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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Randy Moss, then the most gifted player in college football, led the revival of a Marshall program still haunted by a devastating 1970 plane crash. But Moss cared little about the Thundering Herd's past -- and wasn't around for its future. This story originally ran in the August 25, 1997 issue of Sports Illustrated.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Everybody's watching him. Randy Moss can feel the eyes of the&amp;nbsp;lunchtime crowd at the Bob Evans restaurant, the double takes&amp;nbsp;and furtive glances from the men in short sleeves and wide ties.&amp;nbsp;He's got his act down: gray hood over his head, butt slumped in&amp;nbsp;the booth, eyes as lifeless as buttons. Moss is a wide receiver&amp;nbsp;at Marshall University, in Huntington, W.Va., and he figures to&amp;nbsp;be rich before long. He jabs at his toast with a plastic straw.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"If I didn't have this hood on, and they saw us sitting here,&amp;nbsp;people would say an agent picked up Randy Moss and took him to&amp;nbsp;Bob Evans,\" he says. \"That's why I got this hood on. Some people&amp;nbsp;are looking, and some are not. Some know I'm here and you're&amp;nbsp;here, they see a bill and they'll say, 'The agent paid for his&amp;nbsp;food.' Anything can happen.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He shrugs. Moss says he doesn't care about the world's judgments&amp;nbsp;anymore, and it's easy to believe he means it. Certainly no&amp;nbsp;player in college football bears more stains on his name. Two&amp;nbsp;and a half years ago, as a high school senior, Moss stomped a&amp;nbsp;kid in a fight, pleaded guilty to two counts of battery and was&amp;nbsp;sentenced to 30 days in jail and a year's probation. That cost&amp;nbsp;him a scholarship to Notre Dame. He enrolled at Florida State.&amp;nbsp;The following spring he broke probation by smoking marijuana,&amp;nbsp;was kicked out of Florida State and served two more months in&amp;nbsp;prison. Then last fall, as Moss was on his way to shattering&amp;nbsp;various NCAA and Marshall records with 28 touchdowns and 1,709&amp;nbsp;receiving yards as a freshman, he was charged with domestic&amp;nbsp;battery against the mother of his baby daughter.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yet Moss is not much interested in image-mending. His first&amp;nbsp;words this morning were that he slept through his communications&amp;nbsp;class. His hair is braided in long rows against his skull, a&amp;nbsp;style he knows will give the wrong impression. \"People perceive:&amp;nbsp;Only black thug guys have braids,\" he says, his voice carrying&amp;nbsp;to a dozen tables. \"If I want to grow hair, I'll grow it. If I&amp;nbsp;want to wear lipstick and makeup, I'll do that. God didn't put&amp;nbsp;makeup on this world just for women. They perceive me as a thug?&amp;nbsp;I'm not. I'm a gentleman. I know what I am, my mom knows what I&amp;nbsp;am, most people know what I am. Don't judge me until you know me.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Notre Dame did just that, and Moss will never forgive the school&amp;nbsp;for it. \"They didn't take me, because they see me as a thug,\" he&amp;nbsp;says. \"Then Florida State...I don't know. You win some, you lose&amp;nbsp;some. That's a loss.\" Moss pauses, laughs a humorless laugh.&amp;nbsp;\"But in the long run I'm going to have the victory. In the long&amp;nbsp;run...victorious.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moss is sure of this because he has sports' trump card: talent.&amp;nbsp;Better, Moss has the kind of breathtaking athletic gifts seen&amp;nbsp;once in a generation. At 6'5\", with a 39-inch vertical leap and&amp;nbsp;4.25 speed in the 40, he established himself as West Virginia's&amp;nbsp;greatest high school athlete since Jerry West. Irish coach Lou&amp;nbsp;Holtz declared him one of the best high school football players&amp;nbsp;he'd ever seen. Moss was twice named West Virginia's Player of&amp;nbsp;the Year--in basketball. \"He does things you've never seen&amp;nbsp;anyone else do,\" says Jim Fout, Moss's basketball coach at&amp;nbsp;DuPont High in the town of Belle. Moss also ran track for a&amp;nbsp;while. As a sophomore he was the state champ in the 100 and 200&amp;nbsp;meters.