We Are Marshall is a 2006 motion picture directed by McG about the aftermath of the 1970 plane crash that killed most of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team. The rebuilding of the program, and the healing that the community undergoes. It stars Matthew McConaughey as head coach Jack Lengyel, Matthew Fox as assistant coach William "Red" Dawson, David Strathairn as University President Donald Dedmon and Robert Patrick as ill-fated Marshall head coach Rick Tolley. Georgia governor George "Sonny" Perdue has a cameo role as an East Carolina University football coach. The movie is rated PG. The movie was scored by Christophe Beck and written by Jamie Linden.
The boardroom scene that shows the "We are Marshall" chant was filmed on two separate days. The boardroom scene was shot on one day and the chant was shot on a second day.
In the large stadium crowd scenes, hundreds local extras were used to fill the stands along with thousands of blow up dummies and thousands of CG Extras, to make the crowds appear larger.
The name of the winning play that Marshall used against Xavier was "213 Bootleg Screen".
The Huntington, West Virginia premiere of the movie was on 12 December 2006 followed by the Hollywood premiere in California on 14 December 2006. Green carpet, Marshall University school color, was used for both premieres rather than the traditional red carpet. Those who attended the Huntington, WV premiere included producer Basil Iwanyk, director McG, writer Jamie Linden, Matthew Mcconaughey, Matthew Fox, Anthony Mackie, Arlen Escarpeta, Kate Mara, and Dalton Polston. Real life coaches Jack Lengyl and Red Dawson also attended the premiere.
Southern Airways Flight 932 was a chartered Southern Airways DC-9 commercial jet flying from Kinston, NC (ISO) to the Huntington-Tri-State/Milton Airport (HTS) in Ceredo, West Virginia. At 7:35 PM on November 14, 1970, the aircraft crashed into a hill just short of the Tri-State Airport, killing all seventy-five on board. The plane was carrying the thirty-seven members of team, eight members of the coaching staff, twenty-five boosters, four flight crew members, and one employee of the charter company.
Because it was the team's only chartered flight of the season, many boosters and prominent citizens were on the plane, including a city councilman, a state legislator, and four of the city's six physicians. Seventy children lost one parent in the crash, and an additional 18 were orphaned.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the accident. The report was issued April 14, 1972. In the report the NTSB concluded "...the accident was the result of a descent below Minimum Descent Altitude during a non precision approach under adverse operating conditions, without visual contact with the runway environment...". The report goes on to conclude that "...two most likely explanations (for the greater descent) are (a) improper use of cockpit instrumentation data, or (b) and altimetry system error."
