New York Times film critic Stephen Holden is one such heartless bastard. Holden savaged the film, concluding that it will make you never want to hear the rallying cry “We Are Marshall” again. Somewhere in Huntington, West Virginia there’s a woodshed with Mr. Holden’s name on it. Then again this is the man who offered the following editorial on Murderball, the award-winning documentary on disabled athletes: “Its disturbing observation that brutal, cutthroat athletic competition gives the players a reason to live can easily be extended to embrace our entire national sports mania.” Oh, I see. He’s another one of those who thinks sports is vulgar—a lower cultural form—not like “the arts.” 

Perhaps Holden knows something about sports that small-minded types like Joyce Carol Oates, Martin Amis, George Plimpton and James Michener don’t. If you can’t appreciate the exquisite insight into the human condition that sports provides, then you are a sadly limited human being. 

The fact is, most New York film “critics” panned this movie. And they all missed the boat.

We Are Marshall does not purport to be a Darren Aronofsky visual masterpiece or even a multi-layered historical sports drama like Chariots of Fire. Nor does it hold itself out to be a smart social critique of sports institutions like North-Dallas Forty (the NFL) or The Bad News Bears (Little League baseball). We Are Marshall is a PG, feel-good retelling of a powerful true story. Kids should see it. It belongs in the pantheon of sports films like Brian’s Song, Something for Joey and Hoosiers—films that were not trying to win any critics awards, but attempting to energetically memorialize real-life stories of triumph over adversity. As such, We Are Marshall is all it should be: informative, entertaining, moving and redemptive.

On a pre-Christmas show, Russo hammered New York movie critics for being elitists and panning We Are Marshall. The reviewers seemed to take sick glee in their dislike of the movie. Russo liked the film, and he knows his way around film history more than Stephen Holden knows his way around sports.

Russo was right—the film works in that cheery sports film kind of way. In light of the disgrace that the New York Giants brought this year compared to the amazing Jets led by Marshall alumnus, Chad Pennington, We Are Marshall is a timely film. It is all about not giving up and throwing in the towel. Much like what New York faced after 9/11, Huntington, W. Va., had to pick up the pieces after a horrific Nov. 1970 plane crash that killed 95 people. It took years to right the ship, but the first step was to get back on the field and play.

We are all “Marshall” in New York.

You and I have participated in a number of symposiums on “Sports and Film,” and one of the issues that comes up often is how sports films have a hard time making the actors look like real athletes in action. We Are Marshall scores high marks for verisimilitude. The hits were real. The football talk was legit and unapologetically technical.

What do these critics know? These are some of the same nose-in-the-air know-it-alls who made Emilio Estevez’s onanistic Bobby a 2007 Golden Globes finalist for “Best Picture.” There’s no way that fictionalized extrapolation from another real life tragedy tells us more about what happened than what we learned from We Are Marshall—a more faithful rendering of true events.

But I’m glad you tied it all in to Chad Pennington (Marshall, Class of 2000) and the New York Jets. No doubt summoning some We Are Marshall mojo, Pennington has rebounded from his own adversity: three devastating injuries and subsequent surgeries. Against all odds he has returned successfully as the Jets starting QB for every game this season. And, defying all the sports “critics” in this town, the Jets have put together a remarkable winning season. Well, they defied all but one local sports writer.

May I call your attention to our Sept. 6, 2006 column where I wrote, “You like predictions? The Jets will be a wild card team.” As for the writing of this column, the Jets have yet to play their final game against Oakland. At printing, we will know the result. In the same September column I said, “[V]ery little is expected of the 2006 Jets, but it will be in the exceeding of expectations where heroism is born.”  Whether they’ve won or lost, this NFL season, “We Are the Jets.”

As the College Bowl season winds down—and no one really cares in these parts after the Rutgers game—we are left with the pro game. No Michigan/Ohio State rematch on neutral ground, which would really decide just who is number one. The whole thing is a yawn except for college football afficionados.

The Giants could use a little “We Are Marshall” magic. After all, Wellington Mara’s granddaughter, Kate Mara, practically steals the film as a heart broken girl who lost her man in the plane crash.

I think what I most love about “We Are Marshall” is the fact that Chad Pennington is being quoted on the radio as a film critic. Better him than Jack Matthews of the Daily Snooze who last year gave King Kong high praise and four stars and then this season banged We Are Marshall. Keep your monkeys, Jack, I’ll take some jocks with heart and a good story line anytime.