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nearly every college wanted him, troubled or not. During Moss's&amp;nbsp;trial for the stomping incident, Kanawha County prosecutor Bill&amp;nbsp;Forbes received a half-dozen calls from football coaches around&amp;nbsp;the country assuring him they could make Moss a better citizen&amp;nbsp;if he was released to their care. Florida State coach Bobby&amp;nbsp;Bowden ultimately got Moss and quickly understood his&amp;nbsp;colleagues' hunger. Early in the fall of 1995, during an&amp;nbsp;impromptu late-night footrace among the Seminoles' fastest&amp;nbsp;players, Moss came in second. When he went through practice the&amp;nbsp;following spring as a redshirt freshman, the defense couldn't&amp;nbsp;stop him from scoring. \"He was as good as Deion Sanders,\" Bowden&amp;nbsp;says. \"Deion's my measuring stick for athletic ability, and this&amp;nbsp;kid was just a bigger Deion.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Marshall took Moss in last summer after his chances elsewhere&amp;nbsp;had dwindled to nothing, and he was instantly recognized as the&amp;nbsp;best player on the practice field. He then strolled through&amp;nbsp;Marshall's Southern Conference schedule like a grown man dropped&amp;nbsp;into Pop Warner games. His teammates called him the Freak. In&amp;nbsp;the Division I-AA title game, a 49-29 rout of Montana, Moss&amp;nbsp;caught four touchdown passes to tie the single-season college&amp;nbsp;record of 28 set by Jerry Rice in 1984 as a senior. Then, in&amp;nbsp;February, Moss entered the Southern Conference indoor track&amp;nbsp;championships after only three days of practice and won the 55&amp;nbsp;meters in 6.32 seconds and the 200 meters in 21.15--just .02 off&amp;nbsp;the conference record.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before coming to Marshall last year, football coach Bobby Pruett spent two years as defensive coordinator at Florida watching&amp;nbsp;dominant Gators wideouts such as Ike Hilliard and Reidel Anthony, who went seventh and 16th, respectively, in the first&amp;nbsp;round of the 1997 NFL draft. Neither, Pruett says, has Moss's&amp;nbsp;weaponry. \"He's the best athlete I've ever been around,\" Pruett says. Last year against Western Carolina, Marshall running back&amp;nbsp;Llow Turner took a handoff on a sweep with Moss five yards&amp;nbsp;behind him. \"Next thing I know,\" Pruett says, \"Randy's five&amp;nbsp;yards in front, and in a matter of 15 yards he threw two blocks&amp;nbsp;and sprung Llow for a touchdown. Llow runs a 4.5, and Randy&amp;nbsp;caught him.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"Here's a guy who's 6'5\". That's hard to find. Can jump out of&amp;nbsp;the gym. Hard to find. Great body control. Hard to find. He's got great hands, and he can run faster than anybody else on the&amp;nbsp;field!\" By now Pruett has his hands up around his face, mouth&amp;nbsp;wide open, looking like one of those horror-struck victims in a&amp;nbsp;Dracula flick.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Already, Moss is being touted as a top-five pick in next year's&amp;nbsp;draft, and few believe he won't go pro after this season. \"If I&amp;nbsp;have half as good a season as I had last year, then why not&amp;nbsp;leave?\" Moss says. \"I have nothing else to prove.\" If he does go&amp;nbsp;pro, says Atlanta Falcons scout Boyd Dowler, \"there's no doubt&amp;nbsp;where he'd be placed: very, very high. Joey Galloway, J.J.&amp;nbsp;Stokes, Keyshawn Johnson--I don't recall anybody who's had his&amp;nbsp;combination of exceptional athletic ability in all these areas.&amp;nbsp;Keyshawn is bigger than Randy, but he's not as talented, not as&amp;nbsp;fast and not as quick.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That kind of praise doesn't impress Moss anymore. \"The way I&amp;nbsp;look at it,\" he says, \"God's got a magic wand, and he taps just&amp;nbsp;a few on the head.\" That he can say this, straight-faced, isn't&amp;nbsp;nearly as disconcerting as the fact that he says it here, in a&amp;nbsp;place about as far from the universe of blue-chip cockiness as&amp;nbsp;you can get. Huntington, wedged between Kentucky and Ohio along&amp;nbsp;the Ohio River, has none of the bucolic self-importance of South&amp;nbsp;Bend or Tallahassee; its aging downtown wages a daily battle&amp;nbsp;between development and decay. The Marshall football program&amp;nbsp;had, until recently, a tradition marked mostly by losing,&amp;nbsp;disgrace and catastrophe. In 1970, one year after the school was&amp;nbsp;kicked out of the Mid-American Conference as punishment for more&amp;nbsp;than 100 NCAA violations, a chartered plane carrying 75 players,&amp;nbsp;coaches, fans, university employees and crew crashed, killing&amp;nbsp;all on board. It remains the worst disaster in U.S. sports&amp;nbsp;history.