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GREENVILLE, N.C. — Dwight Flanagan can still see the faces. He has gone back through old game programs and racked his brain to put the faces with the names.

He simply can’t do it.

It’s been nearly 53 years since Flanagan walked to midfield for the coin toss as one of East Carolina’s captains that crisp Saturday afternoon. He shook hands with the Marshall captains, listened to the head referee’s instructions and returned to the home sideline.

“For 60 minutes, you go against those guys, knocking heads, doing everything you can to beat them, and we’re fortunate enough to win a tough, hard-fought game,” said Flanagan, his voice solemn but steady.

“And then you hear the awful news later that night, news that eats at you to this day, all these years later, that those guys get on an airplane and never make it back.”

Through that tragedy on Nov. 14, 1970, East Carolina and Marshall will forever be linked. All 75 people aboard a chartered Southern Airways DC-9 carrying Marshall players, coaches and fans were killed when the plane returning from a 17-14 loss to ECU slammed into a hillside surrounding Tri-State Airport in Kenova, West Virginia. It remains the deadliest sports-related air disaster in U.S. history.

“I was 6 when the plane crashed, just a couple miles from my home, and my cousins were first responders,” Marshall president Brad D. Smith said. “I remember the mountain glowing red and the sky kind of lighting up at night. And then, of course, hearing all the sirens and everything. It’s just incredible how personal the Marshall story is to everybody.”

On Saturday, the bond that endures between the schools evoked deeply rooted emotions and more than a few tears as 38,211 people gathered at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. After a weather delay of an hour and 41 minutes at halftime, Marshall scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter for a 31-13 win.

But the final score was almost an afterthought. More than 30 East Carolina players from the 1970 game returned to campus to pay tribute to their fallen opponents from more than a half century ago. (A similar ceremony had been planned for the fall of 2020, 50 years after the crash, but was canceled because of COVID-19.) Some of those players hadn’t been back in decades.

“I’m still not over it, not sure I ever will get over it,” said George Whitley, a senior co-captain and defensive back on the 1970 ECU team. “I think I’ve been back here for a game maybe one other time, but I wasn’t going to miss this one.”

On the Marshall side, it was the first time Red Dawson had been back since the 1970 game. Dawson, the Thundering Herd’s defensive coordinator, didn’t get on the team plane that night and instead drove to Ferrum College in Virginia for a recruiting visit along with freshman coach Gail Parker, who had flown down with the team but traded seats with assistant coach “Deke” Brackett, who had driven to Greenville with Dawson.

Just as the rain started to come down Saturday, the 80-year-old Dawson gingerly walked out onto the field during a timeout in the first quarter. The players from East Carolina’s 1970 team presented him with a game ball they had all signed. Dawson pointed at each of them, nodded and mouthed the words “Thank you.”

Dawson, who still lives in Huntington, West Virginia, was a central figure in the 2006 film “We Are Marshall.” He and his wife, Sharon, drove to Greenville for the game last weekend after visiting the South Carolina coast. Dawson was only 28 when the crash occurred, not a lot older than many of the players he coached. For more than 30 years, he said, he was unable to escape the horror of it all and essentially went into a shell.

“Hell, I didn’t want to see anybody or talk to anybody, let alone talk about that game or remember anything about it. I just couldn’t,” said Dawson, who is still recovering from a stroke suffered three years ago. “I think I went to 27 funerals. You can’t imagine that kind of pain, seeing all those families who lost the people they love the most.

“It was hard coming back here. I didn’t know if I ever could.”

Dawson, wearing his green and white Marshall pullover, played over and over in his mind what it was going to feel like walking out on that field again. Some of the anguish he had purposely locked away came creeping back.

But not all of it. He maintained his razor-sharp wit throughout the weekend. Told that he was a lot better-looking than the actor, Matthew Fox, who played him in the movie, Dawson smiled wryly and said, “Now I know you’re bulls—ting me.”

