Day 22 – A Memory I Wish I Was Never A Part Of…

I had a lot of great memories at East Carolina while I played football there, but there is one I wish I was never a part of.

It was a beautiful fall day, as I remember. We had been struggling with a new coach, and a new system, but on that day, we came out on top. That afternoon and evening couldn’t have been better. I was a sophomore and had some playing time on special teams and occasionally, subbed in as a guard. But late that night, none of it meant anything when we got the news, the report was…

In their last home game of the season, played on November 14, 1970, the Pirates, then a dismal 1-7, faced the Thundering Herd of Marshall University, 3-5. The Pirates won the game, 17-14, with a final 24-yard field goal by Tony Guzzo. But then came shattering news: the chartered Southern Airways DC-9 jet carrying Marshall’s 37 players, eight coaches, 25 boosters, and a five-person flight crew had crashed on its approach to the airport in Huntington, W.Va. All 75 on board were killed. The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) declared it the deadliest air accident in American athletic history.

Everyone was numb. How could it be? We just played these guys a few hours ago…

I flew into the Huntington, WV airport where Marshall is, just 10 months earlier in 1970 on my way home from Christmas break from Northern Kentucky where my parents lived at the time. It was a nightmare with winds and turbulence so bad I didn’t know if we were going to make it in our small commuter plane. The airport is at the top of one of the many mountains in the area and the winds were so bad that we had to wait for a bigger plane to come in to fly us out.

That night on November 14th, there was bad weather as they approached the landing field, which is hard enough when conditions are ideal. The report says they were too low and flew into the side of the mountain and everyone was lost.

In October of that same year, the Wichita State football team and passengers had crashed killing everyone, so this was eerie and devastating news. Many years later, I found out that a close friend of mine had lost his parents in the Wichita State crash, which brought back the pain of Marshall once again.

That night in November, our football team gathered on campus in the auditorium to be together after we all got the news about Marshall. I think we were all so numb, we didn’t know what to say or do. The bruises from the game were still fresh, but the players who had delivered them were gone.

Later, they made a movie called “We are Marshall”. It was a football movie about how Marshall recovered, it was a sports movie with great actors…for years I could not watch it, the pain was still too fresh.

Several years ago, some 40+ years later at the encouragement of my wife, I watched it while she sat with me. Tears flowed, memories flooded my mind, but we got through it. At the end of the movie, they showed some original film clips from the game…I saw my number flash across the screen…I had been there, a memory I wish I had never been a part of.