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Much has changed since then. Coming off its second Division I-AA&amp;nbsp;national championship, Marshall will this year complete a&amp;nbsp;remarkable resurrection with a trio of milestones. The&amp;nbsp;Thundering Herd, long overshadowed by upstate rival West&amp;nbsp;Virginia, will enter the Mountaineers' class on Aug. 30 by&amp;nbsp;joining Division I-A, rejoining the MAC and opening the season&amp;nbsp;with its first game against West Virginia since 1923. Yet&amp;nbsp;nothing legitimizes the Marshall program more than Moss, whose&amp;nbsp;outspoken opinions make the Thundering Herd impossible to&amp;nbsp;ignore. \"I don't see any way they can win,\" Moss says of the&amp;nbsp;Mountaineers, whose scholarship offers he twice turned down. \"If&amp;nbsp;West Virginia were like Florida State, the type of team that can&amp;nbsp;get to the big game and win it, I would be there. But I don't&amp;nbsp;like losing.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, everything about Moss--ambition, talent, trouble and&amp;nbsp;talk -- leaves the impression that he is bigger than Marshall,&amp;nbsp;that he is the kind of show-time player churned out yearly by&amp;nbsp;Miami or Nebraska, capable of dazzling the nation on Saturday&amp;nbsp;and causing his coach headaches during the week. \"Be blunt: I'm&amp;nbsp;the ... I don't want to say big star, but let's say main&amp;nbsp;standout,\" Moss says. He is, in fact, the school's first Heisman&amp;nbsp;Trophy candidate, but he says the award doesn't matter to him.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;No, Marshall has never seen anyone like Moss, and the result is&amp;nbsp;an odd lack of connection between player and school. Marshall&amp;nbsp;has long been an insular, homey place, relying on its own people&amp;nbsp;in the worst of times, and the university takes great pride in&amp;nbsp;the fact that so many of its coaches, announcers and&amp;nbsp;administrators are Marshall grads come home. Yet here is the&amp;nbsp;school's greatest player ever colliding with the greatest moment&amp;nbsp;in Marshall sports history, and he feels as if he's besieged. \"I&amp;nbsp;don't trust anybody,\" Moss says. \"If I've got a girlfriend, I&amp;nbsp;don't trust her. My mom, my daughter, I trust them, but anybody&amp;nbsp;else? I don't even trust my roommate.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Coaches, teammates and fans approach Moss and tell him to be&amp;nbsp;careful. He doesn't want to hear it. \"If I needed someone to&amp;nbsp;give me advice, then I'd have a second brain to tell me what to&amp;nbsp;do,\" he says. \"I already know: You're not going to get past the&amp;nbsp;judicial system, so many strikes and you're out. I wish my first&amp;nbsp;two hadn't occurred. Nobody told me to kick the guy while he was&amp;nbsp;down, or go out and smoke some herb. I did that on my own. If I&amp;nbsp;did that, I can make my own decisions.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So Moss is a star, alone and wrestling with his mistakes, and&amp;nbsp;the shame of it is all in the timing. For although every college&amp;nbsp;football fan will tell you that his school's program is special,&amp;nbsp;that \"it's about more than just football here,\" Marshall may&amp;nbsp;well be the only place where this is true. No program in America&amp;nbsp;has been beaten down so far and risen again, and this season&amp;nbsp;promises to be the cathartic first step into a new era. Moss is&amp;nbsp;20 and has no idea what kind of horse he's riding.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"The plane crash was before my time,\" he says. \"I don't try to&amp;nbsp;go back in the past and say this football game is for the people&amp;nbsp;in the plane crash. I've seen the burial ground. I went up there&amp;nbsp;and looked at the names. It was a tragedy, but it really wasn't&amp;nbsp;nothing big.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Up on the hill overlooking Huntington, a flame of stone burns in&amp;nbsp;a downpour. The flame does not flicker, it gives no heat. It&amp;nbsp;sits atop the monument with the 75 names like a lightless beacon, sending a beam no one sees. But everyone can feel&amp;nbsp;it--everyone in town of a certain age, everyone connected to the&amp;nbsp;university, and almost everyone who has anything to do with the&amp;nbsp;modern stadium down the hill.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The stadium is empty today, silenced by July's lazy hand, but in&amp;nbsp;one of its rooms a man sits by a window overlooking the football&amp;nbsp;field. He stares out at the rain and sees faces: Frank Loria.