text: how did the tradition of couch burning start at west virginia university?   actually, i feel certain that the tradition started in sunnyside.  sunnyside is a neighborhood very near the university where the rents are relatively cheap, and you get what you pay for.  before they built the new stadium, the old stadium was right where the business & economics building is now, which is right next to sunnyside.  most of the bars and partying happened in sunnyside as well.  using zoning laws, they drove the bars out of sunnyside, but it's still probably overall the cheapest place to live in mo-town.  if i were guessing, i'd imagine that the tradition started when a houseful of partying students in sunnyside pretty much ruined their couch, maybe left it out on the porch for a while until it got really nasty, and were looking for something to burn to celebrate a major wvu victory.  all hypothetical, but it seems logical to me.  -- wvu college of engineering class of 1995