Is Randy Moss's comeback bid realistic? Sure it is

Editor’s Note: Randy Moss represents the zenith of Marshall University football. But those players who came before Moss are the connecting links between the football program’s past and its glory years of the ‘90s. This is especially true for those football athletes from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. The group from that era was the genesis of what was to come in later years. Had it not been for the recruiting scandal of ’69 and the tragic plane crash the following year, it’s safe to say that the Thundering Herd would have made its mark on college football way before the 1990s.

       Randy Moss is making a comeback to pro football. When the former Marshall star and future Hall of Fame wide receiver retired last August, I never believed he would stay gone for long. My guess is that he could have still been in the NFL this past season. What it came down to is that Moss wanted a bigger paycheck and those teams who showed interest declined to meet his salary requirements.

       This time, things figure to be much different. Some team will sign Moss if the price is right. Translation? Whatever salary amount Moss is offered will not be on the high-side of the pay scale.

       If Moss sincerely wants to get another shot at playing pro ball, he will gladly accept the NFL minimum paycheck. For a player with his length of tenure, that would amount to $925,000 a year. That’s not super-star money by any means, but it’s much better than zero, which is what he earned last season when he wasn’t under contract. To help ensure that Moss is adequately motivated to play his best, any contract he signs should be performance-based. With enough incentives added to his contact, he would have the opportunity to match or exceed his base salary if he meets the contract’s criteria for earning bonus money.      

       Yeah, sure, Moss is 35, which is considered ancient for a pro football wide-out. Moss, however, has never been your typical NFL athlete. At 6-feet-4 inches 210 pounds, he may not be as fleet on his feet these days. But that’s all relative. In his youth, Moss could run 4.2 seconds in the 40-yard dash all day. Now he’s a tad bit slower, probably runs in the 4.3s, which by the way still a lot faster than most NFL defensive backs.

       But just as importantly, he’s never suffered any major injuries during his 12-year career. The knees, legs and ankles are OK, which means he’s good to go.

       If Moss can produce and be a model citizen, he could be around for another two seasons, maybe three. If that turns out to be the case, you can expect Moss to make a serious run at Jerry Rice’s all-time receiving records...

 

'71 AD: Fan support critical for program's survival

        When Marshall hired Joe McMullen as the new athletics director less than three months after the 1970 plane crash, it was clear signal that Thundering Herd football would not bite the dust. It was reasonable assumption.

       After all, McMullen had been a college football coach for many years prior to him becoming an athletic administrator. Even so, there was one burning question on the minds of everyone who had any level of interest in MU football. How would the new AD go about rebuilding a program that had been nearly decimated?

       The choice was made to build primarily with freshmen as opposed to the wholesale recruiting of junior college players. The 1971 season exceeded everyone’s expectations, which included those pessimists who fervently believed that MU would be better off without football. Given the circumstances, the Young Herd looked pretty good after finishing up at 2-8 in its first season after the tragedy.

       McMullen, however, knew about the harsh economic realities of keeping a football program afloat. He knew all about the vision and commitment it takes to operate a successful program. But he was also keenly aware that it would take support in the form of putting people in the stadium seats and figuring out ways to boost season ticket sales. McMullen was candid in an article he wrote for the school’s Chief Justice Yearbook (1971-72 school year).

       “I think next season there will be more pressure to win and higher expectations,” McMullen wrote. “Opponents will be less likely to overlook Marshall. We have to see the season ticket sales increase, encourage more students to attend (games), and fill the stadium. In order to build, we need the support and the income from the tickets.”

Young Herd delivers unlikely upset at Homecoming

Reggie Oliver fires a pass downfield against Bowling Green's defense.

        There wasn’t a whole lot that went right for the Young Thundering Herd in ’71, which was the season after the plane crash that wiped out most of Marshall’s varsity football team. But on Homecoming Day of that year, all went well as MU delivered a shocking 12-10 upset of highly-regarded Bowling Green State University.

       In some respects, this was an unconventional victory. Marshall had a better than average passing game, but against the Falcons, the Herd rolled with a 193 rushing yards against one of the nation’s top defenses. John Johnstonbaugh ran for 98 yards and one touchdown to lead MU. Back-up quarterback David Walsh scored the game-winner on a two-yard run early in the fourth quarter.

       The Young Herd did its part to bring home the victory. Linebacker Charles Henry spearheaded an inspired defensive effort with his game-high 20 tackles. The Falcons, who entered the game with a 5-1 record and a shot at landing a berth in the Peach Bowl, had one final drive that would’ve spoiled Marshall’s Homecoming celebration. The Herd came through with a third-down stop at its 20-yard line. It appeared that Bill White would pull this one out for Bowling Green, but he missed on a 37-yard field goal try.

