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Decades later, he's still Marshall

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published December 26, 2006

Chuck Rine is still a member of the Marshall Thundering Herd, even though nowadays he behaves more like a Florida Gator.

He and his wife, Susan, moved to Florida in 1978. Both of their sons went to the University of Florida, though neither played football. The Rines, both 60, are Gator season ticket holders; neither has attended a Marshall game in decades.

She retired as an assistant Pasco school superintendent in June 2004. Rine, who was principal at Pasco High in 1992 when the school won the state football title, retired as principal of Centennial Elementary at the end of 2004. Golf and grandkids are a big part of their lives now.

But the release of We Are Marshall, a movie depicting the 1970 plane crash that killed 75 people, including the entire Marshall University football team, has forced Chuck and also Susan to emotionally revisit places they thought they'd left behind almost 40 years ago.

On Friday, the couple saw the movie for the second time in less than a week.

"It was worse emotionally the second time," said Chuck, dressed in his Marshall shirt.

Chuck went to Marshall in 1964 and played center. He lived in the players' dorm until he and Susan, a former 10th-grade classmate at Moundsville High, got married after their sophomore year. Chuck's first son, John, was born while the Rines were still in college.

When the jet crashed with the players, coaches and fans that stormy Saturday night in Huntington, W.Va., Chuck had already graduated from Marshall. His focus was supporting Susan, John and a second son, Jay. He was teaching physical education and social studies, and coaching track, wrestling and football at a high school in the West Virginia panhandle, a long way from Huntington.

But his Marshall ties were still pretty strong. His younger brother Larry, a wrestler, was at Marshall. His cousin, Margie Young, now Margie Polen, the principal at Gulf Highlands Elementary in Pasco, was also at Marshall.

Larry called Chuck and Susan to tell them about the crash.

In the '60s, Marshall football had a proud though losing tradition. The head football coach was fired at the end of the 1967 season, Chuck's senior year. By 1970, few of Chuck's assistant coaches were still around. He knew three or four players who were aboard the doomed flight.

But one man he knew well. Athletic director Charlie Kautz was an assistant football coach when he recruited Chuck at Moundsville High.

"He promised an opportunity to play, to compete on full scholarship," Chuck said when I visited him and Susan at their home in San Antonio. For the first time in more than 20 years, he had just taken out his old game programs, yellowed newspaper clippings and the black-and-white photos with him and Kautz.

The energetic assistant coach kept tabs on his recruit. The summer before Chuck entered Marshall, Kautz visited Moundsville to make sure that Chuck's workout schedule would prepare him for Marshall freshman football that fall.

Chuck talked about the old teammates. Susan remembered the other players' girlfriends. Huntington and Marshall seemed a long time ago. But on the big screen, it seemed so real and so close again.

"Marshall football was good to me," Chuck said. "Without football I wouldn't have been able to afford college."

You could almost hear his cheer after all these years: "We are Marshall!"

Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813 909-4602 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 26, 2006, 06:22:50]