&amp;nbsp;Deke Brackett. Ted Shoebridge. Players, coaches. The doctor who&amp;nbsp;introduced him to the woman who would be his wife. \"It's every&amp;nbsp;day,\" Red Dawson says. \"Every day something comes up, and you&amp;nbsp;have a flashback.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It has been 27 years. On Nov. 14, 1970, a plane carrying 37&amp;nbsp;members of the football team, five coaches, 21 boosters, seven&amp;nbsp;university employees and a crew of five back from Marshall's&amp;nbsp;17-14 loss to East Carolina crashed on approach to Tri-State&amp;nbsp;Airport near Huntington. The plane tore a 95-foot gash in the&amp;nbsp;hillside, disintegrated, left a wake of fire. Dawson, a&amp;nbsp;27-year-old defensive coordinator at the time, had driven to&amp;nbsp;East Carolina so he could make some recruiting stops en route.&amp;nbsp;He heard the news of the crash on his car radio during the drive&amp;nbsp;home. When he arrived in Huntington in the middle of the night,&amp;nbsp;searchers were gathering the scattered bodies. For a time Dawson&amp;nbsp;was put in charge of the football program. He saw the dead. He&amp;nbsp;met with their families. \"It was devastating,\" he says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A year later Dawson left coaching forever. He still lives in&amp;nbsp;Huntington, where he runs a construction firm. But he has been&amp;nbsp;to only a few Thundering Herd games since the crash, and he was&amp;nbsp;plagued by a low-level horror on each occasion. Now and then he&amp;nbsp;goes to the stadium parking lot to tailgate. Once, thinking&amp;nbsp;himself \"insulated,\" as he puts it, by a few beers, he let&amp;nbsp;someone talk him into walking into the stadium. He lasted only a&amp;nbsp;few minutes. \"Ask people who've survived any catastrophe: They&amp;nbsp;have guilt feelings,\" Dawson says. \"I did. That's what my&amp;nbsp;problem was, and is.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dawson isn't alone.The Tri-State crash wasn't the typical air&amp;nbsp;disaster, unknown victims dying on unfamiliar ground. Thundering&amp;nbsp;Herd football had been the emotional core of this corner of West&amp;nbsp;Virginia for decades, drawing players from families who had been&amp;nbsp;in the state for generations. The program's boosters were the&amp;nbsp;town's elite. The crash, says retired Marshall professor of&amp;nbsp;geography Sam Clagg, was the region's \"great immense event,\"&amp;nbsp;savaging the 60,000 residents in a way few outsiders understand.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When a new athletic director was appointed in 1971, he tried to&amp;nbsp;get the school to move on. \"He said, 'Forget all this...put it&amp;nbsp;behind you.' Just like that,\" Dawson says, eyes widening,&amp;nbsp;moistening. \"The son of a bitch is dead. I wish he hadn't died.&amp;nbsp;I'd still like to cuss him.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ten days after the crash the official grieving period ended, but&amp;nbsp;\"you could say it never stopped,\" Clagg says. \"A lot of people&amp;nbsp;are still carrying that cross.\" So much so that the crash has&amp;nbsp;even come to define the seasons in Huntington. Every year on&amp;nbsp;Nov. 14 a ceremony is held on campus in front of a fountain&amp;nbsp;built in memory of the dead. The surrounding plaza fills with&amp;nbsp;students, teachers, survivors. The captains of the football team&amp;nbsp;lay a wreath. A prayer is said. A bugler plays taps. Just as the&amp;nbsp;last lonely notes cut through the midday air, the water pouring&amp;nbsp;out of the fountain slows, then stops, leaving everyone standing&amp;nbsp;in a well of silence. Winter begins. The water does not flow&amp;nbsp;again until the first day of spring.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"I'd have people coming in and saying, 'I'm a orphan from the&amp;nbsp;plane wreck,' and afterward I'd have to sit back for four or&amp;nbsp;five minutes and catch my breath,\" athletic director Lance West&amp;nbsp;says of his first days at Marshall, in 1995. \"There's always a&amp;nbsp;real sense of that plane. We're not trying to bring it up. It is&amp;nbsp;this community.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In such a place someone like Randy Moss is almost mystifying.&amp;nbsp;Dawson knew two people on the plane who, he believes, were on&amp;nbsp;their way to greatness. Loria, the defensive coordinator, would&amp;nbsp;have been a superb head coach, Dawson says, and a running back&amp;nbsp;named Joe Hood would have made the Pro Football Hall of Fame.