McConaughey To Play Former Marshall Coach In Upcoming Film

Matthew McConaughey says he committed to a role in the locally shot film “We Are Marshall” right after reading the script.

McConaughey plays coach Jack Lengyel, who took over the Marshall University football team after a plane crash killed 75 players, coaches and community members in November 1970.

“There’s two scripts I’ve read in my career — I’ve made 37 films — that as soon as I finished the last page, I said, ‘I’m in, no matter what,’ ” McConaughey said Wednesday.

“I finished the script, and I couldn’t get it off my mind,” he said of “We Are Marshall.” “I had emotions that I haven’t had in a while. I didn’t know this story.”

Lengyel was hired in March 1971, four months after the team’s chartered jet crashed into a hill in rain and fog short of Huntington, W.Va.’s Tri-State Airport. The film tells the story of the football program's rebuilding.

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