HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – After a plane crash killed most of Marshall University's football team in 1970, school administrators could have resorted to the simplest choice — dropping the losing sport altogether.They didn't.
They couldn't bring themselves to do it.From the 75 lives lost in the worst sports disaster in U.S. history, the program slowly rebuilt and eventually triumphed.
A half-century later, those who lived through the tragedy — some by happenstance, others by fateful decisions that seemed mundane at the time — marvel as they recall the feeling that they had to keep playing.“We felt the guys would want us to go on,” said Ed Carter, a sophomore offensive lineman who was supposed to be on the team plane but wasn't.