<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">On Oct. 2, 1970, a plane carrying 40 Wichita State University football players crashed into a mountainside on the way to Logan, Utah. Nine survived, and news reports quickly hit the air. Then a graduate student and basketball coach at Marshall University, 23-year-old Dan D?Antoni was where he always was ? at the Huntington, W. Va., home of close friend, mentor and Marshall team doctor, Ray Hagley. Hagley often traveled with the Thundering Herd on similar charter flights, giving the tragedy a personal impact. ?I can still remember Doc saying, 'That crash will tear everyone apart,?? D?Antoni said. ?What a nightmare. We?re sitting here, but we have no idea what kind of tragedy that is for a community.? ? Just six weeks later, tragedy hit Huntington. Marshall endured its own immeasurable nightmare. And D?Antoni, now an assistant under his younger brother, Mike, with the Suns, began a 35-year odyssey from which he is only now fully emerging. ?Like the commercial says ? 'Life comes at you fast,?? he said, forcing a smile. Today the film ?We Are Marshall,? starring Matthew McConaughey, opens across the country. It begins with the night of Nov. 14, 1970, when a Southern Airlines DC-9 charter carrying 70 people ? Marshall players, coaches, staff and boosters and a flight crew of five ? came in far too low on its landing approach in rainy and foggy weather and crashed into a Wayne County hillside. The plane hit nose-first, killing everyone aboard ? the single worst air tragedy in NCAA sports history. D?Antoni knew almost everyone who perished. Star quarterback Ted Shoebridge was his best friend. Kicker Marcelo Lajterman was dating the sister of his wife, Alice. Coach Rick Tolley, who turned around the sad football program after a three-year, 27-game losing streak, was D?Antoni?s longtime neighbor in Mullens, W. Va., and coached him in baseball.</div> Source
