November Ever After: Marshall’s Triumph Over Tragedy by Craig T. Greenlee
What’s It About?
Former Marshall defensive again Craig T. Greenlee supplies insights and recollections in regards to the workforce’s deadly 1970 aircraft crash and its aftermath.
Craig T. Greenlee was a flexible school soccer participant who, in 1969 after his sophomore 12 months at Marshall College in West Virginia, misplaced his need for the sport and give up the workforce.
That call saved his life.
On Nov. 14, 1970, the aircraft carrying the Marshall soccer workforce again from a recreation in opposition to East Carolina crashed and killed all 75 folks aboard.
The crash has been nicely documented and even impressed a 2006 film that includes Matthew McConaughey. But there are just a few folks nonetheless alive so near the state of affairs because it unfolded and with deep connections to most of the victims. One such individual is Greenlee himself, who wrote November Ever After: Marshall’s Triumph Over Tragedy a half-century later to look at the affect of the crash on the varsity, its soccer program and people folks affected.
Firsthand Account of Turbulent Instances
Greenlee, via interviews with others and his personal observations, supplies new insights on the crash and its aftermath, not solely recounting the horrors and agony of the instances however describing the uplifting and religious points that come forth to assist stability the scales in any nice tragedy.
November Ever After is greater than the story of a sports activities workforce. It’s a take a look at a troublesome, turbulent time in our historical past, a time of despair marked by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam Warfare, racial divides and protests on school campuses throughout America.
Greenlee noticed it firsthand. He lived it. And now he presents his recollections, initially of a soccer program that had been a laughingstock for years till a robust freshman class of recruits — together with himself — modified the narrative and began turning fortunes round. That recruiting class coincided with elevated Black enrollment at Marshall, resulting in the kinds of racial tensions that have been prevalent all through our society on the time.
“It was not a time to take a seat down and preserve quiet,” writes Greenlee. Whereas soccer was necessary, and the related scholarships saved gamers at school with entry to an schooling, the gamers, as college students, felt Black college students have been being disadvantaged of the identical sources and alternatives as others.
Private Accounts of the Catastrophic Occasion
Greenlee presents unbelievable anecdotes from the evening of the crash. Whereas the information had traveled to the dormitories, not everybody was conscious at first. So when Chuck Landon, a sophomore, answered the dorm cellphone with the sister of one of many gamers calling to ask whether or not her brother was alive or not, Chuck knew there have been no survivors however felt awkward being the one to speak that information. “Nicely, no person’s actually positive proper now,” he stated, though he was positive.
Or the spouse and three kids of a neighborhood sportscaster who was on the aircraft, on the airport awaiting a touchdown that by no means got here.
As for the creator himself, “I used to be uncomfortable about any skill I might need to consolation anyone. What was I speculated to say? How may I presumably be of any use to anybody when, mentally, I used to be in a daze?”
It was like a film that you just wished was a make-believe story. However this was solely too actual. Many reactions to the catastrophic occasion appeared like a blur.
Coronary heart-Wrenching Story of Mourning and Rising Collectively
However as Greenlee describes, it was an outpouring of emotion and folks serving to folks. There was a closeness, a togetherness, “everyone was holding up everyone else.”
Southern Airways Flight 932, paradoxically, was the one aircraft journey the Marshall soccer workforce took all season. However it will likely be remembered because the worst aviation catastrophe within the historical past of American sports activities. Whereas lots of Greenlee’s contacts not surprisingly had buried their recollections and located it troublesome to reveal that uncooked nerve, some have been keen to share their tales. A technique or one other, they always remember. They usually additionally perceive it’s by no means too late to heal.
On this clever, heart-wrenching narrative, Craig Greenlee breaks down a group in mourning and a group rising collectively. In an odd manner, it’s a love story, fraught with adversity and lengthening far past any taking part in subject.
“The legacy of the workforce that perished goes manner past wins and losses. This group had a divine calling to meet a higher future … Racial and cultural variations actually didn’t matter anymore … This wasn’t a Black factor. This wasn’t a white factor. This was a demise factor, and demise doesn’t discriminate.”
In regards to the Creator:
Craig T. Greenlee, a Marshall College graduate and former soccer participant, is a veteran sports activities journalist recognized for his vivid storytelling. Deeply related to Marshall’s historical past, he personally knew many concerned within the 1970 aircraft crash tragedy. Greenlee’s profession contains roles as UPSCALE Journal’s sports activities editor and correspondent for DIVERSE Points in Increased Schooling and Convergence, a complement of the Chronicle of Increased Schooling. His work blends emotional narratives with insightful evaluation, capturing the human spirit in sports activities.
Publish Date: March 5, 2024
Style: Memoir, Nonfiction
Creator: Craig T. Greenlee
Web page Depend: 176 pages
Writer: Proisle Publishing
ISBN: 9781963735116