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Jacksonville, Florida When fans think of the greatest sports comebacks, it's usually memorable on-field contests that come to mind. Like the Boston Red Sox rallying from a 3-0 deficit to win the 2004 American League Championship Series against the hated New York Yankees. Or the Buffalo Bills overcoming a 35-3 lead in the third quarter by the Houston Oilers in the 1992 AFC wild-card playoff game, prevailing 41-38 in overtime. But for triumph against insurmountable odds, especially considering the unspeakable tragedy that accompanied it, nothing in sports history quite compares with how Marshall University's football program recovered from the November 14, 1970 plane crash that took the lives of 75 people, leaving the townspeople of Huntington, West Virginia to deal with the horrific aftermath. A team-chartered jet smashing into a field two miles west of Huntington's Tri-State Airport, about 30 seconds before it was supposed to land, remains the greatest sports-related tragedy in American history. How a football program, a school and a city on the Ohio River have attempted to heal, and rebound, from that unprecedented disaster is undeniably an act of heroism.  We Are Marshall, starring Matthew McConaughey as coach Jack Lengyel, is a story more about tragedy and redemption and less about football. Thirty-six years later, the comeback of all comebacks is the subject of a Warner Bros. movie – We Are Marshall – now being shown in theaters all across the country. It is a film not so much about football, but the power of the human spirit. Marshall lost 37 football players and 12 coaches and university staff members on that return trip from a game against East Carolina. In addition to five flight crew-members, 21 Huntington citizens perished instantly. In all, 70 children grieved for deceased mothers and fathers, including 18 that lost both sets of parents. Jack Lengyel, the Marshall football coach who took over the program for four years (1971-75) after the crash, saw a screening of the movie in November and was pleased with how the story is told. He was a consultant to actor Matthew McConaughey, the actor who plays him in the movie, and the film's producers. "There was a town that had a void, a school that had a void," said Lengyel. "The movie is really about hope and faith, tragedy and redemption. In that mix is a community, a university and its relationship. The movie depicts one of the greatest lessons in sports - to face adversity, get up off the ground, and go on to have success." It's a story with so many layers that it's virtually impossible to cover all the personal details. But Lengyel's scrapbooks that he kept from a dark period in Marshall history, plus his vivid recollection of the tragedy's aftermath that was largely forgotten on a national scale for three decades, reveals a truly amazing tale of triumph. "There's a lot of personal turmoil, but [Lengyel] was the kind of person that didn't take no for an answer," said David Walsh, one of two quarterbacks on Marshall's 1971 team and now a sports writer with the Huntington Herald-Dispatch. "That's what Jack Lengyel had to be at the time. Everyone else was gloom-and-doom." Lengyel, now 70 and living in Arizona, was coaching at the College of Wooster in Ohio at the time of the crash. He learned of the tragedy from a news crawler on television. "I'm sure every football coach in the country had the same feeling: 'There but for the grace of God go I,' " said Lengyel. "You immediately had an emotional attachment to that team." Only Marshall wasn't suppose to be Lengyel's team, but fate intervened. First, a Penn State assistant turned down the job, and former Georgia Tech assistant Dick Bestwick, who accepted the position, changed his mind and left after two days. Lengyel was officially hired on March 17, 1971, just 31 days before spring practice.
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