An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
You may have heard of Marshall University, and you may have heard of the tragic 1970 plane crash in which Marshall lost their entire football team, and you may have seen the movie, We are Marshall. But you probably have not heard an account of the spiritual context and the effects of the crash at the university.
Our friend Mark Coppenger tells the story in his engaging new book, God and Humanity at Marshall: Toward November 14, 1970, and Beyond, and he is with us to talk about it today.
Mark is a retired professor of philosophy and ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he helps us here at Books At a Glance in many ways. Mark, welcome, and congratulations on your new book!
Coppenger:
Oh thanks, Fred! Much appreciated.
Zaspel:
You’re not a Marshall grad, so how in the world did you get into this project?
Coppenger:
Totally by surprise. I was teaching for the Southern Seminary extension in New York City. I happened to run into the Baptist Collegiate Ministry director at West Point. He was at the associational office at lunch one day and we began to talk. I said I was the BCM director at North Western University and he went on to say he was the director at the Air Force academy and the director at Marshall University. I said “Marshall! That’s where the plane crash happened that took out the football team.” And he said, “Yes, I was there then. We had revival after it happened, and people were concerned with their souls. One thing led to another and he filled me in on some of the details. I said “Dwain, his name was Dwain Gregory, you should write this up,” and he said, “people tell me that, but I don’t write so much.” I said, “let me give it a shot.” This was 2012 and little did I know it would mean 11 visits to Huntington, to the campus working through the accounts, and just an unfolding of a remarkable account.
Zaspel:
Was there any significance to the timing of this book’s release in late 2020?
Coppenger:
Yes, the crash happened November 14, 1970 and the 50th anniversary was November 2020. It was time to put it together and approach a publisher. They have a big memorial fountain ceremony every year at Marshall. COVID-19 changed everything. They have 1000 people typically. But still, I was able to get the book out and into the bookstores that day. There were maybe 150 of us that day. We were freezing and spread all over the place. It was telecasted because it was such a big memorial. The ceremony was early in the day at the fountain. It’s called the memorial fountain because each petal represents a player who was lost. Michael W. Smith played there, he was a former student at Marshall, and he sang Amazing Grace. I was rushing to get to that particular date, and we hit the mark.
Zaspel:
When you began your research, your focus was on the spiritual phenomena surrounding the plane crash of 1970, but what you end up giving us is a kind of school history. What made you expand your study?
Coppenger:
I asked Dwain for a contact and he called a pastor who talked about the summer and fall before the crash and I listened politely, and I thought “well no I need to get to the part after the crash.” He talked about how he and some other rough people in the town came to the Lord that summer. They started speaking about the Lord on campus and some amazing things happened. Including an invitation to a pastor from Philadelphia, an evangelist, to come and speak and at that gathering in the campus Christian center. Several football players came, one in particular, Governor Brown, Governor is his name. He was responsive and he would later be a victim of the crash. So, I thought I will expand it to the whole year. I found out remarkable things that happened years earlier, on successive trips looking though the archives. It kept getting bigger and bigger. I made the mistake of looking through the archives and the other pastors. I finally just said I’ll scan the whole spiritual history of the school.
Zaspel:
Okay, give us some samples. What did you find as the university’s decades unfolded? Talk to us about the various eras you cover – the 1800s, the WWI years, the “Roaring Twenties,” and the infamous 60s? And what about now?
Coppenger:
It turns out that it was a little log cabin school put together by church folks in the 1800s and it was named after justice John Marshall, a long story there. It was a Christian school until later in the 1800s and then it was a state school. On through WWI, they had chapel and very strict behavioral guidelines. In fact, in the women’s dorm, they would post, “if you don’t go to church you don’t have freedom to leave the dorm otherwise.” Even though it was a state school you had all kinds of Christian contacts and references. In fact, it is interesting when you read in the old annuals or obituaries, they would talk about someone’s Christian walk and how they are with the Lord now, and this is a state school. One of the interesting things that happened around WW1 was the YMCA and YWA. The YMCA was a missionary sending institution. Some went to China and beyond. Basketball came back to Marshall and they had rules about how to behave-“do not jeer the refs they know more than you do. Don’t dishonor school, etc.” “The Y” was very strong in its Christian commitment. There was actually a kind of wedding of “the Y” and the dean of students offices there. Then you had the; fundamentalist, modernist, then Darwin made his splash, the scopes trial. Modernism started to come in. There was concern about some of the dress. People wrote angry alumni letters about this or that thing happening on campus. The professors picked up on this. It was becoming more of the modern university. When you talk about this, you connect a particular precedence. How they would move things forward or go crosswise. There has been a steady march away from those things. It was a little slower at Marshall because these were mountain folks. Some of the professors and the dean would talk about making changes and how it is going up against centuries of this of that. They had Bible professors and they brought this guy from Chicago who was liberal.
The president let him do his thing. He went into higher criticism. During the 50s and on into the 60s, the 60s hit the campus pretty hard. A lot of influence for the Chicago 7 or Woodstock. They used to have these leadership spiritual retreats before the school year and be tutored in responsible leadership and there were Christian overtones. Then they moved it on campus and had provocative leaders. Brining in Chicago 7 or folks enamored with drugs or flirting with Marxism. I was at Vanderbilt in the 70s and it was wild, but I had not seen the things going on at Marshall. They had streaking in the school annual. A variety of the people were out there. And then it is an odd way to put it but a kind of Melchizedekian figure came. Melvin Miller was a Campus Crusade for Christ guy who got a doctorate in India. He came and said they needed more evangelism and Bible studies. The mainline groups said they need to have a presence on campus.
