Saturday is Senior Day for the West Virginia women’s basketball team as they face Big East foe Louisville Cardinals. After a long arduous career Meg Bulger will be walking out on the famed Blue and Gold carpet with her proud parents. Meg’s last home game will be an emotional one in front of proud fans of WVU womens basketball. Not only is this the end of her career at the Coliseum but the end of the line of excellent athletes that graced WVU known as the Bulgers.

The three Bulgers grew up in Oakland just up the hill from the Pitt campus. Their dad was the backup to Joe Theismann in the early 70s for the University of Notre Dame. Despite the Irish bloodline the Mountaineers were blessed to have Marc become a star QB for the Mountaineers. Younger sister Kate was a star basketball player early this decade. Meg, the youngest, had one of the most storied careers to ever put on a Mountaineer uniform.

Today we at wvmountaineersports.com would like to celebrate the accomplishments of the Bulger clan, whose quality talents have shaped the football and women’s basketball programs.

Marc Bulger: (1996-99)

Marc Bulger

Marc came from the same high school (Oakland Central Catholic) as NFL legend Dan Marino. Despite that, recruiters were not to hot for him due to his small size (at 6′3″?) and brittle stature. It was WVU head football coach Don Nehlen who saw the talent in him no one else even dreamed of and signed Bulger to a scholarship. Bulger red-shirted in his freshman season of 1995. He played mop-on duty to Chad Johnston in 1996 only playing 6 games. The next season Bulger broke out as a passing threat as he passed for 2,465 yards to compliment the running of Famous Amos Zereoue.

His best season was his junior year of 1998 and his best game was at Three Rivers Stadium where he threw for 409 yards and 6 touchdowns in a 52-14 romp over the hated Panthers. He also set a school record for pass completions and attempts as well as passing yards in the Insight.com Bowl vs. Missouri. He was 34-50 for 429 yards and 4 touchdowns in a losing comeback effort. In all, he threw for a school-record 3,607 yards and 31 touchdowns. As good as ‘98 was ‘99 was the polar opposite. Despite wearing #4 in honor of his dad, he was plagued by injuries. In only 8 games Marc struggled to throw for 1,729 yards and only 11 touchdowns in a disappointing 4-7 campaign.

Marc was drafted in the sixth round by the New Orleans Saints in 2000. He was promptly cut that preseason however, first the Atlanta Falcons, then the St. Louis Rams picked him up and placed him on their practice squad. In 2002, he became the starter and has not looked back since. He signed a six-year $60 million contract last summer to become one of the richest QBs in the NFL today. As much as Major Harris and Pat White share the Mountaineer folklore as the greatest QBs to grace Mountaineer Field, Marc is always known to be the most successful quarterback in WVU history and that shouldn’t be taken away from him.

Kate Bulger: (2001-04)

Kate Bulger

The Bulger pipeline started to take shape when Marc’s younger sister Kate decided to come to Morgantown, at the urging of Marc of course, to play women’s basketball. Despite arguably the worst season in Mountaineer women’s basketball history, the 5′11 Bulger averaged 14.5 points a game and shot 41% from three. She also made the All-Big East rookie team. The next season, Coach Mike Carey had an extremely tall task of resurrecting a women’s basketball program that was run into the hard concrete of Alexis Basil. Bulger was front and center to take the challenge as she averaged 15.4 points and made second team All Big East.

Her best year, just like Marc, was her junior year as she averaged 15.8 points per game and shot a sizzling 47 percent from three still a school-record. Finally in her senior year, she was the team captain that led Coach Carey and the Eers to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 12 years. She cooled down a little scoring-wise with 14 points and shooting-wise only 39 percent from three. She did grab 4.7 rebounds a game so she had more of a presence in the frontcourt than in previous seasons.

Kate was drafted in the third round by the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA. She was coached by Suzie McConnell Serio who was the same coach in Kate and Meg’s high school days with Oakland Central Catholic. Unfortunately, she only played in three preseason games and never made the Lynx season roster. Her Mountaineer accomplishments are one to behold as she started every game in her four-year career. Currently, Kate is a grad student at Duquesne University in where she’s studying Education and Child Psychology.

Meg Bulger (2004-08)

Meg Bulger

The final part of the Bulger trilogy ends with Meg. She followed her sister to West Virginia to play for Coach Carey. In high school she was on two PIAA Quad AAAA state championship teams under McConnell Serio. In her freshman year, Kate was a senior at the time, the 6 foot tall Meg came off the bench in 26 games to score 10 points a game including a 21-point output late in the season against powerhouse UCONN. She was named Big East Freshman of the Year. In her sophomore year she became a starter who led the team all the way to the NIT final. She averaged a team-high 19.5 points a game with 5.5 rebounds.

In her junior year she averaged almost 20 points a game. She scored in double figures in every game except two, in which she scored nine. She also scored 38 against Cleveland State that season and was going strong until that dark afternoon of January 29, 2006 against St. John at Madison Square Garden. She tried to juke a defender off-the-dribble when her left knee gave out. It was revealed later that she tore her ACL in her left knee and was lost for the season. The next season, after months of grueling rehab, she re-injured that same left knee just before preseason practice was set to begin. She had to take a medical redshirt.

She gave it one more go this senior season. For the first few games she was the first one off the bench. Due to Sparkle Davis’s ineffective play Coach Carey placed her in the starting lineup in the season’s fifth game. She was doing fine until the Marshall game when in the second half she tweaked her left knee and was not able to play further. After missing only three games, she worked her way back to the line-up against Providence and led them to the prevention of a loss to the Friars. She has not looked back since and has scored double-figures in each game thereafter. For the season, she has shot a net-torching 46.6 percent from three while averaging 13 points in 24 games. Here’s hoping her strong senior performance will lead the Eers to a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

Well, it’s hard to believe it’s nearing the end. If there’s one player in the women’s basketball team I’d love to see for the rest of my life it would be Meg. Just as obvious, if there’s one player I’d love to see throwing the ball under Coach Stew it’s Marc. Kate was a great player too and I’d like to see her throw on a Mountaineer uniform as well. The Bulgers are extremely grateful to see the great state of West Virginia welcome them with open arms. They’ve come back on occasion whenever Meg plays ball. As proud alumnus of WVU they are sure to come back from time to time which we greatly appreciate.

Congratulations all three of you for a glorious run at WVU. May you never come back a stranger and always be proud to know that you will always be part of the Mountaineer Nation.