Jack Lengyel is a software executive and former sports official. He is best known as having been head coach of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team from 1971 until 1974, having taken over following the Southern Airways Flight 932 plane crash that killed nearly the entire team in 1970. He graduated from The University of Akron, where he was an assistant coach in 1959, and was a member of Lone Star Fraternity. He was an assistant coach at Heidelberg College (1961-62) and Cornell (1963-65) before becoming head football and lacrosse coach at The College of Wooster from 1966-1970.
Lengyel was hired by Marshall athletic director Joe McMullen after head coach Rick Tolley was killed along with most of the Marshall coaches and players in the crash. When Lengyel arrived at Marshall he was forced to recruit athletes from other sports (baseball, basketball and soccer) as well as allow a large number of walk-ons in order to rebuild the devastated football program. Although the team struggled in Lengyel's first season at the helm, it managed to win a stunning 15-13 victory over Xavier, scoring a touchdown on the final play of the game. His overall record at Marshall as the head coach was 9-33.
After leaving Marshall, Lengyel went into the private sector before returning to sports as associate director of athletics at Louisville (1980) and Missouri (1981-84). He then went to Fresno State as director of athletics for two years before returning to Missouri to become their athletic director.
In 1988, he became the Athletic Director at the United States Naval Academy, where he served for 14 years before retiring in 2001. He received the 2005 John L. Toner Award from the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame for his service at Navy. Since retiring from Navy in 2001, he has also been the interim director of athletics at Temple University, Eastern Kentucky University, and most recently University of Colorado.
Lengyel also served many years on the Board of Trustees at the United States Naval Academy. He is currently the vice president of business development for XOS Technologies, a provider of software solutions for sports programs.
On January 12th, 2008, seven members of a high school basketball team from Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada and their coach's wife were killed in a highway crash when the 15-seat van they were traveling in collided with a tractor-trailer while returning from a game in Moncton in snowy conditions. Drawing similarities between the two tragedies, on March 13th, 2008 Jack Lengyel funded his own traveling expenses to New Brunswick, Canada to assist in counseling the grieving community.
Lengyel went on record with the Canadian Press stating that schools should not be transporting students in small, multi-passenger vans. The New Brunswick government announced soon after the crash that it was suspending the use of the vans.
Matthew McConaughey plays Lengyel in the film We Are Marshall, which was released on December 22nd, 2006.
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