Just before kickoff Saturday, Dawson stood adjacent to the end zone with Sharon at his side and gazed 100 yards in the other direction toward the visiting locker room. Just outside the stadium on that side is a memorial plaque that was installed in 2006 to honor the 1970 Thundering Herd. The plaque reads in part: “Their flight to eternity forever changed the lives of those who dearly loved them. … They shall live on in the hearts of their families and friends forever.”

The Marshall administration invited Red and Sharon Dawson to fly to the game with the team last weekend.

“But he said no, not this game and not here,” Sharon said.

As it turned out, Marshall’s plane had trouble landing at the Greenville airport on Friday before the game because of storms in the area. The plane circled the airport and was diverted to Richmond, Virginia, to refuel before returning to Greenville.

Dawson did stay at the hotel with the team, and when he and Sharon retired to the room that evening, they flipped on the television, and “We Are Marshall” was playing.

“We watch it every year now,” Sharon said. “Red usually makes it to the part where the screen goes black [when the plane goes down] before he starts crying.”

With the long weather delay, most of Saturday’s crowd had left by the time the second half resumed. Red and Sharon held out as long as they could, and Marshall coach Charles Huff reminded his players what this game means to so many.

“We talked to the team before the game that the way you honor someone is by how you do something,” Huff said.

Saturday’s win was Marshall’s first in Greenville in eight tries.


KEITH MOREHOUSE, WHOSE father, Gene, was killed in the crash, was also presented with a game ball during the ceremony. Gene was the radio voice for the Thundering Herd and the team’s sports information director in 1970. His son has followed in his footsteps, as Keith is the longtime sports director at WSAZ-TV, the NBC affiliate in Huntington.

It was only the sixth ECU-Marshall game in Greenville since the crash in 1970, and Morehouse had attended a few of the previous matchups. On one of those trips, he was able to go up into the old visiting team broadcast booth.

“The booths have all been redone with the stadium expansion, but they took me to the one Dad would have been in while calling his last game,” Morehouse said. “The footprint of the stadium is the same as it was in 1970, so as you walk onto the field, thoughts wash over you.”

A few years ago, some of the ECU players on the 1970 team sent Morehouse the original film from the game, and his colleagues at the television station spliced the audio of his father’s radio call with the game film.

Morehouse won an Edward R. Murrow regional award for best news documentary in 2020 with his report “A Change of Seasons: Fifty Novembers Ago.” He interviewed some of the ECU players for the piece and was struck by how it had impacted them.

“I guess we’ve all mourned in different ways,” said Morehouse, whose wife, Debbie, lost both of her parents in the crash.

Her father, Ray Hagley, was the team doctor and only 34 at the time of his death. Her mother, Shirley, was flying with her husband for the first time, traveling without their six children. Many of the fans on the plane were among the most prominent leaders in the community. There were 18 children who became orphans after losing both parents on the doomed flight.

Morehouse, 62, still has a picture from that game that shows part of the stands.

“You can pick out some of the family members, and you can see my wife’s father in one of the pictures,” he said.

Dawson, who never returned to coaching after the 1972 preseason, has blocked out much of what happened 53 years ago. Some of those memories he doesn’t want to recall, and others he’s relieved that he can’t recall because of the effects of his stroke.

What he does remember from that game 53 years ago, similar to the ECU players, are the faces of the Marshall players as they made their way off the field. He remembers some of the fans mingling around the locker room. And, yes, he remembers being peeved over the loss.

“We should have won the damn game,” Dawson said grimacing. “That’s what everybody was thinking.”

But a football game was the last thing on Dawson’s mind hours later as he and Parker hopped back in the car after visiting a prospect. They were listening to the car radio when they heard the news.

“Shock, total shock,” Dawson said. “I don’t know where we were or even what time it was. I just know we stopped the car and sat there and stared at each other. Neither one of us could say a word. We just stared. I couldn’t tell you how long. It seemed like forever.”

Back in Greenville, ECU coach Mike McGee came barreling through the dormitory late that night yelling for everybody to gather in the student center for an impromptu meeting.