&amp;nbsp;Dawson would like to talk to Moss. \"It's hard for me to&amp;nbsp;understand how somebody with his talent is on the verge of&amp;nbsp;throwing it all away,\" Dawson says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Still, Dawson is a football guy, and he loves the way Moss&amp;nbsp;plays. Meanwhile, time has eased Dawson's discomfort enough for&amp;nbsp;him to use the word we again when he talks about Marshall. He&amp;nbsp;has even made plans to go to Morgantown for the West Virginia&amp;nbsp;showdown. He can't believe how far the program has come.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As Dawson talks about the '60s, when Marshall lost so often that&amp;nbsp;it was a national joke, a door bangs open at the opposite end of&amp;nbsp;the room, and a coach enters with a cameraman and a&amp;nbsp;sportscaster. Dawson stops. The men continue talking among themselves, and Dawson nods and says, \"Yeah. That guy right&amp;nbsp;there.\" It is confusing. What guy? Dawson's voice drops into his&amp;nbsp;chest and he mumbles, \"Keith Morehouse.\" Still it doesn't sink&amp;nbsp;in. Outsiders can be so dense. Morehouse, the team's&amp;nbsp;play-by-play announcer, host of the coach's TV show and sports&amp;nbsp;anchor on the top station in town, has for years been the voice&amp;nbsp;and face of Marshall football. Dawson repeats the name, softly.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"His dad was on the plane,\" he says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The place is nearly empty, a cavern of weight machines and&amp;nbsp;pulleys and heavy bars in which just two men cruise, station to&amp;nbsp;station. \"What you doing, dawg?\" Moss asks his roommate, wide&amp;nbsp;receiver Jerrald Long. Long gestures, and Moss yelps, \"Jerks!\"&amp;nbsp;He grabs a bar and starts flinging it over his head. \"Ahh! Ahh!\"&amp;nbsp;he groans loudly. His right biceps is tattooed with a scripted&amp;nbsp;R; his left reads moss. He's not wearing a hood today, but who&amp;nbsp;knows? Trouble can follow a Marshall player anywhere. Just this&amp;nbsp;morning, July 22, the Huntington Herald-Dispatch has one story&amp;nbsp;on a Thundering Herd fullback shot in the leg outside a&amp;nbsp;nightclub downtown and another story on a former Marshall&amp;nbsp;basketball player being sentenced to 10 years for drug&amp;nbsp;trafficking. Moss isn't taking any chances.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"If I go out, people are going to say, 'Hey, he's drinking,'\"&amp;nbsp;Moss says as he thrusts the weights up and down. \"It's just&amp;nbsp;about being undercover, man, staying home. There's a lot of&amp;nbsp;jealousy, man, and jealousy is downfall. If I go out, the&amp;nbsp;jealousy would probably get worse. Jealousy, player&amp;nbsp;haters -- you've got 'em all in Huntington.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, jealousy explains nothing about Moss's litany of&amp;nbsp;troubles with the law, and he knows it. Once, on his way to&amp;nbsp;Notre Dame, the school he grew up worshiping, he dreamed of&amp;nbsp;being \"as big as Michael Jordan.\" But then he began to slide. On&amp;nbsp;March 23, 1995, he backed a friend in a fight at DuPont High.&amp;nbsp;According to the Kanawha County sheriff's report, Moss's friend,&amp;nbsp;Rayeshawn Smith, had been enraged to see his name and the&amp;nbsp;sentence ALL NIGGERS MUST DIE scrawled on a desk. Suspecting a&amp;nbsp;white student named Ernest Roy Johnson, Smith enlisted Moss's&amp;nbsp;help and accosted Johnson in a hallway. According to witnesses,&amp;nbsp;Smith punched Johnson repeatedly until he dropped to the floor.&amp;nbsp;Then Moss stepped in and kicked Johnson from one to four times.&amp;nbsp;Johnson was hospitalized with a lacerated spleen, a concussion,&amp;nbsp;blood around his kidneys and fluid around his liver.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moss apologized for his actions at the school's football banquet&amp;nbsp;two months later. Notre Dame, which had accepted his letter of&amp;nbsp;intent, declined his enrollment application, saying he had&amp;nbsp;failed to fill out the form properly. While Moss pleaded guilty&amp;nbsp;to two counts of battery, a misdemeanor, county prosecutor&amp;nbsp;Forbes says the initial charge was malicious wounding, a felony.&amp;nbsp;\"It was not lightweight at all,\" Forbes says. \"It was severe and&amp;nbsp;horrifying. The fact that the [victim] didn't want to go through&amp;nbsp;with prosecuting because he did not want to be retaliated&amp;nbsp;against for the rest of his high school life resulted in its&amp;nbsp;being a misdemeanor.\" Still, Moss was allowed to serve three of&amp;nbsp;his 30 days in jail and then defer the remaining 27 days until&amp;nbsp;after his freshman year in college.