Mantooth 's name is well known in the story of the 1970 Marshall Thundering Herd football team . En route back to Huntington , West Virginia from a game against East Carolina , the Marshall team 's Southern Airways Flight 932 clipped some trees on approach to Tri-State Airport and the plane crashed at a nearly vertical altitude into a ravine short of the runway . All seventy-five people on board were killed . The football team was decimated : thirty-seven players and five of the eight coaches lost their lives . The lives of two Marshall coaches were spared due to a recruiting trip trying to bring Mantooth to the Thundering Herd , as assistant coaches Red Dawson and Gail Parker were on their way to see the star linebacker known as " The Man-Eater " at Ferrum College in Ferrum , Virginia . Dawson had actually driven to the East Carolina game and , joined by Parker ( who had switched places with Deke Brackett , another coach ) , was to drive to Ferrum from Greenville , North Carolina at the game 's conclusion . However , en route to see Mantooth , Dawson and Parker heard about the crash on the radio
Southern Airways Flight 932
Southern Airways Flight 932
Billy Joe Mantooth