MORGANTOWN — It was January 17, 2004, Meg Bulger’s freshman year and the only year she and her sister, Katie, would play together in their West Virginia University Hall of Fame careers.

It was a typical January day at the Coliseum, people awakening to a frosty 9 degrees with a few snowflakes falling but rising all the way up to 20 degrees by the time they took the court to face and defeat Notre Dame in women’s basketball, 64-51.

Their more famous brother. Marc, three weeks earlier had finished his first full season as the starting quarterback of the St. Louis Rams in the National Football League, had also played his way into the WVU’s Hall of Fame.

Three Bulger siblings of the five who would be born to Jim and Patty Bulger in Pittsburgh, would all wind up in the WVU Hall of Fame.

Among the people in the stands that day was Jim, the patriarch of the family that includes brothers Jimmy, a golfer at Notre Dame, and Patrick, general manager of American Contractors Equipment Company.

Jim Bulger was a graduate of Notre Dame, where he was a backup quarterback where he had one big-time shining moment, a huge pass completion late in the first half of the 1971 Cotton Bowl when the Fighting Irish put an end to Texas’ 33-game winning streak.

So he was there in dual capacity, a Notre Dame grad and the father of a quarterback who would find more fame than him on the football field and two daughters who would carve their names in the WVU women’s basketball record books

They all were thinking of Jim Bulger this past week as he died.

And as memories flashed through their minds, both Meg and Katie, were recalling that 2004 game against Notre Dame, for you can imagine the family banter that preceded it.

“One of our favorite moments, and we finally got him to admit it, was my freshman year when Katie and I beat Notre Dame,” Meg Bulger, now a mother, a businessperson and a color analyst on WVU women’s games, said. “We looked up in the stands and we laughed our butts off because he was one of the first ones standing and clapping. He was so happy for us.

“And then, when we got with him, he was like ‘Well, it was just such an honor for you to beat such a great team as Notre Dame.'”

And, but they knew they had the bragging rights and wanted to rub it in, but just couldn’t because there he was, enjoying the moment as much as they did..

As they mourn their father’s passing, they understand just how much he meant to them and the kind of tightrope he was walking throughout their early years. We’re not talking WVU/Notre Dame tightrope, for there was no contest between family value and school loyalty.

He seemingly was being pulled in two directions. With Marc he had a quarterback at a major university growing on his hands and when thinking of such situations it seems so natural for a father to be the guiding light and driving force behind his son.

But daughters. That can be a different thing, even in this day and age.

Meg understands that and marvels at the way he handled it all.

“Knowing my dad, there was no more of a man’s man than my dad, but us girls, Katie and I, were his baby dolls. I know the term popular now is “girl-dad”, but my dad was that way before anyone thought of the term,” she began.

“He supported Katie and I, maybe sometimes like we were his sons, but he was so gentle and loving, it was amazing. We saw him go through it with Marc and our other brother in sports, but he was so proud of us and it came through every second.

“At the end of the day, we were his little baby dolls.”

They appreciated it.

“You think about it now and you take it for granted,” Meg Bulger said. “That’s just how he treated us. He let my mom handle the manners. Sometimes I could get away with saying more with my dad after a game than even with my mom. He’d let us express that competitive nature, that Tomboyish nature a little bit more.

“But after games, even now when I’m on the air doing a game, I’d always have a text from him, ‘You look beautiful.’ Something like that. And I’d say, ‘Do I sound good, too?’ and he’d always say ‘Of course, baby doll.'”

Jim Bulger confided to the girls that with sons he would worry a bit, but that he never had similar worries with Meg and Katie.

“You know, boys would go out in life and college and you worry about them, but with me and Katie he would say, ‘I don’t have to worry about you two.’ I’d say, ‘yeah, but nobody’s messing with two 6-foot girls, Dad.’ He always laughed.

“There was just a sparkle in his eye with Katie and I. We were just best friends with him. We were his baby dolls and he had a special way of showing us that. He never forgot that.”

And, as they grew into college athletes, he would be there always.

“We always used to laugh pregame while in the layup line. We’d make a point to look in the stands and find him and just make eyes. Katie would give him a look’; I would give him a look … and that was all we needed. Katie did it, I did it and Marc did it.

“That was all we needed and it spoke volumes without saying a word. It was always ‘I don’t have to say a word to you. I know that you know what you have to do.'”

And results really didn’t matter.

“Then, after a game, and I swear this is true, he never sat there and berated us. He never sat there and said ‘You played bad.’ He was kind of like a pal. He’d give us a pat and a hug and say, ‘You just gave me the joy of a lifetime being able to watch you.’

“Whether it was good or bad, we gave him joy just by watching us. I always felt like every time we came off the court, we made him happy and proud just by being out there. Whether it was 30 points – luckily, we didn’t have too many games when it wasn’t – or less than 10 points, I can’t remember a time when it felt like, ‘Oh, man, he’s mad at us.’ He was always so proud of us … always.”

Perhaps you can sum up Jim Bulger through the best memory of him that Meg Bulger takes with her.

“It wasn’t just one moment. There were so many … eh, ‘Bulletisms’. That was what we called them because his nickname was Bullet,” Meg said.

“He had his own way, like singing a song and changing the words of it like on a commercial. Or joking around … like mom would say ‘We’re having meatloaf tonight’ and he’d go ‘meeeeeeat-LOAF’ … just silly, ridiculous everyday things that you remember.

“I can honestly say that every single moment of every day you can kind of see him, you can hear what he would say, you would see a face he would be making. He had a presence and a way about him that he was creating memories at every moment.”