       This was supposed to be a no-doubt-about-it win for Bowling Green. A week before Marshall’s Homecoming, the Falcons handled Miami of Ohio very easily in a surprisingly one-sided 33-7 win. This was the same Miami team that walloped the Young Herd 66-6 earlier in the season.

        In retrospect, the Falcons doomed themselves by doing some homework. Bowling Green coach Don Nehlen provided plenty of bulletin board material with a public statement he made in the days leading up his team’s game against Marshall. The newspaper quote read: “Marshall doesn’t have the personnel to hurt us on the ground.”

       As things turned out, that was just the beginning of Bowling Green’s miscalculations. The Falcons coaching staff didn’t bother to find out that Marshall had installed artificial turf and was no longer playing on grass. As a result, Bowling Green was outfitted with cleats that were designed strictly for grass. Wearing grass-surface cleats on artificial turf causes traction problems and the Falcons struggle with keeping their footing all game long.

       But that wasn’t all. The temperature that day was unseasonably hot (in the mid-80s) and the Falcons opted to wear wool jerseys. The heat combined with the heavy jerseys was the same as playing in a sauna. All game long coach, Bowling Green’s trainers were kept busy pouring cold water and ice over the players to keep them cool.

       On the opposite sideline, coach Jack Lengyel brought in a giant cooler for his team to sit in, which allowed them to stay cool.

       The Bowling Green game would be the second and last win of the season for the Young Herd. In a way it was like déjà vu from two years earlier when Marshall ended its 27-game non-winning streak with a 21-16 win in the mud over Bowling Green, which was also a Homecoming game.

A week after miracle win, Herd gets body-slammed

         Marshall’s heart-stopping 15-13 win over Xavier in ’71 had the whole campus riding on Cloud Nine. The afterglow of this historic upset produced seven days of euphoria for the Young Herd’s following.

        Reality was bound to set in, and it did, in a major way. A week after Xavier, Marshall’s youthful squad was in for a humbling experience. The folks at Fairfield Stadium had witnessed a miracle in MU's home opener. But the following week, they would cringe at hearing the news of how Miami of Ohio hammered Marshall by scoring nine touchdowns and a field goal in a runaway non-contest.

        The Young Thundering Herd suffered a 66-6 beat-down defeat. The loss ranked among the worst in school history. MU avoided a shut-out when linebacker Dave Smith blocked a punt and cornerback Felix Jordan picked up the loose ball and ran it back 36 yards for a touchdown.

        Entering the Miami game, most of the MU faithful had good reason to believe that their heroes would find a way to hold their own. After all, they did beat the same Xavier team that played Miami tough in a 17-7 loss earlier that season.

        Against Xavier, everything seemed to fall into place for the Herd. But on the road trip to Oxford, Ohio, it was quite the opposite. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

        This was a game in which the statistics provided an accurate summation of how over-matched Marshall was on that day. Miami ran for 359 yards and the Herd’s ground attack finished with –minus 21 yards.

       Marshall managed a meager two yards of total offense and two first downs for the entire game. But that’s not all. The Herd’s offense didn’t get a first down until the third quarter and the only reason that happened was because of a 15-yard penalty against Miami.

       Reggie Oliver, the sophomore quarterback who orchestrated the game-winning drive against Xavier, did not play against the Redskins. Oliver was sidelined by a shoulder separation, but he did make the trip and watched the onslaught from the sidelines in street clothes.

       No doubt, this game was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Remembering the joy of the Marshall miracle in '71

Herd running back Terry Gardner

       Marshall University’s first home football game of the ’71 season was a game for the ages. Here are a few reasons why.

• The Thundering Herd beat Xavier of Ohio 15-13 in the most dramatic fashion—on the very last play of the game. The final gun had already sounded when Reggie Oliver threw a screen pass to Terry Gardner, who raced to the end zone untouched for the 13-yard game-winning touchdown.

• The ’70 plane crash wiped out most of the varsity team. To help MU field a team for ’71, the NCAA granted Marshall a special exemption which allowed freshmen to play varsity ball. The young Herd, comprised primarily of freshmen and sophomores, defeated an Xavier team whose roster had a good number of upperclassmen. Given those circumstances, Marshall’s victory was unprecedented

• The game-winning touchdown is acknowledged as one of the most memorable in the annals of NCAA football. ESPN ranks the Marshall miracle on its list of the Top 100 Plays in College Football (No. 83).

       Minutes after Gardner scored, the near-capacity crowd at Fairfield Stadium (about 13,000) poured onto the field to bask in the celebration of an upset win that is arguably the greatest moment in the history Marshall’s football program.

