MARSHALL EVER AFTER

A university’s recovery from a catastrophic tragedy is recounted in this plangent memoir.

Following up on his memoir November Ever After (2011), journalist Greenlee explores his time as a student at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and the disaster that marked it: the November 14, 1970 crash of an airliner flying the school’s Thundering Herd football team back from an away game, which killed 75 players, coaches, fans, and crewmembers. The author, who played on the team in 1969, knew many of the victims, and he adds his personal observations to his account of the crash and its aftermath. He credits the tragedy with bringing the campus together after racial tensions culminated in a brawl the day before the crash between Black students and white fraternity members who paraded through campus waving Confederate flags. He also delves into the post-crash lives of classmates and victims’ survivors. Greenlee goes on to recap the renaissance of the Herd, perennial cellar dwellers in the Mid-Atlantic Conference before the crash, who rose from the ashes to become a Division I powerhouse. The author’s prose is searing in its evocation of the shock of the crash: “The memories of shared practices, grueling training sessions, and countless locker room jokes played on a loop in my mind, all of them now tainted by the weight of this catastrophe. I felt a raw vulnerability, a sense of nakedness in the face of such unspeakable grief.” But he also vividly conveys the ordinary joys of college sports, as in an exuberant play-by-play account of a victory over mighty Xavier: “Terry Gardner emerged from the shadows, catching the ball like a dream. The defense, fooled by misdirection, crumbled. And there, like a guardian of destiny, was Jack Crabtree, the behemoth offensive tackle, clearing the path.”) The result is an absorbing read and a touching tribute to lost loved ones.

A moving homage to a college football team and the community that it nurtured.