NC State's Jim Donnan was integral in Marshall's football revival
He had lifted Marshall — the most tragic program in college football — from the ashes of the mountaintop where nearly the entire team was wiped out in the worst sports tragedy in U.S. sports history.
The school vowed to rise again, a phoenix disguised as a Thundering Herd.
After a fruitless decade of trying, Jim Donnan built on the success started by George Chaump to complete the Herd’s ultimate comeback.
Donnan, a native of Burlington, North Carolina, had been a standout quarterback, punter and tennis player during his days as a student at NC State after playing at Walter Williams High School. He was on the field in 1966 when NC State opened Carter Stadium with a loss to South Carolina, and he helped carry the offense while the Wolfpack’s “White Shoes Defense” drew national attention for its season-long dominance in 1967.
He guided the Pack to its first postseason bowl victory in school history, a 14-7 win in the Liberty Bowl against, as coincidence would have it, Georgia, a team Donnan would later coach to four consecutive bowl victories.
He had begun his coaching career as the freshman team head coach and quarterbacks coach under Earle Edwards at NC State and then made the typical rounds around college football, from Florida State, to North Carolina, to Kansas State, to Missouri, until he settled in as Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer’s offensive coordinator.
Donnan was the mastermind of the Sooner’s ground-chewing wishbone offense that won the 1985 college football title, posted three consecutive 11-1 seasons and twice led the nation in total offense and scoring. His success made him a perennial candidate to become a head coach, especially at the Division I schools in his home state that changed coaches constantly in the 1980s.
In 1990, he accepted what had once been college football’s hardest job: taking over the Thundering Herd, which had flourished under Chaump after its reclassification to NCAA Division I-AA status in 1982, even going to the 1987 I-AA title game against Youngstown State.
After a 6-5 debut season, Donnan started a streak of unprecedented success by taking the Thundering Herd to the I-AA championship game four of the next five years.
But it was a game in Raleigh that has always gnawed at Donnan, who was twice named the national I-AA Coach of the Year.
Donnan brought his 1991 team to face his alma mater, then coached by Dick Sheridan, which was 5-0 and ranked No. 11 in the nation. Donnan thought he had his team, which was No. 8 in the Division I-AA poll, in position to win, leading 14-3 with three minutes to play.
But an 64-yard touchdown drive by NC State quarterback Geoff Bender was aided by a couple of pass interference penalties that Donnan thought were dubious, and a perfectly executed onside kick by Damon Hartman and recovered by Sebastian Savage gave the Wolfpack a chance to win. For Hartman, the non-scoring kick was redemption for missing three field goal attempts earlier in the game.
On fourth and 10, Bender was unable to complete a pass, but he got a second chance when Marshall was called for an offside penalty and the Wolfpack given another play. Bender then threw a 34-yard completion to Ledel George.
With 24 seconds remaining on the clock, Bender hit Charles Davenport on a 34-yard touchdown pass that gave the Wolfpack a 15-14 victory. Donnan escorted the officials off the field, never straying more than an arms-length away from the head umpire’s ear.
Afterward, he said: “I’m lower than a well digger.”
Later that year, Donnan took the Herd to the I-AA title game and the next year it won the school’s first national title. He returned with his team to Raleigh in 1993, but the 24-17 Wolfpack win wasn’t as much in doubt.
Donnan’s success at the Huntington, West Virginia, school earned him a chance to succeed Ray Goff as the head coach at Georgia. In five seasons, he never had a losing record and, from 1997-2000, he led the Bulldogs to four consecutive bowl victories for the first time in school history.
His tenure ended in Athens, Georgia, following a pair of 8-4 seasons, which probably says more about Georgia and the Southeastern Conference than it did about Donnan.
In 2009, based primarily on his accomplishments at Marshall, Donnan was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, joining former NC State head coaches Buck Shaw and Lou Holtz.
The following year, he was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, along with former NC State wide receiver Mike Quick.
Donnan, who has been associated with many teams throughout his Hall-of-Fame career, will always attribute his success to his start at NC State. He plans to be at the Nov. 4 reunion of the 1967 Liberty Bowl champion team when the Wolfpack faces defending national Clemson.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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