HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- Standing at the top of the rolling bluff that overlooks the heart of this religious, blue-collar town, you can't hear a thing.

The only noise is a gentle breeze playing with what's left of the autumn leaves, and even the puff of air seems tentative to cause much of a stir. The scene is completely tranquil, the mid-day hustle below decades away.

	A fireman looks over the wreckage of a DC-9 jet that was carrying the Marshall University football team.

But look down and follow the 75 green flags that start at the bluff's base and run along 20th Street, and you see this community's biggest sense of pride. The large, impressive structure sticks out like a brand new Lexus on a road full of rusty pick-ups. It's James F. Edwards Field, Marshall's football facility that was built in 1991, but still has the polish of brand new.

They take care of this place around here, as they do everything green or white, or with the words "Marshall" or "Herd" on it. In a community that has seen two of its largest factories close and its population decrease some 25 percent in the past 30 years, the resurgent Marshall football team offers a sense of pride.

This is a town where fire hydrants are painted green and white. Where a newborn baby at University Hospital is kept warm in a "Go Herd" t-shirt. Where last week's elections saw a Marshall grad student upend a two-term incumbent for city mayor. And where life occurrences are talked about in relation to Marshall games. "My son was born in '94, the week of the big Toledo comeback."

But right on this bluff, in the midst of the serene surroundings, is the biggest tie-in of all. Here rests a reminder of Nov. 14, 1970, the night the school and community hit rock bottom. This is the Spring Hill Cemetery, where six graves rest without a name on them. Where a 10-foot granite memorial rises from the ground, a statued flame frozen on its top. Where 75 individuals, each of whom died for the Thundering Herd, are remembered.

In a town where a Marshall victory is perceived as a "life or death" proposition, these people died for their love of the Herd. It happened 30 years ago, when a chartered Southern Airways DC-9 returning from a 17-14 loss at East Carolina slammed into the side of a hill just a mile short of the Tri-State Airport, instantly killing all 75 passengers on board.

Not only was the plane carrying 37 Marshall football players and five coaches, but several prominent area residents. Among those killed were athletics director Charles Kautz, four physicians, a city councilman, and a state legislator. It was the only road game in 1970 in which Marshall was scheduled to fly, so boosters were brought along as a perk.

The crash left 70 children without one of their parents, 18 children without both parents. So great were the losses that Marshall had a hard time shuttling university officials across the country for the endless funerals.

It remains the biggest sports-related disaster in U.S. history. But don't hang your heads for the people of this community -- they don't. What used to be a somber anniversary, one that the school would rather forget, has now become the starting point of the Marshall football renaissance.

Sure there are still tears; just last week, at the unveiling of a new memorial outside the stadium, many wiped away the pain with a tissue. But more often than not, there are cheers. After all, this is a program that had barely won anything -- ever -- and then the crash happened. Some even called for the end of Marshall football that year, insisting the money could be spent elsewhere.

But it didn't happen and now, Marshall boasts one of the top mid-major programs in the country. In just the past decade, no college team won more games than the Thundering Herd. They were two-time NCAA I-AA champions. A move to I-A brought three trips to the Motor City Bowl, a pair of Heisman finalists in Randy Moss and Chad Pennington, and a Top 10 finish in last year's AP poll.

Everywhere you turn in this town you hear about the "Ashes to Glory," how the Phoenix rose from the flames and is now dominating. It couldn't be more accurate.

"I remember a time when we would cheer an incomplete pass if they threw it far enough," said Keith Morehouse, who lost his father in the crash and is now the team's play-by-play man. "We were just horrible. I tell our younger fans how spoiled they are."

Indeed Marshall football dominated in the '90s, but in the '70s, they were among the nation's worst teams. In 10 years they compiled 22 wins. Included in that stretch was one 12-game losing streak and a pair of 10-game skids. They played in rickety old Fairfield Stadium, a facility that hadn't been maintained in more than 40 years and resembled something of the inner city.

So bad were the Thundering Herd back then that just about everyone scheduled them for homecoming.

"I swear, there were teams that would have homecoming in September -- nobody has homecoming in September -- just so they could play us," said former player Nate Ruffin, a member of the 1970 team who missed the flight due to injury. "Every road game we would play seemed like somebody's homecoming. We were the Rodney Dangerfield of college football."

Outside of Huntington, Marshall was seen as the little cousin to the West Virginia University -- a second rate school in a second rate state.

"Hillbillies," recalls Ed Carter, a 1970 player who missed the flight because of his father's death. "That's what they would call us -- hillbillies. And I was like, 'I ain't no hillbilly, I'm from Texas.' But they would yell to us, 'You play for Marshall, you're a hillbilly.' "

Now when you play for Marshall, you're a champion. In fact, current coach Bob Pruett was arguing that to his players in the locker room before Saturday's game against Miami of Ohio, a contest in which a Marshall win clinched a spot in the MAC championship.

