Introduction
“Vince Lombardi once said that winning isn't everything but the will to win is everything”, and for this team and town all they wanted to do was win but they did not for a couple of years. On November 14, 1970 a terrible plane crash killed the Marshall university football team and staff on the plane, then getting NCAA permission to play freshmen, the team needed to be rebuild.
Marshall University
Marshall University is a nice college in Huntington, West Virginia overlooking the Ohio river, but they had a hard start to make the football team and the school better. Marshall was founded in 1837 by a guy named John Marshall (Marshall University, 2006). The college was named by chief justice John Marshall, the school was then officially started in 1861. The team have had a tough time from where they are today, having their …show more content…
They had made some changes before and after the crash, to the school and the football program. The university had put a fountain on compass to commemorate the living rather than the death, the water is going at an upward motion (Marshall University, 2006). The bronze and copper fountain has 75 jets in it for everyone that lost their lives in the crash (Miller, 2016). Marshall had put astroturf on the field for the first time (Marshall University, 2006). They had done reconstruction on the field so they could hold up to 16,000 fans, it was complete in 1970 (Marshall University, 2006).
Team spirit. The fans had a lot to do with the team that year, they followed the team through good and bad. After the crash 7,000 people were at the fieldhouse praying, The fans didn't care about the losing season anymore (Sahadi, 2003). The last week of the season the crash happened, after the first game of the season they played and won, they thought they were going to have a winning season, but they had a losing season. It was a long time since they have played and everyone was happy to see them (Wilson, 2006).