It is factual that the charter plane carrying home the Marshall football team crashed and burned, killing all on board, on November 14, 1970. My second daughter was 1 month old. Only 4 varsity team members survived, those who had stayed behind for various injuries and personal reasons.
This is almost two movies, a short one followed by the longer one. The first part of this movie, "We Are Marshall", deals with the events leading up to the crash, and how the community deals with it. The second part deals with the efforts to re-build football at the Huntington, WV University.
The college administration was ready to indefinitely suspend plans for football, but the team captain who had stayed home for a shoulder injury got virtually all the students to gather outside the board meeting location and repeatedly shout "we are Marshall" as a sign they supported beginning again right away. Things were not easy, after going through a long list of former Marshall football stars, all rejecting the offer, someone showed up out of the blue for the head coaching job.
Matthew McConaughey is superb as Jack Lengyel, an unknown who came to Marshall to pump up the enthusiasm and get things going again. I don't know how true to the real character he was, but I know that he made the movie most interesting. Jack held no false pretenses, he directly approached everyone with what he thought needed to be done. Including a rival coach to learn how to run the 'veer' offense.
Key was David Strathairn as University President Dedmon, who needed to get the NCAA to approve letting true freshmen play varsity football, otherwise Marshall could not field a team, and could not recruit effectively. After letters and unreturned phone messages failed to get NCAA approval, Jack had a pivotal conversation with Dedmon. Asked if he was married, and getting an answer "25 years", Jack went on to say "I'll bet you didn't propose by phone, and I'll bet she didn't say YES by letter. You need to go to Kansas City and talk to the NCAA in person." Which he did, in the rain, and got approval.
Mashall wasn't successful right away, at least not in the "V" column, but they were successful at getting the tragedy behind them. Eventually they became very successful, surpassing anything they did before 1970. This movie is a telling of that story and it is a superb human-interest story, a very-well made one.
This is almost two movies, a short one followed by the longer one. The first part of this movie, "We Are Marshall", deals with the events leading up to the crash, and how the community deals with it. The second part deals with the efforts to re-build football at the Huntington, WV University.
The college administration was ready to indefinitely suspend plans for football, but the team captain who had stayed home for a shoulder injury got virtually all the students to gather outside the board meeting location and repeatedly shout "we are Marshall" as a sign they supported beginning again right away. Things were not easy, after going through a long list of former Marshall football stars, all rejecting the offer, someone showed up out of the blue for the head coaching job.
Matthew McConaughey is superb as Jack Lengyel, an unknown who came to Marshall to pump up the enthusiasm and get things going again. I don't know how true to the real character he was, but I know that he made the movie most interesting. Jack held no false pretenses, he directly approached everyone with what he thought needed to be done. Including a rival coach to learn how to run the 'veer' offense.
Key was David Strathairn as University President Dedmon, who needed to get the NCAA to approve letting true freshmen play varsity football, otherwise Marshall could not field a team, and could not recruit effectively. After letters and unreturned phone messages failed to get NCAA approval, Jack had a pivotal conversation with Dedmon. Asked if he was married, and getting an answer "25 years", Jack went on to say "I'll bet you didn't propose by phone, and I'll bet she didn't say YES by letter. You need to go to Kansas City and talk to the NCAA in person." Which he did, in the rain, and got approval.
Mashall wasn't successful right away, at least not in the "V" column, but they were successful at getting the tragedy behind them. Eventually they became very successful, surpassing anything they did before 1970. This movie is a telling of that story and it is a superb human-interest story, a very-well made one.