PRINCETON — For many 18-22-year-olds, college and the freedom it brings are rites of passage — a time when people come of age, reach for their dreams and land in the “real world” with a diploma in hand.

In an ironic twist of fate, Nov. 14, 1970, 75 lives were squelched in one fell swoop in the greatest tragedy in college sports history, just as many of those lives were beginning in earnest.

Nov. 14, 1970, Southern Airways Flight 932, the only chartered flight of the Marshall Thundering Herd’s 1970-’71 season, went down in a wooded area just outside of Huntington, after the team’s loss of a hard-fought battle against conference rival East Carolina.

The tragic event ended the lives of the 75 aboard, including 37 members of the Herd squad, 25 boosters along, eight coaches and administrators and the five members of the flight’s crew.

The fate of those aboard Flight 932 brought a devastating impact reaching well beyond the Big Green and White of the Marshall University campus. As depicted in the dramatization of those events “We are Marshall,” the college community of small Cabell County was hit from top to bottom, as the crash took the lives of children, parents, public officials, small business owners and man others.

There were black wreaths placed on neighborhood doors and across businesses, which were closed following the events of Nov. 14.

One local Princeton pastor was only 13 years old at the time of the crash and grew up amongst the Big Green of Huntington. Dan Jividen, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church, recalls the events of Nov. 14 clearly.

“It was a very rainy, wet night with patches of fog, so not what I would think ideal flying weather,” he said of the evening. “We had had reports of a plane crash all evening, and then reports of a DC-10 going down.”

Flight 932 carried the same model number.

“And then, of course, we all knew,” Jividen said fatefully.

At the age of 13, the event left unmistakable marks on Jividen, and its memories still live in him.

“We all went out on the porch, and it was raining, and we saw the fire trucks.”

Jividen grew up in Westmoreland, near the airport where the team was scheduled to land.

“We were literally only a crow’s fly away from the airport,” he said.

Being so young, and knowing others around him, Jividen recognizes how important of an event this was in his life.

“Sometimes things come along in life that slap you in the face, and this was a coming of age for a lot of us my age,” he said. “It was like the world went from living color to black and white overnight.”

Recovery from the crash seemed impossible for the community and the college as the football program was almost discontinued following the events of the 1970 season. However, backlash from the student body and the community called for resurgence instead of a prolonged suspension of the program itself.

The communities were divided on whether or not to rebuild the program.

“There were those who thought it would not be right to field a team who couldn’t perform with any kind of competitiveness, but others thought it worse not to field a team at all,” Jividen said.

Former College of Wooster head football Coach Jack Lengyel was hired as the head coach after Georgia Tech Coach Dick Bestwick backed out of the position just one week into his employment.

The only remaining member from the ‘70-’71 coaching staff, William “Red” Dawson, rejoined the team and Lengyel in efforts to rebuild the program as the acting assistant coach. It was the first step to bringing the program back after the Nov. 14 tragedy.

During Lengyel’s four-year tenure as The “Young” Thundering Herd head coach, the team won only nine of 42 games. Although he was not the most successful of coaches at Marshall and the team lost more games in the 1970s than any other, he brought hope back to a hurting community.

Jividen remembers Lengyel’s impact on the community.

“Having him there those first few years helped because he believed… I don’t know. He was just optimistic. To be honest, when he left, I was disappointed.”

Each year on the day of remembrance the college recognizes the loss of that fateful day.

The memorial erected at the Spring Hill Cemetery is a visual reminder always to those lost on Nov. 14, 1970.

“They shall live on in the hearts of their families and friends forever and this memorial records their loss to the university and the community,” the plaque reads.