Marshall Thundering Herd

Marshall Thundering Herd
The Marshall Thundering Herd is the intercollegiate athletic teams that collectively represent the Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Thundering Herd athletic teams compete in Conference USA, which are members of the NCAA Division I.

They participate in total fifteen sports that include six men teams and nine women?s athletics teams. Baseball, Basketball, Cross County, Football, Golf, Soccer, Softball, Swimming & Diving, Tennis, Track & Field and Volleyball are amongst the most popular sports of Marshall.

Simply referred to as ?Thundering Herd?, the Marshall university athletics teams are based on Huntington, WV. They play their Football games at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.

Basketball games are played in Cam Henderson Center while University Heights is the official Baseball stadium. All the teams play in Kelly Green and White which are there official colors.

Marco the Buffalo is the mascot of the all the Marshall teams and supports the teams along with cheerleaders in all home and away games.

Football is the most acknowledged sports in Marshall. Marshall Football School has a unique history as it saw both extreme failure and superb success.

Thundering Herd have a rich tradition of winning conference titles in 1925, 1928, 1931, 1937, 1988, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002.

They have won I-AA National Championships in 1992 and 1996 and became the I-AA finalists in 1987, 1991, 1993 and 1995. This is in direct contrast to being the nation's worst football program in the 1970s.

The football at Marshall in 70?s saw a tragic decline. The team lost something more than games and titles. It lost its 37 members on a well-documented plane crash on November 14, 1970.

Warner Brothers Motion Pictures depicted this accident in a 2006 movie, We Are Marshall. The team had to suffer a decade of uncertainty and defeats as Marshall was 23-83 from 1970-79.

The hard times ended when Marshall tied Western Carolina on a 59-yard field goal by freshman Barry Childers in 1980 and finally broke through with a 17-14 win at Appalachian State in November of 1981. This is still a NCAA frosh record.

Another winning season came in 1984 under first-year head coach Stan Parrish when Thundering Herd clinched a 31-28 win over East Tennessee State in the Bucs Mini Dome or Memorial Center indoor stadium.

The 1990s saw the comeback of the heroes as Thundering Herd emerged as the top most NCAA Division I program winning 114 games against 25 losses. They won Division I-AA national championships in 1992 over Youngstown State by 31-28.

They repeated the same in 1996 when they defeated Montana by 49-29.They have been the national runner-up in 1987, 1991, 1993 and 1995. The Herd won the SC in 1988 (11-2 season), 1994 (12-2) and 1996 (15-0). They have also set an I-AA record with five straight seasons making at least the semi-finals of the I-AA Playoffs from 1991-96.

The 1996 was the best of al when Marshall?s team played with legendary players like Moss, Wade, Hanson, Erik Kresser and Doug Chapman. They were ranked No. 1 all-season with an impressive 15-0 and made their mark as one of greatest I-AA teams of all time.

Thundering Herd moved to Division I-A and the Mid-American Conference in 1997. They won the MAC title five times in 1997-98-99-2000 and 2002 stood as runners up in 2001. The Marshall University football team then moved to Conference USA in 2005

Marshall plays football at Joan C. Edwards Stadium which has a seating capacity if 38,019. The stadium was opened for the 1991and has a bronze memorial dedicated to the plane-crash victims of 1970.

The Thundering Herd has it all what it takes to be a winner. They know well how to rise from the ashes and leave their mark on history.

There games are not the ones to be missed as they provide the best entertainment and extreme excitement through their powerplay.