Our Staff
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Stephen Ford
Coming Soon
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Stephen Ford
GENERAL MANAGER / CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
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Grant Dovey
Grant Dovey joined Country Roads Trust in August 2022 as the Director of Creative.
Previously, Dovey worked for the West Virginia Athletics Department, serving as the Director of Digital Media from 2018-22.
Dovey was responsible for leading the strategic vision and implementation of WVU’s digital initiatives in social media, video and web. He also served as the department web designer and oversaw WVUsports.com, WVUMAC.com and WVUVarsityClub.com, as well as numerous microsites.
Dovey previously served as the Digital Media Manager from 2015-18. Prior to joining the digital team, Dovey was the Assistant Director of Athletic Communications (2012-15), serving as the primary media contact for baseball, men’s soccer and swimming and diving.
The Downingtown, Pennsylvania, native graduated from West Virginia University in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, specializing in public relations. He received a master’s degree in sport management from WVU in 2013.
He and his daughter, Kennedy, reside in Morgantown.
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Grant Dovey
DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE
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Madison Kennedy
Coming Soon
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Madison Kennedy
MARKETING & FAN ENGAGEMENT MANAGER
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Chase Harler
Coming Soon
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Chase Harler
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Advisory Team
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Mike Gansey
Mike Gansey was a spark for the WVU men’s basketball team, leading the Mountaineers to the Elite Eight as a junior and the Sweet 16 as a senior. Yet his success didn’t end there. After playing professionally, Gansey entered NBA administration and has climbed to become the General Manager for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
At WVU, Gansey was named a finalist for the Oscar Robertson Award, the Wooden Award and the Naismith Trophy and won a gold medal with Team USA in the 2005 World University Games.
As an NBA executive, he was General Manager for the Cleveland Charge, the Cavaliers’ NBA G League team, where he earned the 2016-17 NBA G League Executive of the Year award before moving up. Gansey played professionally overseas for three seasons and in the NBA G League for two.
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Mike Gansey
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Jedd Gyorko
Gyorko is one of the most – if not the most – successful former WVU baseball players to ever play Major League Baseball. As a Mountaineer, Gyorko garnered 10 All-America baseball honors during his outstanding career from 2008-10. His name remains written all over the WVU record books.
In the 2010 MLB draft, Gyorko was selected in the second round by the San Diego Padres and became the team’s Opening Day second baseman in 2013. In that same year, he finished sixth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting, leading all qualifying rookies in home runs (23). Gyorko, an infielder, went on to play in the majors for eight years with the Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers. He’s now the manager of the West Virginia Black Bears of the MLB Draft League.
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Jedd Gyorko
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Jaida Lawrence Hart
Jaida Hart (Lawrence) was a four-year letter-winning gymnast for WVU who made Mountaineer Nation proud as a 2016 Arthur Ashe Junior Sports award semifinalist.
Now a speech language pathologist who resides in Connecticut, Hart (Lawrence) racked up many awards while in Morgantown. Aside from being an Ashe award semifinalist, she was the 2015 Big 12 Scholar Athlete of the Year; a member of the conference Academic first team from 2014-2016; a 2013 member of the Academic All-Big 12 Rookie Team; and a NACGC/W Scholastic All-America selection 2013-2015. She made WVU’s President’s and Dean’s list from 2012 through 2016.
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Jaida Lawrence Hart
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Don Nehlen
Don Nehlen became a College Football Hall of Fame member by turning West Virginia University’s program into a national championship contender. In 1988, the Mountaineers won all 11 regular season games, reached No. 3 in the national polls, and faced Notre Dame in the de facto national championship game in the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona. Nehlen developed another team that won all 11 regular season games in 1993 before losing to Florida in the Sugar Bowl.
Nehlen finished with a 149-93-4 overall record at WVU, easily the most victories in school history. He was named the Walter Camp, Bobby Dodd and AFCA coach of the year in 1988, and was named the Kodak coach of the year in 1993. Thirteen of his teams went to bowl games and he coached 15 first team All-Americans, 82 all-conference players, six first team Academic All-Americans and 80 players who went on to play professional football.
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Don Nehlen
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Darryl Talley
A 1982 consensus All-American football player, Darryl Talley was a feared defender who had his No. 90 retired by WVU in October of 2021 and was the sixth Mountaineer player inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2011.
In the NFL, Talley was a two-time Pro Bowl selection and two-time All-Pro selection for the Buffalo Bills, which inducted him into their Wall of Fame. He played 12 of his 14 NFL seasons (1983-94) as the Bills’ starting outside linebacker and never missed a game, finishing as the Bills’ all-time leading tackler with 1,137. He played in four Super Bowls for the team.
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Darryl Talley
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Ginny Thrasher
Ginny Thrasher was the pride of WVU – and the United States – as the 2016 Olympic Champion in Women’s 10m Air Rifle Shooting. She accomplished this incredible feat right before her sophomore year of college as a Biomedical Engineering major at WVU. In college, she was a two-time NCAA Team Champion, a two-time NCAA Individual Champion, and a 12-time All-American.
In 2019, Thrasher graduated from WVU Summa Cum Laude as a Rhodes Scholar finalist. She then moved to Colorado Springs where she now lives and trains as a professional athlete striving to represent her country on the highest international stages
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Ginny Thrasher
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Jerry West
A WVU graduate and former basketball star, West is quite simply one of the most successful and respected figures in the history of the game.
As a Mountaineer, West was a two-time All-American with a career 24.8 scoring average who led WVU to the 1959 national championship game against California. Following his senior year, “Mr. Clutch” became the Los Angeles Lakers’ first round pick and went on to have a storied NBA career. He also served as co-captain of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic basketball team in Rome in 1960.
Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, West also starred as a front office executive. As a player, executive or special consultant, West’s accomplishments include nine NBA Championships, two NBA Executive of the Year awards, 14 NBA All-Star appearances, 10 First Team All-NBA selections and election into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He’s now a consultant with the Los Angeles Clippers.
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Jerry West
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Pat White
One of the most explosive athletes in college football during his playing career, White posted a 35-8 record as the starting quarterback for WVU (sixth all-time in the NCAA record books for quarterback victories at the time) and became the first quarterback to have started and won four bowl games. He was named MVP of a bowl game three times (Gator, Fiesta and Meineke Car Care) and led WVU to an upset victory over the No. 9-ranked SEC champion Georgia in the 2006 BCS Nokia Sugar Bowl and a stunning 20-point upset over No. 4-ranked Big 12 champion Oklahoma in the 2008 BCS Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.
Named Big East Offensive Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007 and a first-team All-Big East honoree three times (2006-08), White finished sixth in Heisman Trophy voting in 2007 and seventh in 2008. Since then, White has been coaching. He is currently at Campbell University as the pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He’s also coached at Alabama State, South Florida, Alcorn State and worked with the San Diego Chargers during NFL Preseason Camp.
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