What special challenge did Jack Lengyel face rebuilding the Marshall University football team?
On the evening of Saturday, November 14, 1970, a chartered jet carrying Marshall University’s football team, coaches and fans, was on its way home from a hard-fought game in North Carolina. Less than a minute before its scheduled landing at Tri-State Airport, the plane crashed in the Appalachian Mountains, killing everyone aboard: 37 players, eight coaches and university staff, the flight crew, and 25 prominent Huntington, West Virginia citizens who had made the trip as they always did to cheer their “Thundering Herd.” In the aftermath of this stunning tragedy, university president Donald Demon prepared to suspend the school’s football program for the season–perhaps indefinitely. Assistant coach Red Dawson, who narrowly missed the ill-fated flight, couldn’t face going back onto the field. But in Huntington, Marshall football has always been more than a sport: it’s a way of life. And this town would rally to save it. After some initial setbacks, they found hope and strength in the lead
Jack Lengyel (born 1935) is a software executive and former sports official. He is best known as having been head coach of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team from 1971 until 1974, having taken over following the Southern Airways Flight 932 plane crash that killed nearly the entire team in 1970. Lengyel was hired by Marshall athletic director Joe McMullen after head coach Rick Tolley was killed along with most of the Marshall coaches and players in the crash. When Lengyel arrived at Marshall he was forced to recruit athletes from other sports (baseball and basketball) as well as allow a large number of walk-ons in order to rebuild the devastated football program. Although the team struggled in Lengyel’s first season at the helm, it managed to win a stunning 15–13 victory over Xavier, scoring a touchdown on the final play of the game. His overall record at Marshall as the head coach was 9–33, ending when he resigned.
We Are Marshall was a 2006 movie about the Marshall University plane crash that killed the majority of the Marshall University ‘Thundering Herd’ football team in 1970. The tragedy shook the University and it’s community. Jack Lengyel took on the challenge of rebuilding the team and the spirit of it and the community. “The tragedy and the rebuilding efforts were dramatized in the 2006 Warner Brothers feature, We Are Marshall. The movie opened in Huntington a week before its national release date.
On the evening of Saturday, November 14, 1970, a chartered jet carrying Marshall University’s football team, coaches and fans, was on its way home from a hard-fought game in North Carolina. Less than a minute before its scheduled landing at Tri-State Airport, the plane crashed in the Appalachian Mountains, killing everyone aboard: 37 players, eight coaches and university staff, the flight crew, and 25 prominent Huntington, West Virginia citizens who had made the trip as they always did to cheer their “Thundering Herd.” In the aftermath of this stunning tragedy, university president Donald Demon prepared to suspend the school’s football program for the season–perhaps indefinitely. Assistant coach Red Dawson, who narrowly missed the ill-fated flight, couldn’t face going back onto the field. But in Huntington, Marshall football has always been more than a sport: it’s a way of life. And this town would rally to save it. After some initial setbacks, they found hope and strength in the lead
Jack Lengyel (born 1935) is a software executive and former sports official. He is best known as having been head coach of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team from 1971 until 1974, having taken over following the Southern Airways Flight 932 plane crash that killed nearly the entire team in 1970. Lengyel was hired by Marshall athletic director Joe McMullen after head coach Rick Tolley was killed along with most of the Marshall coaches and players in the crash. When Lengyel arrived at Marshall he was forced to recruit athletes from other sports (baseball and basketball) as well as allow a large number of walk-ons in order to rebuild the devastated football program. Although the team struggled in Lengyel’s first season at the helm, it managed to win a stunning 15–13 victory over Xavier, scoring a touchdown on the final play of the game. His overall record at Marshall as the head coach was 9–33, ending when he resigned. Sources:
