William "Red" Dawson

William Alfred "Red" Dawson [ [http://media.www.marshallparthenon.com/media/storage/paper534/news/2007/10/24/Sports/Dawsons.Ties.To.Mu.Still.Run.Deep-3052563.shtml Dawson's ties to MU still run deep - Sports ] ] (born in 1943 [ [http://media.www.marshallparthenon.com/media/storage/paper534/news/2007/10/24/Sports/Dawsons.Ties.To.Mu.Still.Run.Deep-3052563.shtml Dawson's ties to MU still run deep - Sports ] ] ) is a former football player and assistant coach for Marshall University. He was nicknamed "Red" for his reddish hair.

The Valdosta, Georgia native attended Florida State University and was an All-American at at both tight end and defensive end. He briefly played professionally for the then-Boston Patriots of the American Football League. In 1968, he was hired by new Marshall head coach Perry Moss as receivers coach. However, after the season, which saw the Thundering Herd post a 0-9-1 record, allegations of rules violations and broken promises came to light and were proven true. Ultimately Marshall University was found guilty of over one hundred National Collegiate Athletic Association rules violations and were later kicked out of the Mid-American Conference. Moss was fired and former assistant Rick Tolley was named Moss' successor. Tolley kept only Dawson and Mickey Jackson.

On November 14, 1970, the Thundering Herd traveled to Kinston, North Carolina via a Douglas DC-9 chartered to take the team, coaches, school officials, and boosters to the game against the East Carolina Pirates and back home. The Herd lost on a controversial intentional grounding call against quarterback Ted Shoebridge on the last play of the game, and lost 17-14. En route back to Huntington, West Virginia, Southern Airways Flight 932 clipped some trees on approach to Tri-State Airport and the plane crashed at a nearly vertical attitude into a ravine short of the runway. All seventy-five people on board were killed. The football team was decimated; thirty-seven players and five of the eight coaches lost their lives.

However, Dawson was one of the few members of the team who weren't on the plane. Dawson and coach Gail Parker were on a pre-planned recruiting trip to see a linebacker named Billy Joe Mantooth at Ferrum Junior College in Ferrum, Virginia. [http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=dw-marshall111406&prov=yhoo&type=lgns] Dawson had actually driven to the East Carolina game and were to drive to Ferrum from Greenville at the game's conclusion. However, en route, Dawson and Parker heard about the crash on the radio. Mantooth eventually signed with West Virginia University.

After the crash and the funerals and memorials for the dead, it was decided that the football team would be rebuilt. Dawson assumed he would be the next head coach, but that wasn't the case. Eventually, Jack Lengyel was hired on St. Patrick's Day, 1971 and Dawson was persuaded to stay on as an assistant. After the 1971 season, which saw the Thundering Herd win two emotional home games, Dawson resigned and never returned to coaching. In the years since, he was haunted by "survivor guilt". [http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=dw-marshall111406&prov=yhoo&type=lgns]

Red Dawson was portrayed by Matthew Fox in the 2006 Warner Bros. motion picture "We Are Marshall". [ [http://www.marshall.edu/library/speccoll/virtual_museum/Memorial/coaches/dawson.asp Red Dawson - Memorial of the 1970 Marshall University Football Team Plane Crash - November 14, 1970 ... Remembered ] ]

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