They got together a fundraising project center on campus with a chapel. The chapel appears in the movie where people gather on the night of the crash. This guy got a dorm meeting going. Found 4 people to come and then it grew to 6. It grew until there was 10s and then over 100 people meeting in the dorms in 1968. This was before the crash when things started to happen. Big gathering of Campus Crusade in California and 100s of schools were represented and the largest was from Marshall. I mentioned the revival a little before the crash. Then the crash happened and that is what Gregory, the pastor I talked to, was talking about. The crash was around Thanksgiving and people went home.
The first Sunday night before classes in January he had a knock on the door. “Are you the Jesus man?” they asked. “We want to be saved.” He invited them in and they were responsive to the Gospel. All folks in a variety of groups were coming to the Lord. One of the chaplains to the New Orleans Saints came over. Things were rocking right along. There was some push back as well. One big thing that went on was the church-state separation situation. Just as there was growth in churches there was also growth in secularism on campus. Reggie Hill, the pastor who had led a lot of the players to the Lord, had a variety of players and he started talking about their spiritual walk. Rooms they dedicated in the church nursery, donating to the library or scholarships once they got their NFL money. A couple went to the coach and asked to change names of inappropriate football plays.
Every time I looked at an era, I would find a testimony and would find personalities unfriendly to the faith. To move to the present time, the mainlines have some who are snarky towards evangelism. In the later papers, one big excitement on campus was preachers who would show up. People would deride them, and the president stepped in and said, “it is part of a university to have extremist, you can walk away.” At the same time, they had a sex advice column. They would encourage promiscuity or adultery etc. The thing that struck me was this; they were showing freedom to the guys speaking on campus and would platform the folks who were strongly anti-Christian. It flipped; the early days they had noticed renegade students. They would flirt with Darwinism. They would platform the evangelicals in chapel. Interesting to see the status of the faith on campus.
Zaspel:
Did you have any outstanding surprises in your study?
Coppenger:
The first big surprise is that it was not after the plane crash that God had been working on campus. Dramatic things happened 2 years before, the summer before, and decades after.
Zaspel:
Do any personalities stand out as remarkable in the narrative?
Coppenger:
Melvin Miller appeared out of nowhere as a professor and he caught them all by surprise. They brought a fellow named Duncan Williams. He was brought in by conservatives in the English department. He was pushing back against 60s culture. They ushered him into the midst of things. Lewis Jennings was a mainline protestant liberal who had an enormous impact on the school. Ernie Wilson worked with Billy Graham. There was a very moving meeting on campus. Governor Brown was remarkable. He was the team leader, lineman, and linebacker. He stepped forward in response to the evangelist. Before the plane flight, there was an eruption on campus, pledges were playing a black team and they ran across with a confederate flag. A fight broke out and people were taken to the hospital. It was about to explode; the police were there. Brown went in the middle of the fight and said to knock it off. He had such influence, it helped evaporate things. Then they all went on the bus and it got to the airport for the fateful outbound trip. It was not just that he was responsive to Gospel call, but he was salt and light on his last days.
Zaspel:
What was most gratifying in what you found in your study? And what was most irritating or depressing?
Coppenger:
For gratifying, it was just fun to see the work of God move right along. When you read about Christian schools, some of these revivals at Asbury, Baylor, or Wheaton. A lot of these are in Christian contexts but here is a state school and to see again the work of God. It had a lasting impact on the church. That is gratifying. When I was reading Jonathan Edwards’ account of the revival in New England. An eruption or tragedy happened in his church. The balcony fell through and loosened some boards and people got injured. There was an uneasiness, and he thinks that was God up to something. This was that again. As for the disappointment, it seems the school marched toward secularism and in this case, the state is paying for it. That always gets me at state schools. We in the pews pay our taxes so we can send our folks off to a government school. They will take my money to try and get the Sunday school out and secularize them.
Zaspel:
We should note that this book is not just one happy spiritual report after another, right?
Coppenger:
Right. It does have hopefulness in it. A list of manifestations of things that happened in recent decades. Pastors having influence. Then going to the fountain on the 50th anniversary and hearing Michael W. Smith sing Amazing Grace. God will have His witness.
Zaspel:
Why would this book be of interest to anyone outside the Marshall University community? What lessons carry over to the broader world of public education?
Coppenger:
In two big areas. If you are a student minister at a state school especially. It is instructive and hopefully conviction saying, “don’t try too hard to ingratiate yourself in everything that comes down the line. Do not adjust, you can be like Melvin Miller. Be unashamed of the Gospel.” I was a church-state ethics professor and taught at Southern for years. Those who deal with church-state matters, this is a church case study. I think it’s instructive.
There is pushback against the notion that any kind of peep in favor of the Lord is out of bounds. I was a sub at Evanston Illinois University, they always gave a “counterculture in your face” book. Catcher in The Rye was one. He was immoral and grumpy, always pushing back. One place in the class I asked, “why do you think he is so cynical.” I answered, “maybe he needs God in his life.” Hands shot up and said, “you can’t say that.” I explained that I actually could say that. That is what has happened in the institutions and this book helps to say that it is ridiculous.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Mark Coppenger about his new book, God and Humanity at Marshall. It is a fascinating story and a delightful read. Pick up a copy and enjoy!
Mark, thanks for talking to us today.
Coppenger:
Thank you, Fred!