“A lot of us were downtown trying to find a beer like most college kids. We were celebrating. We didn’t win many games that season,” said Richard Peeler, an all-conference defensive tackle for the team. “When Coach McGee finally got us all together that night, we went to pieces.”

Rusty Scales remembers being summoned by a graduate assistant, and for him, the news hit especially hard. Scales, a fullback on that ECU team, played high school football in New Jersey against Marshall quarterback Teddy Shoebridge and running back Art Harris. Scales played at Passaic Valley High, Harris at Passaic High and Shoebridge at Lyndhurst High.

“I stood over there with Teddy talking for a few minutes, talking about coaches and people we knew in New Jersey, some of the high school teams,” Scales recalled. “We talked long enough that our coaches were calling us off the field to the locker rooms.

“And just like that, you hear he’s gone, all of them. You just couldn’t believe it.”

The ECU team held a memorial service early the next morning at the Wright Auditorium on campus. The Pirates’ season was over, but Marshall had one more game remaining against Ohio University that weekend.

McGee, who died in 2019, was in his only season at East Carolina as coach before moving on to Duke. He called Peeler into his office Monday morning after the crash to see what his thoughts were about ECU potentially filling in for Marshall in its final scheduled game as a way to honor the players and coaches who lost their lives.

“We were going to wear their uniforms and any revenue we made would have gone to Marshall, but the NCAA wouldn’t let us do it,” Peeler said. “We were just looking for ways to do anything we could to help.”


AS SATURDAY’S GAME approached, the players and coaches who played in that 1970 game were hardly the only ones who found their minds racing — and their hearts aching.

Shoebridge’s older brother, Tom Shoebridge, had to pause several times to gather himself when recalling his final telephone conversation with his brother. Tom, who spends most of his time now at the New Jersey shore, was unable to make the trip to Greenville, but he connected a few years ago with some of the ECU players.

“Give those guys a big hug. We don’t shake hands in Jersey. We hug,” said Shoebridge, who retired in 2019 after more than 40 years of coaching track and football at his high school alma mater, the same school his late brother Teddy starred at in both football and baseball.

On Sundays when Teddy was at Marshall, he would call home collect. Tom said he, younger brother Terry and their parents would pass the phone around to talk to him.

“It was that or writing letters. We couldn’t talk long, either, because those collect calls were expensive,” Tom said. “But I’ll always remember him asking me about one of our biggest wins in high school, wanting to know all about our game and how excited he was for me. It was never about him.”

His voice cracking, Tom added, “I didn’t know that would be the last time I would talk to him.”

Whenever Tom hears that Marshall is going to be playing East Carolina, he said it brings him back to the day of Nov. 14, 1970.

“It’s not a good place to be sometimes,” Tom said. “I think about many, many things. As a coach, I think about the kids on that plane. They’d just lost a tough game. As a brother, I think about Teddy and what he was thinking before he died.”

Senior defensive end Owen Porter is Marshall’s defensive leader and one of the top players in the Sun Belt Conference. Saturday’s game was his first trip to Greenville. His grandparents, Don and Joyce Hampton, lived less than a mile from the crash site in Kenova. From the time he was a little boy, he’d heard stories about that fateful night and how the community rallied to support each other.

“They lived in a little white brick house right there at the time,” Porter said. “When the plane hit the mountain, it shook the walls, knocked pictures off the walls, shook stuff in bookcases, and there was broken glass and stuff on the floor.

“Marshall is who I am. It’s part of me and my family … always.”

Julia Keller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, was born and raised in Huntington. Her father was a math professor at Marshall and kept statistics at the football and basketball games. Keller would tag along as a young girl.

“I thought I was the queen of the world getting to sit there on press row and in the press box, and oh my gosh, that I knew Gene Morehouse,” Keller remembered. “My father and I shared a love of sports, and I know that crash affected him so profoundly because he knew a lot of those players and had them in class, and he knew the townspeople who were killed too.”

