Mountaineers — always free, sure — but also, always willing to be good sports, take responsibility, accept when things don’t go their way without whining about it and focus on what is really important for the state and its families. They don’t run to legal action and investigations every time they’re disappointed in the way things have turned out. In fact, West Virginians frown upon frivolous legal action and wastes of time and taxpayer dollars. There’s difficult work to be done, after all. There are needs upon which those who have been elected to serve must be focusing.

Unless, apparently, something doesn’t go the way people expected it would in the sports world. Then, whether it be high school football or college basketball, those who are supposed to be leaders, instead, seize on the opportunity to make a fuss. They do so with the level of energy they should be giving to education, jobs, the economy, public employee insurance, health care, child care, the wellbeing of children in the foster care system … the list is plenty long enough without snagging the spotlight to make complaints so childish they included the intentionally disrespectful misnaming of the National Collegiate Athletic Association in an official news release.

Name-calling of that sort should be beneath Gov. Patrick Morrisey — or should be, as was his placement of a poster bearing the same disrespectful renaming of the NCAA on the podium from which he spoke for the world to see.

“One of our team goals was making the NCAA tournament and we had a resume worthy of an NCAA tournament selection,” Darian DeVries, the now-former WVU men’s basketball coach, said Monday. “Our guys poured their hearts into this season and all of their collective efforts into making the NCAA tournament.”

But they didn’t. Yes, that’s disappointing — but it should lead to self-examination and a determination to do better. Instead, we are witnessing what appears to be a fit of petulance by the team in turning up its noses at the National Invitation Tournament and other opportunities, while the governor grabs national attention for declaring it’s not fair.

In a political season already riddled with absurdities in West Virginia, this response takes its place near the top. There are difficult — real — challenges to overcome. For goodness sake, if you want to stick close to the sports world, there already is the economic “Backyard Brawl” to win.

This regular session of the 87th West Virginia State Legislature is set to adjourn April 12. Elected representatives and other state leaders must turn their attention to doing their jobs — for the people of the Mountain State — now.