From time to time we get emails from fans wanting to download Jack Fleming audio files. Over the years we have accumulated a pretty good library of clips, especially football. WAJR, the flagship station of the Mountaineer Sports Network, has game tapes dating back to the early 1980s and some cuts before that, including Bill McKenzie’s kick to beat Pitt in 1975.

A few years ago Dr. Larry Schwab of Morgantown was kind enough to deliver some recordings (LPs) of Fleming’s call of the 1963 Southern Conference basketball tournament championship game. Schwab’s brother Lowell was a rabid Mountaineer fan living in Richmond and he persuaded the local radio station to carry West Virginia games that year. He even presented the station with a sponsor (Old Dominion Candy, I believe) for the broadcasts.

That enabled Schwab to enjoy West Virginia basketball games without having to drive to the nearest mountaintop like so many others. Can you even imagine anyone trying that kind of freelancing today? They wouldn't have made it past the security guard.

At any rate, we were able to piece together the entire Southern Conference championship game from those recordings and presented it to you on the Internet a couple of years ago. It was very well received.

Therefore, rather than placing the rest of these old recordings in a box someplace where they will only collect dust and drift from our memories, why not transform them into digital audio files and let Mountaineer fans download them to their computers?

Well, that’s what we've done. These free files are in mp3 format, including Myron Cope’s eulogy of Fleming from his memorial service in Pittsburgh. These files are available for private, non-commercial use only.

In addition, we’ve dug up some outstanding feature stories of Fleming from our clip files, asked for permission to reproduce them, and also dusted off some rare photographs of The Voice. The photographs may not be reproduced without prior approval.

We’ve got MSN’s two-minute tribute of Fleming that aired on the television show Mountaineer Jammin’, and a few other videos produced by MSN  for you to view. You will need a windows media player to watch the video files and an mp3 player to play the downloaded audio files. A broadband connection is recommended for file download and streaming.

Although it’s been more than five years since Jack Fleming died in 2001, his fabulous voice and his remarkable life can remain a part of ours through this special web site.

Enjoy.

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