I go through a city one time, I can sit down and draw you a picture of it. I believe my talent was seeing things.

'His penchant for work surfaced early. At age 8, his parents separated and he moved in with a family named Stalnaker near Glenville. At age 12, he got a job in a Glenville restaurant. At age 13, he got a job with the railroad, a good job that earned him $5.28 a day. "The first world war was going on at that time, and the railroad couldn't hire men because they were all in the war. That's why I got the job at 13. 'At age 15, he was working in the glass plant in Morgantown. Then the abiding quest for better work took him to Akron. "I bought a '22 Model T Ford, gathered up four other boys, and on the 13^th day of July 1924, we started out to Akron. We were three days making that 240-mile trip. Practically all the roads were dirt. 'They tied their suitcases across the hood with rope. When they stopped to check the oil, he flung his suitcase over the front of the car to lift the hood. "I forgot to put the suitcase back up, so we went down to Canton dragging that suitcase in front. People kept pointing, but I thought they were just making fun of us.

'In Akron, 67 years ago, Miller cultivated a passion for golf. Even at 89, he hits the links twice a week until dipping temperatures drive him to the bowling alley. Laid off from the Akron tire factory when the Depression hit, he returned to Glenville to ride things out. In 1933, he invested $350 in a restaurant in Roanoke, Va., sold it for the same price the following year and returned to his old job in Akron. In 1936, strike related layoffs brought him home for good. In Charleston, he landed a job as a power company mechanic. "After the first payday, I paid some bills and had $10 left.' He used the $10 as the deposit on a $725 lot on Grosscup Avenue in Dunbar. In 1940, Miller and his wife, a retired teacher, paid off the lot and built the house they have occupied for 55 years.

He looks back on a modest life of hard work with no second thoughts. "I always said to God, "All I want is a job where I can make an honest living, and a family and a home,' and I've had it. What more could you ask for?'