COLUMN: Today In Tuscaloosa, We Are All Marshall

*This is a feature opinion column*

TUSCALOOSA, AL — I wandered around the expansive and freshly manicured grounds of Cedar Oak Memorial Park for the better part of an hour before I finally came upon a quiet plot in the far western corner of the historic Tuscaloosa cemetery.

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This spot is unlike any other, with an understated memorial marker that includes the names of four young men taken in the prime of their lives.

The freshly turned red dirt at the site indicates a new marker was recently installed, which was complimented by two new bouquets of white artificial flowers.

For those who know what they're looking at, the green and white colors adorning the marker represent the lives lost.

The marker reads: "In memory of four Druid High School graduates Joe Hood, Larry Sanders, Robert Vanhorn and Freddie Wilson, members of the varsity football team of Marshall University who died in a plane crash November 14, 1970."

Indeed, Thursday marks the anniversary of what is widely considered to be the worst sports-related air tragedy in American history when Southern Airways Flight 932, carrying the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, crashed into a hill in North Carolina, killing all 75 people on board.

The cities impacted by this tragedy were small, large, and everything in between, with Huntington, West Virginia, the home of Marshall University, still mourning the loss of so many promising young men and their coaches to this day.

Among the long list of town names, though, and apart from Huntington, no other city in America lost as many natives in that plane crash as Tuscaloosa, Alabama — all four highly touted recruits who were the first in their families to go to college.

I thought about this standing alone over the marker on a sunny fall afternoon, so I removed my hat and said a quick prayer for the four football players, their families and our community, asking whoever was listening to make sure they never fade from memory.

I said "amen" when I was finished and then set about to make sure I at least did my part to preserve their legacies.

For those unfamiliar with Tuscaloosa history, the best place to start is Druid High School.

Located on the current site of Central Elementary, the segregated all-Black school operated as Industrial High School from 1935 until it was renamed in 1954.

While the original building is long gone, one can get a pretty good idea of what it looked like when visiting the former Tuscaloosa High School building, which was supposedly identical to Druid High School and now functions as the Tuscaloosa City Schools' central office.

Druid High's sports teams were nicknamed the Dragons and produced some of the best high school talent in the state at a time when the legendary head coach Paul W. "Bear" Bryant was bringing his alma mater back to prominence at the University of Alabama just a short drive away.

Despite not integrating the Crimson Tide football program until 1971 — after Southern California running back Sam Cunningham opened the eyes of many in the state to the abilities of Black athletes — Bryant had wanted to integrate well ahead of that fateful matchup with the Trojans and had even tried to do so during his brief tenure as the head coach at Kentucky.

The powers that be, though, particularly segregationist Governor George Wallace, did everything in their power to delay the inevitable. Still, this didn't stop Bryant from sometimes quietly driving his Cadillac over to the West End to watch the Dragons practice and talk ball with legendary Druid High head football coach Lou Mims.

Like Bryant, Mims was partial to a fedora on the sidelines and, apart from his accomplishments on the gridiron, became the city's first Black certified swimming coach.

He was described as being as big of a presence in the West End as Bryant was at the university and was lauded as a father figure to many when he died in 1998.

"Speaking from a coach's point of view, players must die," Mims said at the funeral of his four former players in 1970. "But death cannot kill their names."

While the Dragons football program had seen success here and there over the years before his tenure, including a 5-0-1 season in 1937 that is considered one of the school's best, the nine years that Mims led the program saw winning become more consistent — culminating in the school's only 10-0 season in 1968.

And it should come as no surprise that three of the four players killed in that plane crash were standouts on such an iconic team.

A Legendary Team

In the annals of west Alabama high school football, the 1968 Druid High Dragons are still talked about today as one of the greatest.

Dragons quarterback Reggie Oliver, who was played by actor Arlen Escarpeta in the 2006 film "We Are Marshall," would go on to serve one year as head football coach at Alabama A&M in 1994.

He was also one of just a handful of Marshall University football players who were not on the plane that fateful day in 1970 when the Thundering Herd was returning from a loss to East Carolina.

The NCAA barred freshmen from playing in varsity games at the time and Oliver stayed behind in Huntington.

And it would be Oliver, a member of the Marshall University Athletic Hall of Fame, who hurled what is still considered to be the most important pass in school history when he threw a touchdown strike as time expired to give Marshall a 15-13 win over Xavier — the program's first victory since the deadly plane crash.

"I went from being one of the youngest to the oldest in a blink of an eye," Oliver told the Tuscaloosa News years later. “I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

But if Oliver was the one to ultimately carry the torch after the tragedy, his older high school and college teammates would serve as the foundation for such a lasting legacy.

For example, quarterback/halfback Joe Hood and center Freddie Wilson earned honorable mention Class 4A All-State honors following the 1968 season, with Hood awarded the Most Valuable Player award from the team during a ceremony held in the school's cafeteria.

Indeed, when local postseason All-County honors were handed out at the end of the season by the Tuscaloosa News, Hood and Wilson were joined by senior Dragons tackle Robert Vanhorn and junior end Adolphus Crockett on the Second Team — all four ultimately signing with Marshall.

