📍 Huntington, West Virginia
🏈 Home of Marshall Thundering Herd football

For many years, the place to be on fall Saturdays here in the industrial town of Huntington, West Virginia was Fairfield Stadium. A barebones place, the Marshall Thundering Herd football program faced their foes at the old red-brick venue for more than sixty seasons. In 1991, its far more modern replacement was built just down the road and was christened Joan C. Edwards Stadium. Joan – a noted philanthropist and jazz singer – and her husband James donated approximately $65 million dollars to the university over the years and were avid fans of the school’s football team.

Since their new digs were unveiled, the Herd have dominated on their home turf and solidified themselves as a Group of 5 power. But sadly, most of Marshall’s notoriety surrounds a tragedy which unfolded on the evening of November 14, 1970.

The Plane Crash

The Marshall Thundering Herd football team was on their way home to Huntington. They had just suffered defeat at the hands of the East Carolina Pirates, losing a tight contest in Greenville, North Carolina. That night, the entire Marshall entourage boarded a charter flight out of nearby Kinston. Southern Airways flight 932 was a mostly uneventful flight, despite the sour weather. As the plane approached the runway at Huntington’s Tri-State Airport, the pilots were warned that rain, fog and smoke would make landing more difficult than usual. The poor conditions still disoriented the flight crew, leading them to assume a higher altitude. By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late. At 7:36 pm, just 5,500 feet from the runway, the plane slammed into a hillside, killing all 75 people on board.

Among those who lost their lives were 36 Thundering Herd players, 9 members of the coaching staff, 25 boosters and 5 crew. At Spring Hill Cemetery, a memorial dedicated to the victims of the crash looks out over the Marshall campus. Six of those who were never identified are buried here as well. Nate Ruffin, an injured defensive back who didn’t make the trip to ECU that fateful weekend, has also been laid to rest at the site.

Each year on the anniversary of the tragedy, a ceremony is held in front of the Memorial Student Center to honor the plane crash victims. Here, a Memorial Fountain is turned off until spring, a symbolic gesture that serves to remind to students and faculty throughout the winter of the pain that was endured by this community.

The crash rocked the town of Huntington, Marshall University and the entire college football world. After convincing the university president not to suspend the school’s football program, players who had stayed behind and family members of those whose lives were lost had to fight hard to get a team together for the 1971 season. One of their biggest battles was petitioning the NCAA to waive their ban on freshman varsity players. Despite their initially disappointing record under new head coach Jack Lengyel – going 9-33 during his tenure – the spirit of the Huntington community has never wavered, and the legacy of the 1970 football team still lives on today. The town’s struggle in the wake of the disaster is encapsulated in the moving 2006 film We Are Marshall, a phrase that has become part tribute, part rallying cry for Herd fans all around the nation.

The Herd have an impressively dominant record at the Joan, winning more than 80% of their games here over the last thirty years. In fact, they have one of the highest win percentages of any FBS team at their current home. Marshall has jumped around between conferences over its long football history, starting out at the Division II level before transitioning between FCS and FBS a few times in the late 20th century. An independent at the time of the 1970 tragedy, the Herd later joined the Southern Conference, where they would win two FCS Championships in 1992 and 1996. A move to the Mid-American Conference in 1997 brought in five conference championships, and they captured yet another conference title during a subsequent stint in Conference USA before moving to the Sun Belt in 2022. Since 1997, he team has been invited to 19 bowl games.

Now the place to be on fall Saturdays in the Jewel City is Joan C. Edwards Stadium, where 30,000 strong pile in to cheer on their Sons of Marshall. Fans from all corners of the country come to see what this special little football program is all about, as chants of “WE ARE … MAR-SHALL” echo across the Ohio River. Indeed, the fact that those lost will forever remain in the hearts of Herd fans is a certainty.

Check out this video – from which a lot of this post was written – by All Sports Road Show, a past project of mine, which highlighted the 50th anniversary of the Marshall plane crash: