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HUNTINGTON -- On the field at Marshall University, former wide receiver Demetrius Doss was known for catching passes from the great guns of Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich.

These days, the high-profile alumni and hip-hop recording artist is still getting noticed from the sidelines as he is firing up the Herd faithful with his new hip-hop and rock-fueled anthem, "Chorus of Victoria (Marshall Version)" that was just released to iTunes on Monday.

Doss, the Washington, D.C.-area, hip-hop artist known as El Prezidino, hopes to make the rocked up, Herd song, which has already gotten airplay on such local radio stations as The Dawg, 93.7-FM, the unofficial theme song for the 2010 Thundering Herd football season.

Written and produced by the former Thundering Herd wide receiver and his band M:O.R. (Music Over Recognition), the song can now be downloaded with half of all the sales benefiting The Big Green and Marshall Athletics.

A devout Christian and deft hip-hop artist, Doss, who has three other CDs out, said he got the idea to do the Herd song when he came back to Huntington in April for the Marshall Hall of Fame ceremony in which Leftwich and Pennington were inducted into the MU Athletics Hall of Fame.

"Everybody wants to do their part to galvanize the Herd and to get back that pride and that swagger that we had and that we think has come back around with the new coach and with coaches like Tony Peterson who knows where we came from," Doss said. "I was driving home and it's like a six-hour drive, and I was like what can I do. I would like to write a giant check but I can give what I value most and that is the music I put out."

Doss, who has been writing raps since his Marshall days as a hip-hop deejay at WMUL, said writing and then recording the song with his rock band, M:O.R., really wraps together his love of hip-hop rhyme flows over a bed of '80s-esque power rock.

"It's a really good blend of popular music," Doss said. "It's very influenced and has that rock anthem feel. When I was lifting weights the whole time I was at Marshall it was AC/DC and Metallica."

Doss , who had almost 4,000 downloads of his June-released album, "Almost Genius, Almost Crazy," said he hopes to be able to bring his band here and to do some live dates to further pump up the Herd faithful and to get this season's party started right.

"I just want to get everybody so hyped up that you'll want to slap somebody," Doss said with a chuckle. "I just want to help and wanted to give back something to the people and the place that gave me so much. I met my wife here and we're on baby No. 2."

Go online at www.prezidino.com for more info about the song.

Courtesy of Demetrius Doss

Former Marshall football player Demetrius Doss with Eliezer "the EARchitect" Lee, who also co-produced the song, "Chorus of Victoria (Marshall Version)."

Courtesy of Demetrius Doss

Rapper and former Marshall football player Demetrius Doss has produced the song, "Chorus of Victoria (Marshall Version)."