November 14, 1970: They Were Marshall

November 14, 1970, 50 years ago: Southern Airways Flight 932, a DC-9, crashes outside Huntington, West Virginia, near the campus of Marshall University. All 75 people on board are killed, including 37 players on the Marshall football team, and 8 members of the coaching staff, including head coach Rick Tolley. At 30 years old, he wasn't much older than his players.
 
It had been just 43 days since the Wichita State University football team was nearly wiped out by a plane crash, with 31 dead. The Marshall crash remains the worst sports-related tragedy in American history.

Thankfully, we have been spared the kind of disasters seen in international soccer, such as the one that would happen a few weeks later, on January 2, 1971, at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland: 66 people died in a crush of fans between host Rangers and their arch-rivals, Celtic.

Marshall University was founded in 1837, and named for John Marshall, who had recently died after a long tenure as Chief Justice of the United States. It is located in Huntington, West Virginia, on a bank of the Ohio River, near a 3-way State border with Chesapeake, Ohio and Ashland, Kentucky. They began playing football in 1895, 4 years after West Virginia University, in Morgantown at the other end of the State. 

The Thundering Herd were returning from Greenville, North Carolina, where they'd lost 17-14 to East Carolina University. Their one remaining game, away to Ohio University (not Ohio State), was canceled, and they finished 3-6. The Ohio Bobcats were usually considered their main rivals, and "the Battle for the Bell" was always the last game of the season -- until now.

The Herd had beaten Morehead State of Morehead, Kentucky; Xavier University of Cincinnati; and Kent State near Cleveland, a school which had its own tragedy the preceding May 4, the shooting of 13 students, 4 of them fatally, by Ohio National Guardsmen during a protest against the Vietnam War.

Marshall had lost to the University of Toledo, Miami University of Ohio, the University of Louisville, Western Michigan, Bowling Green of Ohio and, mere hours before their deaths, East Carolina.

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Jack Lengyel, 36, had been the head coach at the College of Wooster outside Cleveland for the preceding 5 seasons. He was hired to rebuild the Marshall team. There were 9 players on the 1970 team who did not board the ill-fated flight. They would form the core of the team that Marshall attempted to field for 1971.

The NCAA granted waivers for "fifth-year seniors" who had not yet gradated, and for freshmen, then prohibited to play varsity sports, a restriction that the NCAA would universally lift the next year. The team was filled out with 35 walk-ons. One was Blake Smith, who had never even attended a football game. He became the placekicker.

President Richard Nixon, a football fan, wrote the team a letter, including these words: "Friends across the land will be rooting for you, but whatever the season brings, you have already won your greatest victory by putting the 1971 varsity on the field." Lengyel read the letter to the team at the start of the 1st day of practice.

September 18, 1971: Marshall played its 1st game since the crash. They traveled to Morehead State, and lost, 29-6 at Jayne Stadium. Although this game was a 4-touchdown loss, the Morehead fans gave the Herd's one touchdown a standing ovation.

September 25, 1971: Marshall won. They hosted Xavier University of Cincinnati at Fairfield Stadium in Huntington, and won, 15-13.

They next lost to Miami in Oxford, Northern Illinois in DeKalb, the University of Dayton at home, and Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. But on October 30, they won again, 12-10 at home to Bowling Green. They then traveled to Kent and lost to Kent State, lost at home to Toledo, and lost at home to Ohio, 30-0.

They went 2-8, never scored more than 18 points in any game, gave up 66 points to Miami and 43 to Toledo, and were shut out in 5 of their last 6 games. But, in spite of losing nearly everybody from the season before, and not to graduation, they ended up winning only one fewer game than they had in 1970.

In 2006, the film We Are Marshall was released, starring Matthew McConaughey as Lengyel, who is still alive, at age 85.

Lengyel continued to coach the team until 1974. Marshall continued to struggle, but began to turn it around in the mid-1980s, making the Playoffs in Division I-AA (now known as the Football Championship Subdivision, of FCS).

They advanced to the Championship Game in 1987, but lost 43-42 to Northeast Louisiana. They made the Quarterfinals in 1988; built a new stadium in 1990, the 38,227-seat Joan C. Edwards Stadium, with the playing surface named James F. Edwards Field for her husband, also a major donor to the school; got back to the Final in 1991, but lost 25-17 to Youngstown State of Ohio; and finally took home the prize in 1992, winning a rematch with Youngstown, 31-28.

They returned to the Final in 1993, but Youngstown took the rubber match, 17-5. Marshall reached the Semifinal in 1994, and the Final again in 1995, losing 22-20 to Montana. They beat Montana in a Final rematch in 1996, 49-29, for their 2nd National Championship.

Formerly members of the Mid-American Conference and the Southern Conference, in 2005 they joined Conference USA. They've won Conference Championships in 1925, 1928, 1931, 1937, 1988, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2014; and Division titles short of the Conference title in 2001 and 2013.

Due to changing conference affiliations, their rivalry with Ohio isn't played every year, although it was played last year, and were scheduled to play this year before the COVID-19 epidemic canceled all non-conference games. They will next play in 2025. Ohio leads "The Battle for the Bell," 33-21-6.

After playing each other in 1911, 1914, 1915 and 1923, the 2 biggest football-playing schools in the Mountaineer State, WVU and Marshall, didn't play each other again until 1997, and then not again until 2006 -- again, mainly due to conference affiliation. They then played "The Friends of Coal Bowl" every year from 2006 until 2012. They've played each other 12 times, and West Virginia have won them all.

Marshall's other major rivalry, if it can be called a "rivalry" at all, is with East Carolina, the team their 1970 team was returning from when it perished. They didn't play each other again until 1978, then not again until 2001. But they played every year from 2005 to 2013, before conference affiliations split them up. East Carolina leads the rivalry, 10-5. A moment of silence is held before every game between the teams.

Marshall is currently 7-0, and had been scheduled to play East Carolina this season, but it has been postponed due to the epidemic, and it might not be rescheduled. ECU is 1-5 so far.

UPDATE: On this day, November 14, 2020, the 50th Anniversary of the crash, Marshall beat Middle Tennessee State, 42-14 at Joan Edwards Stadium. But they lost their last 3 games: To Rice, to Alabama-Birmingham in the Conference USA Championship Game, and to the University of Buffalo in the Camellia Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama on Christmas Day, finishing 7-3 and as C-USA East Division Champions.