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| Memorial Fountain on the Marshall U. campus |
The night of November 14, 1970 was filled with unspeakable horror. The Southern Airways DC-9 jet carrying Marshall University’s football team, coaches, administrators and supporters, crashed into the side of a mountain and exploded. There were no survivors.
The calendar
confirms that the plane crash is a historic event that happened a very long
time ago. Yet, my senses and my memory scream to differ. My recollections remain
vivid. It still seems as if the crash happened yesterday.
I played ball
with most of the players on were on that plane. Had it not been for a decision
I made to quit the team a year earlier, it’s quite possible that my life
would’ve ended over four decades ago.
This time of
year is always a mixed bag for me. Memories of that night do not erase the
enormous sense of loss that all of us felt. It forces me to wonder what might
have been if there had never been a crash.
Even though it
was such a devastating time, there is a flip side to this. Eventually, there was
cause for jubilation and celebration. In spite of near-decimation, Marshall
did not kick its football program to the curb. The Thundering Herd endured some
trying times, some frustrating times.
But in the
end, grit and perseverance fueled a comeback that is arguably the greatest in
the history of college sports. After the crash, it took about a
decade-and-a-half before the program would shed its losing image. Once that
happened, the Herd was off and running. By the 1990s, Marshall
had emerged a legitimate power. During that decade, no college football team in
America won
more games than the Thundering Herd.
The ‘90s serves
as a fitting tribute to those who perished in 1970. It was only right that Marshall
continued the job that they had started so many years before.
The 1970
Thundering Herd will never be forgotten.
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