Soon after taking a job with the Chicago Tribune, Keller talked her editors into letting her write a story about the crash in 1999. She spent more than a month working on it, and one of the things that sticks with her was a visit she had with Teddy Shoebridge’s mother, who was dying of pancreatic cancer.

“I was so moved and touched when I went there. She had not been out of her bed for months,” said Keller, who was 13 when the plane crashed. “She came out into the living room, and we sat around the table and talked about Ted. She essentially got herself up out of what was her death bed to talk about her beloved son.”

Shoebridge’s mother died a few weeks after Keller’s story was published. When Keller realized that Marshall was playing at East Carolina this season, she immediately thought of that rainy, foggy night as a frightened 13-year-old and the unspeakable grief that consumed her hometown.

“It does change, the grief,” Keller said. “It goes from a very, very sharp edge, but I wouldn’t say it ever lessens.”

Earl Taylor was a member of the drumline in the ECU marching band in 1970. His wife, Pam, who joined the flag corps the following year, was also at the game in the stands. Taylor went on to earn three degrees at ECU, and to this day, he struggles to wrap his brain around the fact that he watched those players exit the field, but they never made it home.

“I think everybody on our campus was thinking the same thing, ‘We just played that team, and now they’re gone,'” Taylor said. “We won the game, but they lost their lives.

“It just couldn’t be.”

When the last of the Marshall players came straggling out of the locker room toward the team buses Saturday, the rain had just about stopped. Caleb McMillan, a junior receiver from Orlando, Florida, walked outside the gate with his headphones sitting atop his head. He turned to his left and was facing the plaque memorializing his Herd football brethren from more than 50 years ago. He took a picture with his cell phone and gently placed his hand on the plaque.

“We won’t forget,” he said softly.

It was McMillan’s 75-yard touchdown reception — another tribute of sorts to the “75” — that turned the game in Marshall’s favor.

But on this rainy night, it was little more than a footnote.

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Sovereignty rallies to win Jim Dandy at Saratoga

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Sovereignty rallies to win Jim Dandy at Saratoga

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes champion Sovereignty rallied after losing position heading into the final turn to win the $500,000 Jim Dandy by a length at Saratoga on Saturday.

Ridden by Junior Alvarado, Sovereignty ran nine furlongs in 1:49.52 and paid $3 to win as the 1-2 favorite against four rivals, the smallest field of his career.

Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott said Sovereignty would be pointed toward the $1.25 million Travers on Aug. 23 at the upstate New York track.

Approaching the turn, there were a few tense moments as it appeared Sovereignty was retreating when losing position to the advancing Baeza and deep closers Sandman and Hill Road, leaving Sovereignty in last for a few strides.

Alvarado said he never had a doubt that Sovereignty would come up with his expected run.

“It was everybody else moving and at that time I was just like, ‘Alright let me now kind of start picking it up,'” Alvarado said. “I had 100% confidence. I knew what I had underneath me.”

Baeza, third to Sovereignty in both the Derby and Belmont, finished second. Hill Road was another 9¼ lengths back in third. Mo Plex was fourth and Sandman fifth.

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Briscoe wins Brickyard 400 pole, his 5th of season

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Briscoe wins Brickyard 400 pole, his 5th of season

INDIANAPOLIS — Chase Briscoe became the first driver to win poles at NASCAR’s first three crown jewel races in one season Saturday, taking the Brickyard 400 pole with a fast lap of 183.165 mph.

His late run bumped Bubba Wallace out of the top starting spot.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has won nine career poles, five coming this season including those at the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600 and now the only race held in Briscoe’s home state. He’ll have a chance to complete a crown jewel sweep at the Southern 500 in late August.

Briscoe has the most pole wins this season, his latest coming on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval. It also came on the same weekend his sister was married in Indiana. Briscoe has never won the Brickyard.

Wallace starts next to Briscoe on the front row after posting a lap of 183.117 mph. Those two also led a pack of five Toyotas to the front of the field — marking the first time the engine manufacturer has swept the top five spots.

Qualifying was held after a brief, rescheduled practice session. Friday’s practice was rained out.