        I hung around the stadium after that game for about thirty minutes or so. It was amazing to observe people’s reactions in the aftermath of the Marshall miracle. Some people broke down in tears. Others couldn’t contain their exuberance. There was more whooping and hollering than anyone could ever imagine. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that the Herd had won a national championship.

        The fact that Marshall even had a team in ’71 was reason enough to rejoice. As someone who attended the Xavier-MU game, it’s hard to adequately explain my emotions as I watched a youthful squad win a game only ten months after the air crash that killed most of my former teammates.

 

Friday Q&A: Cheerleader's recollections ... Part II

In today’s Q&A interview, Carol Richardson McCullough shares her insights and memories about her time at Marshall University in the years following the plane crash (1972-76). She is a Marshall graduate and former Thundering Herd cheerleader.

       Q: What are your memories from the night of the Marshall University football plane crash?

       A: Many moons have passed, but I mainly remember what a terribly stormy night it was on November 14, 1970. The rain fell hard in Charleston, West Virginia, to the point that I was mildly concerned about my parents who were out for the evening.

       I was watching television when the crawl (about the crash) came across the bottom of the screen. I was stunned. I remember tears welling up swiftly as the magnitude of the loss sank in. For some reason, I tend to feel a strong sense of empathy for others when I know they hurt badly. There are times when I cry at movies, and lately when reading books, if the book is well written.  

       Q: Now that you’ve read November Ever After, does it help you to have a better understanding of why you never heard any discussions about the tragedy?

       A: I do have a better feel for reasons for the silence on the subject of the crash. Most likely everyone just tried to “soldier on” and push themselves through the daily activities of college life. They probably placed that horrific pain way back, deep inside their own minds. That way, they were able to pull out memories at such times when their psyches could process and handle it. Back then, people didn't talk about things. At least, black people didn't. If you had a problem, you kept it to yourself and did your best to work through it. As was stated in November Ever After, there were no grief counselors, no studies in post-traumatic stress. There was pot, and booze, and sometimes sex masquerading as love, which was used to try and patch the holes in the hearts of some of those who were left behind...or so I would imagine.

       Q: Were you surprised to find out that there were issues about Debbie (Bailey-Bowen) being the school’s first black cheerleader?

       A: I was quite surprised. I knew the “firstie” would most likely face a racial mountain, but I did not realize the squad wasn't integrated until 1970. Public schools in Charleston integrated in 1957 or so. I first cheered in junior high school, in the seventh grade circa '67 on an “integrated” squad at an integrated school. I do remember some concern about Huntington not being as progressive as Charleston ...crosses being burned on the highways connecting the two cities and that sort of thing. I owe Debbie a debt of gratitude for paving the way for me. My time on the squad at Marshall was a lot of fun, and I was never made to feel like an outsider. I'm glad the football players were protective of Debbie, and that they demanded that she be given a genuine opportunity to earn a place on the squad.

       Q: It’s been over forty-one years since the crash. What are your thoughts about it now?

       A: I can only imagine what it would have felt like to lose so many close friends and associates in an instant—and then to have to find a way to carry on...Those Marshall days were extraordinary, and the young men and women who lived through that time period and beyond were tested by fire... and they came out golden.

A cheerleader's recollections from back in the day

Hi Craig,

       Purchased and read November Ever After this past weekend. I attended Marshall University from 1972-76. I was born and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, the daughter of a high school coach who was a stand-out letterman at West Virginia State College.

       I remember the night of the plane crash even though I was just a sophomore in high school at the time. One of the things I remember about my time at Marshall is that no one spoke of the tragedy even though it had happened only two years earlier. It was only more recently that I fully realized how many wounded schoolmates and acquaintances were walking around on campus during those days.
       Your book mentioned some folks I hadn't thought about in three decades ... some I couldn't even remember. It was enlightening, to say the least. I was a cheerleader at MU, first for the freshman basketball team, and then for the varsity teams during my sophomore, junior and senior years.

       I did not know about the racially-motivated resistance to blacks on the (cheerleading) squad prior to Debbie. In 1970, Debbie Bailey-Bowen became the school’s first black cheerleader. Debbie was a senior my freshman year. I cheered on the varsity squad with Marilyn Johnson and Radine Anderson.

       By the time I arrived at Marshall, I think the racial tensions concerning the Kappa Alpha fraternity may have cooled out just a bit. I don't ever remember seeing the Stars & Bars (Confederate flag) at any Marshall games.

- Carol Richardson McCullough

Carol Richardson McCullough is a Marshall University graduate and former Thundering Herd cheerleader.