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moss doesn't shirk responsibility for the crime, but says the&amp;nbsp;school's tense racial atmosphere helped push him to it. \"I was&amp;nbsp;out of my mind, man, just started kicking him,\" Moss says.&amp;nbsp;\"There's only so much you can take. All through my years,&amp;nbsp;sophomore, junior, senior year, I was in fights. I won't go out&amp;nbsp;and look for it, but I won't back down. It's all about respect,&amp;nbsp;and I feel nobody at that school had any respect for the black&amp;nbsp;experience.\" Indeed, Fout, the DuPont basketball coach, says the&amp;nbsp;incident helped ease tension in black-white relations at the&amp;nbsp;school by forcing it to the surface. \"We've had some racial&amp;nbsp;problems at our school, and if you have any, it's too much,\"&amp;nbsp;Fout says. \"We've done some good in that area.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For his next bout of trouble, Moss has no one to blame but&amp;nbsp;himself. \"I'm the dummy,\" he says. Holtz had recommended Moss to&amp;nbsp;Bowden, and Moss was accepted at Florida State on the condition&amp;nbsp;that he redshirt his freshman year. He practiced so well that&amp;nbsp;few doubted Moss would start the next season. But in April 1996,&amp;nbsp;on the day he was to begin finishing his prison sentence, Moss&amp;nbsp;smoked a joint. He was given a drug test during his first week&amp;nbsp;in jail, and it came up positive. He was tossed into solitary&amp;nbsp;confinement for a week, and 60 days were added to his sentence.&amp;nbsp;Bowden revoked his scholarship. \"That hurt inside,\" Moss says,&amp;nbsp;\"but the only thing I couldn't do was cry, because I did it.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Six months later he slipped again. On Nov. 17, the day after he&amp;nbsp;broke two Division I-AA receiving records in Marshall's game&amp;nbsp;against Furman, Moss became embroiled in a violent argument with&amp;nbsp;his former girlfriend Libby Offutt. The couple had only recently&amp;nbsp;broken up. It was mid-afternoon, and Moss was returning their&amp;nbsp;two-year-old daughter, Sydney, to Offutt at her parents' house&amp;nbsp;in St. Albans, W.Va. Moss pulled up in his new girlfriend's car,&amp;nbsp;and he and Offutt began to fight. By the time they were through,&amp;nbsp;according to the police report, Offutt had abrasions around her&amp;nbsp;neck and minor cuts and bruises on her arm. She said Moss had&amp;nbsp;repeatedly shoved her and forced her to sit down. She also told&amp;nbsp;police that Moss \"threw steaming hot water\" on her, according to&amp;nbsp;the report. Moss's gold necklace was found to be broken. He and&amp;nbsp;Offutt were each arrested on misdemeanor charges of domestic&amp;nbsp;battery. Their trials have not yet been scheduled.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"She just ticked me off, and it got out of hand,\" Moss says.&amp;nbsp;\"The only thing I regret was I put my hands on her. I don't put&amp;nbsp;my hands on a woman. But I had to apply some pressure to get her&amp;nbsp;off of me. I still love her. I didn't want nothing like that to&amp;nbsp;happen. But that's life, I guess.\" More to the point, that's&amp;nbsp;Moss's life, which reads like a case study of a child at risk:&amp;nbsp;too little attention paid early, and then too much. Growing up&amp;nbsp;in Rand, 50 miles from Huntington, Moss had little contact with his father, Randy Pratt. \"We're not going to talk about that,\"&amp;nbsp;says his mother, Maxine Moss, who raised Randy, his sister,&amp;nbsp;Latisia, and brother, Eric, while working as a nurse's aide.&amp;nbsp;\"I'm everything. A lot of people see Randy as an outstanding&amp;nbsp;athlete, but when I see him, I see a young woman who's poured&amp;nbsp;her life into him so he could have a life.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By all accounts Maxine imbued her son with a strong sense of&amp;nbsp;right and wrong. But once Randy began dominating in sports, her&amp;nbsp;control began to slip. \"I couldn't shield him enough,\" she says.&amp;nbsp;\"You couldn't turn on the TV or open the newspaper without&amp;nbsp;seeing him there. We're talking about a high school sophomore&amp;nbsp;getting interviewed, and I never thought that was needed. But&amp;nbsp;the more I didn't want it, the more it would come.