We Are Marshall Review

On November 4, 1970, a chartered airplane carrying the Marshall University football team, the entire coaching staff except for one assistant coach, the university's athletic director, and many influential people from the town of Huntington, West Virginia crashed, killing everyone on board.  We Are Marshall is the story of the rebuilding of the Marshall football team following that tragedy.

After the plane crash, Marshall is left with no athletic director, no head coach, and only four varsity players (Assistant Coach Red Dawson missed the flight for a recruiting trip, and the four players were left home for various reasons).  The university originally decided to suspend the football program, but thanks to the efforts of senior player Nate Ruffin, the decision was ultimately made to continue with the football team.

The first step in rebuilding Marshall football was to hire a head coach, a task which fell to University President Donald Dedmon.  Coach Dawson didn't want the job, and neither did anyone else on a list of prospective candidates.  The job was given to the only man who applied, Jack Lengyel, played by Matthew McConaughey.  Coach Lengyel's character is very odd and quirky.  He's fond of telling unusual stories to make his points, and he also pats the university president on the behind on more than one occasion.  I don't know for sure, but I don't believe the real Jack Lengyel was like that.  I think the character was that way strictly for the benefit of the movie, and I think it worked.

College football fans will enjoy an appearance by the character of Bobby Bowden (Coach Bowden himself is not in the movie).  Coach Bowden is the current coach at Florida State, but at the time, he was the coach of West Virginia.  Coach Lengyel and Coach Dawson, who agreed to come back for one year as an assistant, go to see Coach Bowden in order to learn the veer offense.  This would normally be a crazy notion, since Marshall and West Virginia are rivals, but in light of the tragedy, Coach Bowden gives the Marshall coaches free access to his film room.

The movie goes on to show the process of rebuilding the Marshall football team and ends with the team's first win following the tragedy.  Along the way, the movie never lets you forget about the tragedy.  It accomplishes this through the characters of Annie Cantrell and Paul Griffen.  Annie was a Marshall cheerleader, who was engaged to marry Mr. Griffen's son, Chris, Marshall's star running back.  The movie spends a great deal of time on these two characters and how they, specifically, deal with the tragedy and try to get on with their lives.  Annie also does double duty as the movie's narrator.

We are Marshall does a great job of telling the story and injecting humor, while never letting you forget about the tragedy.  Some might say that the character of Coach Lengyel is too goofy, but I think his humor is necessary to keep the movie from being too depressing.  Some might say that Annie and Mr. Griffen have too large of a role in the movie, but it's important to understand that the tragedy didn't just affect the school and the football team.  It shook the foundation of the whole town and affected the lives of a lot of people.  The story of Annie and Mr. Griffen helps the viewer to understand that point.

As for Marshall football, as stated in the movie, they were the losingest program in Division 1 in the 1970's.  That's understandable considering what happened.  They were the winningest program in Division 1 in the 1990's, which is absolutely amazing and wonderful.

From Wikipedia:

"During the 1990s, Marshall posted the highest winning percentage of any NCAA Division I program, winning 114 games and losing just 25. The Thundering Herd won Division I-AA national championships in 1992 and 1996 before moving to I-A in 1997, and set a Division I, FCS (formerly I-AA, now the Football Championship Subdivision of Division I athletics) record by advancing to the "Final Four" of the I-AA Tournament for six consecutive seasons.

Marshall has gone to eight bowl games in I-A, posting a 5-3 record, and the Herd finished No. 10 in the nation in 1999 in both the Associated Press poll and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll when MU was 13-0. They knocked off No. 25-ranked BYU in the 1999 Motor City Bowl in Pontiac, Michigan, 21-3 to complete the second perfect season in four years (15-0 for 1996's I-AA Championship team, rated the best-ever in I-AA with stars like Randy Moss, Erik Kresser, Doug Chapman, Erik Thomas, Tim Martin, Billy Lyon, B.J. Cohen, Larry McCloud, Melvin Cunningham and many others)."

I think anyone can watch We are Marshall and be entertained by the story, but I think football fans will especially like the movie.  I highly recommend We ae Marshall.