The deceased include the 37 players head coach Rick Tolley and five members of his coaching staff Charles E. On the evening of November 14, 1970, Southern Airways Flight 932, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 chartered by Marshall University to transport the Thundering Herd football team back to Huntington, West Virginia following their 17–14 defeat to the East Carolina University Pirates, clips trees on a ridge just one mile short of the runway at Tri-State Airport in Ceredo, West Virginia, and crashes into a nearby gully, killing all 75 people aboard.

Keith Spears was the Marshall University consultant. The film addressed rebuilding the program and the healing that the community undergoes. It was scored by Christophe Beck and written by Jamie Linden. Then- governor of Georgia Sonny Perdue has a cameo role as an East Carolina University football coach. Matthew McConaughey stars as head coach Jack Lengyel, with Matthew Fox as assistant coach William 'Red' Dawson, David Strathairn as university president Donald Dedmon, and Robert Patrick as ill-fated Marshall head coach Rick Tolley. It depicts the aftermath of the 1970 plane crash that killed 75 people: 37 players of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, five coaches, two athletic trainers, the athletic director, 25 boosters, and the airplane crew of five. We Are Marshall is a 2006 American biographical sports drama film directed by McG.

We are who we are cast