Briscoe’s teammate, Ty Gibbs, has the early edge in the championship round of NASCAR’s first In-Season Challenge. He qualified fifth at 182.445. Ty Dillon starts 26th. The winner will be crowned champion and walk away with $1 million.

Last week’s race winner Denny Hamlin faces a major hurdle in winning his first Brickyard title. He crashed hard during qualifying and will start from the back of the field, 39th, as he tries to become the fifth driver to complete a career sweep of the Cup’s crown jewel races. The 44-year-old Hamlin signed a two-year contract extension with JGR on Friday.

Defending race winner Kyle Larson starts 13th.

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Building the perfect trade deadline for the Mets and Phillies

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Building the perfect trade deadline for the Mets and Phillies

There’s plenty of history in the rivalry between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. It’s about 116 miles from Citi Field to Citizens Bank Park. The two teams been competing for the NL East since 1969. Star players from Tug McGraw to Jerry Koosman to Lenny Dykstra to Pedro Martinez to Zack Wheeler have played for both franchises. Mets fans loathe the Phanatic, and Phillies fans laugh derisively at Mr. Met.

Despite this longevity, the two teams have rarely battled for a division title in the same season. The only years they finished No. 1 and 2 or were battling for a division lead late in the season:

  • 1986: Mets finished 21.5 games ahead

  • 2001: Both finished within six games of the Braves

  • 2006: Mets finished 12 games ahead

  • 2007: Phillies finished one game ahead

  • 2008: Phillies finished three games ahead

  • 2024: Phillies finished six games ahead of Mets and Braves

So it’s a rare treat to see the Mets and Phillies battling for the NL East lead in as New York faces the San Francisco Giants on “Sunday Night Baseball” this week. This season has also been a bit of bumpy ride for both teams, so there is pressure on both front offices to make trade deadline additions in hopes of winning the World Series that has eluded both franchises in recent years despite high payrolls and star-laden rosters. Let’s dig into what both teams need to do before Thursday.

The perfect trade deadline for the Mets

1. Bullpen help

The Mets already acquired hard-throwing lefty Gregory Soto from the Orioles, but David Stearns will likely look for another reliever, given that the Mets’ bullpen has struggled since the beginning of June with a 5.02 ERA. In my grade of the trade, I pointed out the importance for the Mets to add left-handed relief. Think of potential playoff opponents and all the key left-handed batters: Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper on the Phillies; Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy on the Dodgers; Kyle Tucker, Michael Busch and Pete Crow-Armstrong on the Cubs.

Soto has held lefties to a .138 average this season, and it does help that the Mets have two lefty starters in David Peterson and Sean Manaea. They also just activated Brooks Raley after he had been out since early 2024. If he is back to his 2022-23 form, when he had a 2.74 ERA and held lefties to a .209 average, maybe the Mets will feel good enough about their southpaw relief.

They could still use another dependable righty reliever. Mets starters were hot early on, but they weren’t going deep into games, and outside of Peterson, the lack of longer outings is a big reason the bullpen ERA has skyrocketed. Carlos Mendoza has overworked his setup guys, including Huascar Brazoban and Reed Garrett. Brazoban has never been much of a strike thrower anyway, and Garrett similarly faded in the second half last season. Adding a high-leverage righty to set up Edwin Diaz makes sense. Candidates there include David Bednar of the Pirates, Ryan Helsley of the Cardinals, Griffin Jax or Jhoan Duran of the Twins, or maybe a longer shot such as Emmanuel Clase or Cade Smith of the Guardians.

2. Think big, as in Eugenio Suarez

Mark Vientos was a huge key to last season’s playoff appearance and trip to the NLCS, hitting .266/.322/.516 with 27 home runs after beginning the season in Triple-A. He hasn’t been able to replicate that performance, though, hitting .224/.279/.354. That has led to a revolving door at third base, with Vientos, Brett Baty and Ronny Mauricio starting games there in July. Overall, Mets third basemen ranked 24th in the majors in OPS entering Friday.

