Huntington, West Virginia is a small town and a river runs through it. Next to the river is a steel mill and a school is situated right next to the steel mill. The school is Marshall University. In the middle of the University is a fountain, where the water is turned off at the exact same time and same day of every year. On the evening of November 14, 1970, Southern Airways Flight 932, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 chartered by Marshall University to transport the Thundering Herd football team back to Huntington, West Virginia following their 17-14 defeat to the East Carolina University Pirates, clips trees on a ridge just one mile short of the runway at Tri-State Airport in Ceredo, West Virginia, and crashes into a nearby gully, killing all 75 people on board. Marshall is a school with a proud football tradition and in one instant their entire team, and coaching staff is wiped out. The team loses the game as the last pass in the game made by Marshall, could not be completed at the touchdown line. The coach asks the team to do better. The coach says that winning is the only thing that matters on the field. The deceased include the 37 players. Head coach Rick Tolley (Robert Patrick) and five members of his coaching staff. Charles E. Kautz, Marshall's athletic director. Team athletic trainer Jim Schroer and his assistant, Donald Tackett. Sports information director and radio play-by-play announcer Gene Morehouse. 25 boosters and five crew members. The plane crash landed in a forested area and broke into several pieces. Everything was on fire and there was no chance of anyone surviving. The whole town is impacted by the tragedy. William "Red" Dawson (Matthew Fox), one of the coaching staff, was saved when he gave his seat to another person who had to see his granddaughter perform in school that night. Red Is married to Carole Dawson (January Jones). Since Red's name was on the passenger manifest, he is still declared dead by the papers. The town organizes a funeral for the dead. As the dead are buried, the people of the town find it difficult to move on as the commemorative events continue to roll on. That spring, led by Nate Ruffin (Anthony Mackie), a player who was ill and missed the fatal flight, students rally to convince the board of governors to play the 1971 season. The others include Tom Bogdan (Brian Geraghty) and Reggie Oliver (Arlen Escarpeta). Paul Griffen (Ian McShane) is the father of the star quarterback of the team Chris, who lost his life in the crash. Annie Cantrell (Kate Mara) was dating Paul's son and was on the cheer-leading squad, who traveled back in a car with her friends. Paul works at the steel mill. Chris and Annie are engaged, but Chris was waiting to tell Paul before he died, and hence now Paul had no idea that Annie was engaged to Chris. In the wake of the tragedy, University President Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn) leans towards indefinitely suspending the football program. Paul also counsels Donald that it does not seem right to resume the football program so soon after the tragedy and that the town should not rush back into it. Paul argues that it would not be a game, but a weekly reminder of what the town lost. 28 kids lost both their parents in the tragedy. Donald is ultimately persuaded to reconsider by the pleas of the Marshall students and Huntington residents, and especially the few football players who didn't make the flight, led by Nate Ruffin. Nate rallies the town's younger population and conducts a demonstration in front of Donald's office to demonstrate the a majority of the people want things to return to normal. Dedmon hires Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey) as head coach who, with the help of Red Dawson one of two surviving members of the previous coaching staff, manages to rebuild the team in a relatively short time, despite losing many of their prospects to West Virginia University. Dedmon travels to Kansas City, where he pleads with the NCAA to waive their rule prohibiting freshmen from playing varsity football. This was a rule which had been abolished in 1968 for all sports except for football and basketball, and would be permanently abolished for those sports in 1972. Dedmon returns victorious. Jack Lengyel motivates and leads young players at the same time that he reexamines the Lombardi (Ex coach) creed that winning is the only thing. He uses every trick in the book, including visiting a rival coach for their playbook to prepare his team. The new team is composed mostly of the 18 returning players (three varsity, 15 sophomores) and walk-on athletes from other Marshall sports programs. Due to their lack of experience, the "Young Thundering Herd" ends up losing its first game, 29-6, to the Morehead State Eagles. The loss weighs heavily on Dawson and Ruffin, who had been hurt on the first play of the game. This sets the tongues rolling that it is disrespectful to the dead players to set such an inept team on field. But Lengyel believes in his team & prepares them for their first home game. He sees that the town is still behind its team. The Marshall's pull off a stunning come from behind win & win the town's heart. The Herd's first post-crash victory is a 15-13 win against Xavier University in the first home game of the season, while erasing the painful memories of the crash. Hours after the victory a grief-stricken Coach Dawson remains in the team's locker room, in disbelief over the Herd's first win since the crash. He walks out to a still-full stadium of Marshall fans who share his astonishment and don't want to leave the stadium either. They don't manage to win another game the rest of the season, but their determination to keep the program running delivers huge success in the 80's with 5 championships. All thanks to the courage of those few men who stood up & kept the football going when no one else was willing to do so.
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