Reason for Selection

The opening begins in the present, providing a fly-over look at the small town of Huntington, West Virginia. The fly-over stops at Marshall University and the schools fountain a memorial to the school’s 1970 plane crash victims. It then jumps to 1970 and the football team losing a game just hours before they would lose something greater their lives.

The opening illustrates how important the football team is to the community, setting up a dramatic true story. The present scenes show a town without a sole visible at the time of another anniversary of the plane crash. While the tense nature of the football game is carried throughout the film.

It appealed to me because you really feel the loss of the community in the open fly-over shots leading up to the fountain. Then in the football game you get a contrast where it is all about people, from the players and coaches to the community huddled around a transistor radio in a diner.