If anyone has thoughts on mixed marriage, it's usually to the negative.

Your backgrounds are so different.

Your families will never get along.

It's only going to make things confusing for your children.

While I won't say these thoughts are wrong, I will say being a West Virginia Mountaineer married to a Marshall University grad has been a learning experience.

My biggest lesson so far has been that marrying into Herd Nation doesn't confer the privileges of citizenship.

My input into an online discussion of the pros and cons of the old Marshall mascot vs. the new Marco does not merit response.

Greetings of "Go Herd!" to fellow vacationers wearing Marshall T-shirts (as I wear my gold and blue) are met with blank stares.

And saying nice things about their athletics teams doesn't obligate them to say nice things about ours.

Well-intentioned as I may be, I am not part of the Herd, no more buffalo than if I'd married a real one.

I can understand the chafing at the condescension, the chauvinism and outright hostility from WVU fans.

They've circled the herd, horns out, and interlopers best beware.

But those are usually folks on the extremes from both sides. Most times, there's usually a friendly meeting in the middle.

Well, except for a yearly football and basketball game.

As is the case in most cultural exchanges, the contrasts are usually greatest in the abstract, whereas one-on-one, on a personal level, you find your common ground.

Truth be told, when it came to my wife and me, our alma maters never really played into our relationship, aside from gentle teasing during ball games.

She's really not much of a sports fan to begin with, so there's not much traction for argument, which is probably all for the best.

On the other hand, I promised to take in the WVU flag outside our house after basketball season, but it has managed to stay all through the summer. She says she expects a great favor in return for that indulgence.

I do feel her pain at the great dearth of Marshall paraphernalia at area retailers.

As we walked through a fan gear shop in town, she mock-moaned, "Where's all the Marshall stuff?"

A nearby woman with her husband and his handful of WVU merchandise sighed, "There isn't any."

Another chapter in "Mountaineer Men-and the Herd Women Who Love Them."

I'm not so sure how things would play out if my wife were a more rabid sports fan. I'd be curious to hear how those kinds of marriages go, especially with the big game in a few weeks.

How does this affect our child, who's about 16 years away from looking at schools?

My wife says he could get a free ride at her school if he won a Yeager Scholarship, as she did.

While I'd be tempted to counter with a wish to see our boy as a WVU Foundation Scholar, my first hope is that he'd have the desire and grades to attend college - any college -in the first place.

Of course, I don't think either the gold and blue dad or the green and white mom would complain if he attended Harvard in crimson - and on its well-heeled dime.

Contact writer Philip Maramba at 304-348-1248 or phi...@dailymail.com.