Ferrum College Football Report: To Be Remembered

Lives continue. Even after tragedy, those left behind must find a way to cope, to deal with the loss. Some loss can be expected, but the worse kind comes from out of the blue. Straight out of left field. It happens every day to so many people, and they will and do find a way to keep pushing forward. But they are never the same.

50 years ago today, what was and still is the worst sports related aviation disaster in the nations history happened on a fog enveloped mountainside in Huntingdon West Virginia. The Marshall University Thundering Herd were flying back from Greenville N.C. after a game against the East Carolina Pirates. The game as it turned out would be won by ECU 17-14. The Pirates held on for the win, and Marshall, played well, but took the loss, and boarded a plane for home......they never got there.

I was ten when this happened. I remember it, but the gravity of it, the enormity of the loss did not really register. I knew it was bad, but the severity of it in my house was felt by my father. He had coached one of the those Marshall players, David Griffith, at Bluestone High School and the tragedy stung him. I remember the moment of silence in his honor at Bluestone's next home football game. I remember that there would be a new field house built for the football team, and it was to be named the David Griffith field house. It would be many years before the field house was replaced, but it was never named after Griffith. As I remember it, the county had a policy against naming buildings after people.

David Griffith was a heck of a ball player. he was one of the best at Bluestone, played on the Junior College National Championship team, and was the team captain at Marshall that year. Below is a short bio about David, likely from the Marshall press packet.

While Griffith has a special connection to me through my father and my connection to Bluestone High School, a much greater connection will forever be shared between Ferrum College and Marshall University. Griffith was one of seven players who transferred from Ferrum to Marshall.

Also on the plane that fateful night were Art Shannon, Tom Brown, Jerry Stainback, Bob Patterson, Pat Norrell and Tom Zborill. The Ferrum 8 as they have been called were rounded out by the Marshall head coach, and former Ferrum assistant Rick Tolley. Coach Tolley was the first assistant coach that Hank Norton ever hired for the football program, and has been described as Hank Norton's best friend.

Fifty years. It does not seem that long, but to others this has been an eternity. We cannot change what happened, but they will hopefully always be remembered by family, friends, Ferrum and Marshall.