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fout, who has known Moss since coaching him in Little League,&amp;nbsp;says Moss has always been influenced by the crowd around him,&amp;nbsp;for good and bad. He doesn't discount Moss's wild streak, but&amp;nbsp;also recalls Moss's volunteering to help a special education&amp;nbsp;class for kids with \"severe mental problems. And Randy would&amp;nbsp;spend time with them, play computer games with them. I've seen&amp;nbsp;the kids put their arms around him and hold him and tell him&amp;nbsp;they loved him. He's made mistakes, and you can say he's not a&amp;nbsp;very good guy. But there's also an awful lot of good there.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;While no one excuses Moss's conduct, the mitigating&amp;nbsp;circumstances of his two arrests for fighting have made them&amp;nbsp;easier for some people in Huntington to forgive. Who, the&amp;nbsp;thinking goes, can judge from afar the racial attitudes of&amp;nbsp;adolescents or the contentious breakup of a couple? Even Frank&amp;nbsp;Offutt, Libby's father, considers her dustup with Moss&amp;nbsp;overblown. \"He didn't smack her or hit her with his fist,\"&amp;nbsp;Offutt says. \"He pushed her. He's 20 years old. When I was 20&amp;nbsp;years old, I made mistakes.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Offutt believes people have too simplistic an impression of&amp;nbsp;Moss. \"To me he's kind of an enigma,\" Offutt says. \"I've seen&amp;nbsp;sides of him that are really great. When his high school won the&amp;nbsp;state championship, everybody else was running around with each&amp;nbsp;other, and he went and got a small child out of the stands. That&amp;nbsp;really impressed me. I've seen him effervescent, open, big&amp;nbsp;smile--he's like Michael Jordan. Then another side comes out&amp;nbsp;that's less than friendly.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Offutt says that when his daughter first told him, during high&amp;nbsp;school, that she was going to begin seeing black guys, he was&amp;nbsp;opposed. \"I did not believe blacks and whites should date,\" he&amp;nbsp;says. \"The first one to come was Randy.\" But he liked Moss. \"I&amp;nbsp;still like him,\" Offutt says. \"But I have concerns about him,&amp;nbsp;about how quickly he's learning. I think some of it is, 'I'm a&amp;nbsp;superstar, I can do whatever I want.' I pray every day that he&amp;nbsp;doesn't blow it.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moss swears he has learned more than enough, and when he says&amp;nbsp;he'll stay away from Sydney for the next few months to avoid&amp;nbsp;trouble with Libby and then sighs and says, \"I've experienced&amp;nbsp;things that a 90-year-old man hasn't experienced,\" he seems&amp;nbsp;aged, tired. He is that increasingly common and disturbing&amp;nbsp;phenomenon: a young man lacking youth, a college football star&amp;nbsp;stripped of ideals. He pays little lip service to education,&amp;nbsp;totes no hokey ideals about winning one for his school. He is&amp;nbsp;sure that big-time sports is a using game.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes, that was embarrassing, seeing himself on TV in the summer&amp;nbsp;of '96, clad in a jailbird orange jumpsuit, needing a haircut&amp;nbsp;and a shave, his wrists and ankles chained together for his&amp;nbsp;arraignment on the marijuana charge. But Moss took it, marked it&amp;nbsp;down as his price to pay for being a star. And he took his week&amp;nbsp;of solitary confinement, 23 1/2 hours a day spent staring at&amp;nbsp;stone, waking to the screams of other prisoners, standing numbly&amp;nbsp;while guards ransacked his cell in search of drugs or weapons.&amp;nbsp;Even the prison field trip by a school group didn't bother him,&amp;nbsp;kids whispering his name as they passed by. He marked it down:&amp;nbsp;his price.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"One more screwup, and I've got nothing else to look for in&amp;nbsp;life,\" Moss says. \"So if staying at home, watching TV and&amp;nbsp;playing at my Playstation are going to keep me out of trouble, even if I'm bored, I can do it for a couple months. It's all&amp;nbsp;about that money, man. That money is clanging. If you get the&amp;nbsp;opportunity, you got to go get it.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The crash blasted the heart out of the Marshall football&amp;nbsp;program. Everything--uniforms, players, coaches, the athletic&amp;nbsp;director--was gone. There were calls for the program simply to&amp;nbsp;shut down. At times it seemed that it had. For the next 13 years&amp;nbsp;the team limped through autumn winning no more than four games a&amp;nbsp;season. The only thing that resonated deeply was that plane,&amp;nbsp;dropped like a stone in a pond, sending concentric ripples that&amp;nbsp;flowed over families and friends year after year.