As an interesting side note, also among the names on the Second Team was longtime Republican State Sen. Gerald Allen — registering at 5-11, 190 pounds as a senior fullback for the Holt Ironmen.

"That plane crash really affected a lot of folks from Tuscaloosa and it's one of those events that I won't ever forget and then you have Marshall rebuilding its program," Allen told Patch. "It's one of those things you'll never forget."

Sanders, standing 6-2, was a standout basketball player for the Dragons and a year older than the three other Druid High graduates killed in the 1970 plane crash. He had earned the football team's Back of the Year Award following the 1967 season and made his way to Marshall.

The Dragons entered the 1968 season, the fifth for Coach Lou Mims, after posting an ambitious 5-3 record the year before that ended with a 13-6 win over crosstown rival Riverside High — the segregated all-Black high school in Northport that is now Collins-Riverside Intermediate School.

Despite the embarrassment of riches on the field for the Dragons, newspaper coverage for Druid High's opening 19-6 win over U.S. Jones of Demopolis was relegated to a brief two-column story buried in the sports page.

At the same time, Northside High School — this reporter's alma mater — had a much larger story for its rivalry game with Berry, complete with a photo. Never mind, until only in recent years, the Northside Rams were historically abysmal on the gridiron, even when I played, but I digress.

Funny enough, Hood started the game at quarterback for the Dragons and secured their first points of the year with a touchdown pass to Jimmy Jones.

In the second half, Coach Mims decided to turn over quarterback duties to Reggie Oliver, who then threw a touchdown pass to Hood after the standout athlete had moved to halfback, sealing the deal for Druid High.

Records from this time are sparse due to the limited newspaper coverage and the absence of certain dates in online newspaper archives, so much of the season has been lost to history.

Nevertheless, we then find ourselves following a 6-0 Druid High team as they traveled to Selma for what surely went down as the single-greatest performance of Reggie Oliver's high school career in a 59-0 throttling of H.D. Hudson High on its homecoming.

Indeed, Oliver went 13-of-20 passing for 340 yards and seven touchdowns — three of which went to the versatile "Joltin'" Joe Hood, who also grabbed an interception in the win.

The Dragons followed this with another blowout, thanks to the passing game, as the talented squad blew out Carver Gadsden 45-7. In the win, Hood scored five touchdowns, three on passes from Oliver.

Hood had a big night, sure, but what truly highlighted his ability could be found when he turned on the burners for a 60-yard touchdown reception to begin the second quarter, only to take the field on defense in the third quarter and return an interception deep into Carver Gadsden territory to set up another score.

The next week saw Druid High improve to 9-0 with a 33-20 win over South Girard before going into the final game of the season against their hated rivals in Northport.

This is as good of a place as any to point out why the Druid Dragons were preparing to end the 1968 campaign with a regular season game against Riverside High.

The Tuscaloosa News reported on the eve of the rivalry matchup that Druid High failed to qualify for the playoffs due to its schedule not being approved by the Alabama High School Athletic Association before the start of the season.

Some in the community to this day still argue that there was a racial component to the AHSAA's decision, but Coach Mims didn't call foul when asked by white local reporters about the decision.

"It's just one of those things," Mims said. "But our boys have made a big accomplishment, and they deserve all the credit they can get. We feel like this is the best team here since 1937, and we think Joe Hood is the best player to come through here in the last 20 years."

The rivalry game turned out to be a rout as the Dragons held the Tigers to just 57 yards of total offense while putting up 353 yards, thanks to Oliver and Hood.

Oliver finished the night 13-of-26 passing for 214 yards and two scores, along with snagging a 16-yard reception.

Hood's last high school game saw him run for 57 yards and a touchdown while adding four catches for 60 yards and a score.

Regardless of their lack of eligibility for the postseason, Druid High capping off the undefeated season with a 25-0 win over a rival was celebrated throughout Tuscaloosa's West End that night and is still talked about today.

Little did the community realize the pain that the future held.

Dreams & Regrets

For the main characters of our story, a steel town like Huntington, West Virginia, probably seems like the least likely place for these athletes to have pursued football careers.

In the years following the crash, Kenneth O'Rourke — a Tuscaloosa native and former Druid High assistant coach — publicly blamed himself for the deaths of Joe Hood, Larry Sanders, Robert Vanhorn and Freddie Wilson.

After all, O'Rourke had been the freshmen team football coach at Marshall and was the recruiter who convinced a half dozen talented Druid High prospects to sign scholarships to play for the Thundering Herd, including the four young men killed in the plane crash in 1970.

"Our relationship, the six of us, was much greater than a normal coach-player relationship," he reflected in a 1975 interview with Tuscaloosa News. "They confided in me. If they had a personal problem, whether it be academic or a love affair, they came and talked."

He would later tell reporters that each of the four student-athletes killed in the crash had established themselves as professional football prospects at Marshall, despite not getting the opportunities at bigger programs.

