We Are Marshall

The year of 2006 had three football movies..."The Gridiron Gang", "Invinsible", and "We are Marshall". Having seen the first two earlier in the year, I was not that excited for We are Marshall. I went in expecting a decent but cliché football movie.

I was wrong. We are Marshall is not another cliché football movie...it is so much more than that. The movie is definitely sad, as well it should be...throughout the movie, regardless of all the positive things that are occurring, you are often reminded that the plane crash is still in the characters' minds, and no matter what happens with their rebuilding the football team, that will haunt them forever. This isn't one of those movies where something bad happens and then it is healed.

Go see We are Marshall...will you be depressed? I was not...I left the theater calmly in deep thought. Will you be touched? I would say so.

This one blindsided me. With some of the worst reviews of the Christmas season I thought that this was going to be time wasted, instead I found one of the more enjoyable movies I've seen in along while. The first half hour of this film is a great capsule of the events leading to and aftermath of the plane crash that wiped out the 1970 Marshall football team. At that point the film shifts gears as Matthew McConaughey is brought in to rebuild the team and be its coach. A feel good movie thats more about rebuilding the cracked soul of a community than football (though football is front and center) this is a movie that works because of the characters, we care about them so we care about the story. Its also got a great pop score. Though far from perfect, and probably not "great", its a better than really good movie that the critics completely missed the boat on.

As sick as I am of football flicks this year I must admit I rather enjoyed this film. Mainly because of the great performance of its lead. He does a great job as the weird coach that is so offbeat and positive that this town that is healing from the biggest tragedy it has ever known,just does not know have to take him. Mcg also proves he can direct something that is not flashy and slick. It will be a great film for families to see together and it does a good job pulling on the old heartstrings. Matthew Fox also does great as the assistant coach who lived through it all and has many demons to face. WE ARE MARSHELL is the best film of its kind since Remember the Titans.

My family and I saw We Are Marshall Christmas night. I grew up in a Marshall family (Mom & Dad, M.U. grads; my oldest sister was in school at M.U. at the time of the plane crash, as well as her future husband). Dad worked in the newspaper business at the time; and my mom's father passed away the night of the crash (while we were glued to radio and T.V. reports from Huntington.)

A year later, I was fortunate enough to see the Xavier game portrayed in the film at Fairfield Stadium in person. It is still the single most heart-stirring moment in sports I've ever been around.

Attending Marshall myself just a few short years after the tragedy, we cheered for first downs by the Thundering Herd and agonized through fighting to be just competitive. Not all were mindful of the journey.

The film seems to capture the shock of the crash on the school and the community and the hopelessness both experienced in the times immediately following the crash. Due to time restrictions and to keep the story moving, the struggle to come up with representative football players was kind of oversimplified in the film, but the men who did play in those years are just as important as the heroes of the winning era at Marshall decades later. Not sure if the real Jack Lengyel was as tongue in cheek as portrayed in the movie, but it seems to work.

I think the movie will grow on people across the country not familiar with the story or who had no ties to Marshall/Huntington, in the vein of Hoosiers or Remember The Titans. My wife and sons have heard about it for years...that's why we wanted to experience the movie together.

The most incredible sports story I'll ever witness. I thought about the 75 when Marshall played in Detroit in the Motor City Bowl in 1999 and finished in the top 10 in the country. I think about them every time I visit the Marshall Student Center and see the 1970 team picture on the wall. I knew their names from the newspaper stories and the radio coverage of the era. It is quite a personal memory for me, and one I know I share with thousands, and now, many, many more.

I spent many summers with my aunt, uncle and cousin in Huntington, WV and was at the University of Virginia in Nov 1970 when the plane carrying most of Marshall's football team crashed. It crashed just a few miles from their home.

While my school was 300 miles from Huntington many weekends I'd make the trip to Huntington to see my aunt & uncle.

Just a week before the accident my uncle and I saw one of their games - a home game playing Kent State - and it was such an eerie feeling for me to know that virtually everyone I saw on the field that day was gone in an instant.

I don't think it would be possible for any director to truly capture the level of grief in Huntington at that time, but this movie gave a pretty good glimpse inside.

While this movie is about the rebuilding of a football team that all but vanished, the greater message to me is how they kept building through their intense grief, and why that effort was important.

Almost everyone in my circle knew someone - or had a loved one - killed. A poster mentioned that some in Huntington don't like the film - everyone I know - including my cousin, felt that it really captured the time.

The Huntington Quarterly devoted an issue to describe the making of the movie, and how the actors met - and mingled - with members of the community. I believe that the community embraced the production crew.

Kate Mara's character, according to my cousin, is a composite of several actual individuals and the restaurant has a different name but everything else is factual. Incidentally I loved Kate's character.

Matthew McConaughey has said that it is the most meaningful movie he has done.

I have recommended it to all my friends.