Marshall University’s football team lost nearly everything and everybody in a 1970 split second. In the wake of a devastating plane crash that killed almost the entire football team and several officials, it looked like the university gripped in grief and lumbering under a gray shadow much darker than its trademark green might bury its athletic dreams with the lost team.

Then, spurred by a coach unafraid of insurmountable odds, students determined to heal, athletes willing to take the field again, and administrators and community members who remembered that they were Marshall, the school and teams endured.

Though the Thundering Herd has celebrated many high points and weathered lots of lows over the four decades since the crash, each time they compete, they know without a doubt that they can accomplish great things amid overwhelming obstacles.

“It was a tough, tough time, and you know we didn’t win a lot of games in the ‘70s,” Marshall University Athletic Director Mike Hamrick said, as he spoke before a joint session of the Rotary clubs of Princeton and Bluefield, Tuesday. “We have survived that. We have persevered through that.”

Though Hamrick deals in athletics, his address could have easily fit the curriculum of a life coach, as he encouraged his audience to create a vision for any goal worth tackling on or off the football field, basketball court or city streets.

“A vision is simply a dream with a deadline,” he said.

In shaping that vision, Hamrick emphasized that success only counts if it’s accomplished while remaining true to certain core values. At Marshall, he’s identified those core values as integrity, passion, commitment and belief that the vision is possible.

As Hamrick spoke, he did so before an audience of hard core Mountaineers, Herd and Hokies, with a generous dose of Mountain Lions, Big Blues, Ramblin’ Rams and more tossed in just for good measure. But his message applied, no matter whose colors we wore on Saturday or the mascots that adorned car windows as we pulled away from the Quality Inn and Conference Center.

At their heart, the core values are every bit as relevant for the coal miners, timber workers, educators, bankers, doctors, lawyers and homemakers of southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia as they are for the athletes and coaches of Marshall, West Virginia University, Virginia Tech, Concord, Bluefield State, Bluefield College or any other program crafted of quality character.

Whether our homespun culture and lifestyles built by the sweat of our brow and strength of our backs come from the rough terrain of our geography or the perseverance passed down from ancestors who literally carved and mined their legacies out of our mountains, we too know that surviving depends on a determination to persevere, no matter the odds or the probability of a win.

We’ve lost untold loved ones to mine tragedies, crashes and conditions created of the hard work through which they labored, and as industry increasingly pulled out of the Mountain State, we’ve watched generations leave our borders to follow a vision of success away from our hillsides, even as their hearts longed to be home.

We’ve pushed through stereotypes born of ignorance and endured the idea that our remote location somehow leaves our people less than those who live in other states, just because our addresses and accents are a little different.

Though our business climate is getting better, our upswing occurred just as a recession hit the world. Amid a struggling national economy and a nation determined our fossil fuel isn’t clean, our primary industries fall under attack on a daily basis.

Still, we survive. We persevere through all of that, because we know that mountaineers — even those of the Herd, Hokie and other varieties — are always free and work with integrity, passion, commitment and the belief that the outcome will one day justify all of our effort.

We are West Virginia. And, we must constantly work toward a winning vision for our teams, schools, people and state.

Tammie Toler is Princeton Times editor and general manager. Contact her at ttoler@ptonline.net.