Lack of production at third is one reason the Mets’ offense has been mediocre rather than very good — they’re averaging 4.38 runs per game, just below the NL average of 4.43. They could use another premium bat, given the lack of production they’ve received from center field and catcher (not to mention Francisco Lindor‘s slump since the middle of June). Maybe Francisco Alvarez‘s short stint back in Triple-A will get his bat going now that he’s back in the majors, but going after Suarez to hit behind Juan Soto and Pete Alonso would lengthen the lineup.

3. Reacquire Harrison Bader to play CF

Tyrone Taylor is a plus defender in center and has made several incredible catches, but he’s hitting .209/.264/.306 for a lowly OPS+ of 65. Old friend Bader is having a nice season with the Twins, hitting .251/.330/.435. Maybe that’s a little over his head, given that he had a .657 OPS with the Mets last season, but he would still be an offensive upgrade over Taylor without losing anything on defense — and he wouldn’t cost a top-tier prospect. The Mets could still mix in Jeff McNeil against the really tough righties, but adding Suarez and Bader would give this lineup more of a championship feel.

The perfect deadline for the Phillies

1. Acquire Jhoan Duran

Like the Mets, the Phillies already made a move here, signing free agent David Robertson, who had a 3.00 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 72 innings last season with the Rangers. On paper, he should help, but he’s also 40 and will need a few games in the minors to get ready. Even with Robertson, the Phillies could use some more help here. They’ll eventually get Jose Alvarado back from his 60-game PED suspension, but Alvarado is ineligible for the postseason. At least the Mets have an elite closer in Edwin Diaz. Jordan Romano leads the Phillies with eight saves and has a 6.69 ERA. Matt Strahm is solid, but more useful as a lefty setup guy than a closer (think of all those left-handed batters we listed for the Mets, then sub out Juan Soto and Brandon Nimmo for Harper and Schwarber).

And the Phillies’ bullpen has consistently come up short in big games. Think back to last year’s NLDS, when Jeff Hoffman lost twice to the Mets. Or 2023, when Craig Kimbrel lost two games in the NLCS against the Diamondbacks. Or the 2022 World Series, when Yordan Alvarez hit the huge home run off Alvarado in the clinching Game 6.

So, yes, a shutdown closer is a must. Maybe that’s Bednar, maybe Clase if he’s available (although he struggled in last year’s postseason), maybe Helsley. But the guy Dave Dombrowski should go all-in to get: Duran. The window for the Phillies is slowly closing as the core players get older. Duran is under control through 2027, so he’s a fit for now and the immediate future. The trade cost might be painful, but with his 100 mph fastball and splitter, he has the elite stuff you need in October.

2. Add Ryan O’Hearn

The Phillies have received below-average production from both left field (mostly Max Kepler) and center field (Brandon Marsh/Johan Rojas platoon). The center-field market is pretty thin except for Bader or maybe a gamble on Luis Robert Jr. I’d pass on Robert, stick with the Marsh/Rojas platoon and upgrade left field with O’Hearn, who is hitting .281/.375/.452 for the Orioles. He isn’t the perfect fit since, like Kepler, he hits left-handed and struggles against lefties, but he’s a patient hitter with a much better OBP, and he’s passable in the outfield.

3. Acquire Willi Castro

Here’s the bottom line: The Phillies have to admit that some of their long-term position players aren’t getting the job done — such as second baseman Bryson Stott, who has a 77 OPS+. Third baseman Alec Bohm has been better but also has a below-average OPS.

That makes Castro a nice fit. He’s not a star, but he’s an above-average hitter, a switch-hitter who plays all over the field for the Twins, having started games at five different positions. He could play second or third or start in left field against a lefty. Philadelphia could even start him in center instead of Rojas, although that would be a defensive hit. Bottom line: Castro would give the Phillies a lot more versatility — or a significant offensive upgrade over Stott if they start him every day at second.

Note as well: Stott has hit .188 in 33 career postseason games. Bohm has hit .214 with two home runs in 34 postseason games. The Phillies need a different offensive look for October.

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