"[Larry] Sanders was the leader of the group," O'Rourke said. "On the football field, he had a killer instinct but was very polite off the field. He was exceptional in the classroom and was a constant church-goer. Larry was a very popular young man."

O'Rourke's affinity for Sanders makes even more sense when considering the young man was the reason the coach had gone to Marshall after he had helped Sanders secure a football scholarship from Thundering Herd head coach Perry Moss.

This can be traced back to Sanders being a standout talent on the freshman team in his first year on campus in Huntington, where he led the squad in interceptions and punt returns, while finishing second in tackles.

Moss was quickly impressed with Sanders, so much so that he reached out to O'Rourke early in 1969 looking for more Alabama talent.

O'Rourke, who was working for a youth program in Demopolis at the time, then recommended Hood, Vanhorn and Wilson, who all signed scholarships.

"Freddie was very quiet," O'Rourke recalled. "He was shy and real unsure of himself. He was showing remarkable improvement as a player. Joe was the most talented of the group. He was very likable, but sometimes moody. Joe always got the job done."

O'Rourke went on to say that, statistically, Hood was the most outstanding football player in the group, proving to be a gifted running back and receiver.

But in a retrospective interview five years after the plane crash, talk eventually turned to Vanhorn, with a reporter remarking that O'Rourke leaned back in his chair and smiled when thinking about the defensive lineman with so much promise.

"It is difficult to fully describe Robert," he said. "The minute somebody met him, they fell in love with him. He smiled all the time and always had a kind word for anybody. Robert gave 120 percent in everything he did, at practice, in games, in life. And, he was the one who said he never wanted to fly."

Just eight weeks before the tragedy, O'Rourke had taken a job at Hampton Institute after reportedly delaying his decision to leave Marshall so long that school officials gave him one hour to notify them whether he would stay or take the job.

O'Rourke told reporters that he learned about the crash when the Hampton coaching staff stopped by a motel for a cup of coffee on the way back from a game against Tuskegee Institute.

"Why I was spared has been a constant thought with me since I learned about the crash," he said. "I believe in God and believe he has a plan for each individual. God did not have it in his plans for me to be on that plane. ... One of the coaches showed me the newspaper headline and asked if I had heard about it. I glanced at it and saw Marshall, but it did not dawn on me what had happened for another minute or two. When I realized what I had read, it was a deep shock to me. I felt helpless. I went to a phone and called my aunt who lives [in Tuscaloosa] and she told me those four kids were on the plane."

When discussing that day years later, he described it as being in "mental hell."

Indeed, the day after the crash O'Rourke was asked to go to Huntington to identify some of the players' bodies before attending what he viewed as "an almost-unbroken chain of funerals."

And the entire time he was blaming himself.

"My biggest problem was facing the players' families," he said. "On the Tuesday after the crash on Saturday, the parents called me to their motel rooms in Huntington and assured me in no manner did they hold me responsible for what happened. ... They are wonderful people, but I still find it hard to visit with them. For about a year I felt responsible, then Joe's father told me he knew all of the players were very happy while they were at Marshall."

Despite the consolation from the families of the young men, the loss still gnawed at O'Rourke and he reflected on a phone call he received from Joe Hood on the Thursday before the crash. This came less than a week after Hood had scored the winning touchdown for Marshall in a win over Kent State.

"He called to ask if I would come watch them play in the final game of the season," O'Rourke said before explaining that he had a difficult time returning to Huntington, despite being offered jobs on the coaching staff on three different occasions. "I visit there, but I cannot go back to stay. There are too many memories."

Years before lifelong West End native Jerry Carter served as the president of the Tuscaloosa branch of the NAACP from 2011-2021, he grew up next door to Joe Hood and held those Druid High gridiron stars in the same esteem as Greek Gods.

Carter's memories from that time are as rich as they are heartbreaking and in recent years he has been a vocal advocate to see those four young men inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.

Indeed, Carter was 10 years old when the community received the news that four of the best football players in Tuscaloosa County history had been killed in a plane crash.

He still has a program from the funeral and his voice quaked slightly when he remembered seeing the four hearses lined up outside of Druid High School. It's something he had never seen before and something he hasn't seen since.

"Tuscaloosa lost more people in that plane crash than any other city and I don't think many people realize that," Carter told Patch. "From a 10-year-old's perspective, my friends and I rode our bikes there and there were cars all over the place. It was the gloomiest, most depressing time I can remember."

The mourning eventually gave way to motivation, though, as Carter and others have found ways to preserve the memory of the four young men.

In January, the City of Tuscaloosa approved funding for statues of Hood, Sanders, Vanhorn and Wilson to be erected at the new Benjamin Barnes Branch YMCA on the campus of the McDonald Hughes Center in the West End.

And as recently as Thursday — the 54th anniversary of the tragedy — the Tuscaloosa Reunion Club and the Industrial/Druid Alumni Association sponsored a balloon release to mark the occasion.

"These boys were a part of history," Carter said. "It's tragic history but they were some of the best kids to ever come out of Tuscaloosa and we can't forget them."

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