"For you seniors, all you know since you've been here is winning," Pruett said as his team huddled closely. "That's what we do at Marshall -- win championships. And there's no way that's going to stop tonight. So go kick their ass."

The Herd did just that, winning 51-31. They'll go for their fourth consecutive MAC Championship on Dec. 2. Before the game, the victims of the crash were honored in a shiny new Memorial Bronze at the stadium's main entrance. Fans filled the main parking lot for the ceremony, many standing on light posts and cars for a better view.

And with a numbing chant of "We are . . . Marshall," the bronze was unveiled.

"It's perfect," Carter said. "Absolutely perfect."

On this November 14, like the 29 before it, the football team will gather for a solemn ceremony at the center of campus, where three wreaths will be placed at the foot of the school's memorial fountain, taps will be played, and the fountain will be shut off until next spring.

Long after the ceremony is finished, a school custodian, unbeknownst to many, will take those wreaths, drive up the windy road to Spring Hill Cemetery and place them at the granite memorial.

"People ask me why are there so many memorials and how can we celebrate the death of 75 people," Morehouse said. "I guess if you weren't here when it happened, you really don't understand. It isn't something that can be explained in a quote or a sound bite. But it isn't such a negative anymore. Now, Marshall people have pride. This is uplifting as to know how far we've come."

	“	I just thought to myself, 'Oh my god. Oh my god.' And I knew there weren't going to be any survivors. Everything was burned beyond recognition. It was a real rugged, woody area. At one point in order to see better I boosted myself on what I thought was a log, but when I looked down it was a body.  ”
		—  Jack Hardin

The fateful plane that changed the lives of so many was returning from a heartbreaking 17-14 loss to East Carolina that cold, rainy November night, when it clipped the tops of some trees just west of Runway 11 and crashed into an Appalachian hillside with a full load of fuel.

Jack Hardin, a longtime reporter for the Huntington Post-Herald, was one of the first on the scene that night, begged out of his pajamas by the sound of fire engines and a phone call from a friend. He saw first-hand the horrific, mangled mess of broken bodies and shattered plane pieces, all of which burned well into the night, despite the cold, driving rain.

When Hardin first surveyed the scene, he thought it was an Eastern Airlines crash after noticing the letters, "E-R-N" on a burning piece of the fuselage. But after tripping across the wallet of quarterback Ted Shoebridge, someone Hardin knew well, everything hit him.

"I just thought to myself, 'Oh my god. Oh my god.' And I knew there weren't going to be any survivors," Hardin said. "Everything was burned beyond recognition. It was a real rugged, woody area. At one point in order to see better I boosted myself on what I thought was a log, but when I looked down it was a body."

Hardin, who was very close with the team and would have been on the plane if not for being asked to work that weekend, had the grim task of helping authorities identify the remains of the victims. It was such a slow process that many families held funerals before their loved ones were positively identified.

Six victims were never identified. Today, they are buried in nameless adjacent plots at the top of the bluff in the Spring Hill Cemetery. Each grave is marked with a blank rectangular slab of cement. A nearby gravestone lists the six names.

The plane crash was just the latest disaster for a football program that couldn't muster any luck. Just two years before the crash, frustrated with Marshall's losing ways, a group of boosters tried some illegal shortcuts to spark a winning run.

More than 140 NCAA violations later, Marshall was kicked out of the MAC, its head coach fired and athletics director forced to resign.

"There was a time when Marshall couldn't do anything right, it was all just bad luck," Hardin said. "Everything that happened was bad. First we got thrown out of the MAC, then there was the crash. Nothing went our way."

Nothing could be further from the case now. Marshall was re-admitted to the MAC in 1997 and has been dominating since. Even this year, with crown jewels Moss and Pennington off to the NFL and the team stumbling to a 2-4 start that included a 42-0 whipping by Toledo, Marshall will still play for a conference championship. And because it's by far the nicest facility in the conference, James F. Edwards Field will host the game.

It's the kind of turnaround that brings talk of a higher power, some spiritual, magical conglomeration that can't be put into words. So impressive is Marshall's recent stretch that another investigation was launched a few years ago, combing the scenes for illegal activity behind the scenes. There was none.

"It's tough for people to understand, sometimes they think we are strange or something when I tell them this, but we play with twelve men," Ruffin said. "And our twelfth man is those 75 people. There's no other way to explain all this, something has given us the edge. You can't buy it or create it any other way."

On a recent afternoon inside the Spring Hill Cemetery, a woman brought her elderly mother to the memorial. The night before, they cried together watching a television special about the disaster and felt moved enough to visit the six nameless graves.

As the mother ran her fingers across the names etched in the stone, the daughter stared into the horizon. "The view from up here is incredible, mom."

The gray-haired lady looked up and agreed. "It sure is, honey. Like these 75 are watching over us."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com