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"It's weird,\" says Keith Morehouse, whose father, Gene,&amp;nbsp;Marshall's play-by-play announcer, died in the crash. \"When I&amp;nbsp;had the opportunity to become the TV voice of the Herd, after&amp;nbsp;Dad was the radio voice for years, it struck a chord in my&amp;nbsp;family and me. Maybe there was a calling deep inside saying,&amp;nbsp;'Finish the job.'\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Beginning in the early '80s a succession of high-profile&amp;nbsp;coaches -- Sonny Randle, Stan Parrish, George Chaump, Jim&amp;nbsp;Donnan --jump-started the Marshall program, and the school's&amp;nbsp;appearance in the Division I-AA title game in 1987 (the&amp;nbsp;Thundering Herd lost to Northeast Louisiana 43-42) made the new&amp;nbsp;30,000-seat stadium a necessity. The facility opened in 1991. By&amp;nbsp;then Morehouse had married Debbie Hagley, who lost her father and mother in the crash. At the new field Marshall has lost only&amp;nbsp;four games. After the Herd won its first national championship&amp;nbsp;in 1992, beating Youngstown State 31-28 in the title game,&amp;nbsp;Morehouse walked into his house, and he and his wife hugged&amp;nbsp;tightly. \"You don't talk about it, you don't dwell on it,\"&amp;nbsp;Morehouse says, \"but those people who had connections to the&amp;nbsp;crash -- they're the ones this is all about. They're the ones who&amp;nbsp;have gotten the most out of the school's success.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Marshall's 15-0 rampage through Division I-AA last year served&amp;nbsp;as a crowning touch and made this year's upgrade to I-A&amp;nbsp;inarguable. \"It's time for us to move,\" says Pruett, and the&amp;nbsp;sweet fact that the Herd moves back into the MAC, which booted&amp;nbsp;it 28 years ago, is lost on no one.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Strange. Moss should be the hood ornament on this comeback&amp;nbsp;machine, the beloved local boy making national noise. And make&amp;nbsp;no mistake: To kids in Huntington, Moss is huge. But among the&amp;nbsp;establishment, those of the orphan generation, few bother&amp;nbsp;applying a protective gloss to Moss. No one professes concern&amp;nbsp;about his turning pro. \"People are very wary, wondering if he'll&amp;nbsp;stay on the straight and narrow,\" Morehouse says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moss can feel it. He has taken private polls, asked unsuspecting&amp;nbsp;cab drivers what they thought of this Randy Moss, and as often&amp;nbsp;as not they have trashed him. This too has happened often, Moss&amp;nbsp;says: Someone has walked up to him and said, \"I just don't like&amp;nbsp;you.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moss is not bigger than Marshall. On the contrary. The essence&amp;nbsp;of the place overwhelms his talent, his trouble, his past and&amp;nbsp;future; it makes even the Heisman Trophy seem minor. There was a&amp;nbsp;disaster here, and on the hill overlooking the town, the stone&amp;nbsp;flame burns. It is April, but the newspaper from last Dec. 22 is&amp;nbsp;still there, stuffed under the plastic ring of green-and-white ivy at the base of the memorial. THE PERFECT ENDING, it reads.&amp;nbsp;MARSHALL WINS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP, FINISHES 15-0 IN FINAL I-AA&amp;nbsp;SEASON. The pages are beginning to crumble under the assault of&amp;nbsp;snow and time and everything that comes out of the sky.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Randy Moss has learned this much: The past does not stop. Year&amp;nbsp;after year, it comes back to haunt, demand explanations,&amp;nbsp;complicate things. It can shackle a man as much as it can a&amp;nbsp;place, never allowing either to completely move on. Moss never&amp;nbsp;figured that as part of his price.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His daughter is three years old. He once hoped that Sydney,&amp;nbsp;being so young, would not be aware of his transgressions. But&amp;nbsp;she is. She recognizes his name when she hears it on TV. She&amp;nbsp;asks him to explain. \"When she heard, 'Randy Moss is back in&amp;nbsp;jail tonight,' she knew,\" Moss says. It is something for which&amp;nbsp;he is truly sorry. There is nothing he can do about it.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"Whenever we go past the courthouse where I was, she says,&amp;nbsp;'That's where my daddy was in jail,'\" Moss says. \"She knows I&amp;nbsp;was in shackles and cuffs--and her mom was crying--and she&amp;nbsp;couldn't touch me or hug me. She knows.\"\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/college-football/2014/11/12/randy-moss-marshall-thundering-herd>