History won’t be repeating itself. Marshall athletic director Bob Marcum cleared that up Sunday when he released a statement that said, “To avoid any speculation concerning our football program, Mark Snyder is and will remain our head football coach.”

Thank you, Mr. Marcum.

Marshall finished its football season Saturday with a 4-8 record and there have been a lot of fans and media “experts” calling for the job of Snyder.

But in this age of instant gratification where fans and hierarchy want a program turned around overnight, Herd Nation needs to look back about 25 years into its own history.

In 1983, Marshall finished the season 4-7, similar to this year’s record.

The Marshall head coach at that time was Sonny Randle who was trying to revive a program that had not had a winning season since 1964 when Charlie Snyder guided the team to a 7-4 record.

The program was still feeling the effects of the tragic plane crash the wipe out almost the entire team and coaching staff in the final game of 1970.

Frank Ellwood was 1-10 in 1978 and was fired. Randle took over and found the program in shambles.

One of Randle’s assistant coaches at the time was Jim Grobe, now the head coach at Wake Forest. Several years ago when Grobe was still the head coach at Ohio University, he talked about those years at Marshall.

Grobe said the players on the team at the time didn’t attend class and were very rowdy in their off-the-field behavior. Not only that, but the talent level wasn’t very good.

Sound familiar?

Enter Randle who began to sift through the good and bad and replenish the shelves. After the 1983 season, Grobe said the coaches knew they were on the verge of winning and they were hoping to get one more year to see their work come to fruition.

But it didn’t happen. They were fired and Stan Parrish was named the new coach.

Marshall, as expected, had a winning season for the first time in 20 years. The Herd was 6-5 and followed that with a 7-4 season. Parrish was adored by an unknowing Marshall faithful.

Parrish took the opportunity to bolt for Kansas State where there wasn’t any talent in place. He last three dreadful seasons and was fired.

Marshall continued to win after Parrish. George Chaump, Jim Donnan, and Bob Pruett all kept the tradition going. As Pruett would say, “We play for championships.”

Well, not in his last season when the Herd was just 6-6. Not only that, those championships came in the Southern Conference and the Mid-American Conference. When Mark Snyder got the cleanup job at the end of spring practice four years ago, Marshall had jumped into a tougher Conference USA.

Snyder had no recruiting class the first year, and some players had already committed for the next year as high school juniors under Pruett’s recruiting. Snyder didn’t get to recruit a full class until his third season, and he was recruiting under a probation he inherited from Pruett that cost him 16 precious scholarships.

Snyder said before the season that the Herd would be a better team than last year, even if the record might not indicate such improvement. And he was right.

He also said that next year things would be a lot better.

Sonny Randle and Jim Grobe know what Snyder is going through. Obviously, Bob Marcum understands the whole picture as well.

And if history does in fact repeat, Herd Nation can look forward to better things in the near present.

–– Sinatra ––

Jim Walker is sports editor of The Ironton Tribune.