[tsunamiSD]

I've pieced this together from a blog and a newspaper article. The Wichita State vs Marshall game yesterday brought up some tragic facts, embodied in the now head coach of the 'Thundering Herd'. Because of the 2006 film 'We Are Marshall', many are familiar with what happened to the school's basketball team back on November 14th, 1970. But earlier that year, on 02 October, Dan D'Antoni, then a 23-year-old graduate student and assistant basketball coach at Marshall, was where he always was - at the Huntington, W. Va., home of close friend, mentor and Marshall team doctor.
Hagley often traveled with the Thundering Herd on similar charter flights, giving the tragedy a personal impact.
“I can still remember Doc saying, 'That crash will tear everyone apart,’” D’Antoni said. “What a nightmare. We’re sitting here, but we have no idea what kind of tragedy that is for a community.’ “
Just six weeks later, tragedy hit Huntington. Marshall endured its own immeasurable nightmare. “Like the commercial says — 'Life comes at you fast,’” he said, forcing a smile. A Southern Airlines DC-9 charter carrying 70 people — Marshall players, coaches, staff and boosters and a flight crew of five — came in far too low on its landing approach in rainy and foggy weather and crashed into a Wayne County hillside. The plane hit nose-first, killing everyone aboard — the single worst air tragedy in NCAA sports history.
D’Antoni knew almost everyone who perished. Star quarterback Ted Shoebridge was his best friend. Kicker Marcelo Lajterman was dating the sister of his wife, Alice. Coach Rick Tolley, who turned around the sad football program after a three-year, 27-game losing streak, was D’Antoni’s longtime neighbor in Mullens, W. Va., and coached him in baseball.
But Ray and Shirley Hagley were by far the hardest losses. “Dan was just devastated,” brother Mike D’Antoni said. “You can’t describe how much. There is numbness, a defense mechanism in all of us for something like that and you shut down. And Dan needed to — to be so young and to lose so much.”
Ray and Dan had become fast friends when D’Antoni was a point guard on the varsity basketball team, leading Marshall to a pair of NIT appearances. “Doc was my big brother,” Dan D’Antoni said. “He was only (34), but I saw him as older. He took a lot of interest in me.”
D’Antoni lived in a small apartment above the Hagleys’ garage, had the run of the house and never missed one of Shirley’s home-cooked meals with the family’s six children.
Hagley bought him his first TV. When he graduated, Hagley signed a note for his first car, a green Buick Skylark convertible, and helped get D’Antoni the freshman basketball coaching job at Marshall. His backyard basketball court served as the site for two D’Antoni basketball camps — by then, Mike was a freshman basketball player at Marshall.
“Everyone has that one person you connect with, and for Danny it was Doc,” said Kathy D’Antoni, Dan and Mike’s sister. “He was a mentor to Danny, and he saw a lot of himself in him. They would have done anything for each other.”
When D’Antoni married Alice after a one-month courtship, Hagley moved the couple from the garage apartment to a bigger one above his doctor’s office. And when the Hagleys jumped on the ill-fated plane to attend Marshall’s football game at East Carolina, the newlyweds were the natural choice to watch over the children.
The evening of Oct. 14, a college football game was interrupted by a TV news bulletin. D’Antoni immediately felt a surge of despair. “Then I heard it was a Southern charter … it took (the press) another 30 minutes, but I already knew,” he said.