HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – There are enough remnants of the hair color of his youth to understand why everyone calls William Dawson "Red."

Mostly gray now, the 63-year-old Dawson still is an imposing figure. He's 6 feet 4 and muscular, with a grip that doesn't make it hard to believe he was a standout football player at Florida State. He has a thick gray mustache, furrowed brow and eyes that look like someone peeking out behind vertical blinds.

But what those eyes have done all too often over the past 36 years is well up with tears. Dawson was the defensive coordinator for the 1970 Marshall team. He and three other assistant coaches were not on the team plane when it returned from a game at East Carolina and crashed just minutes before landing in West Virginia. All 75 people aboard were killed, including head coach Rick Tolley, assistant coaches Deke Brackett, Al Carelli Jr., Frank Loria and Jim "Shorty" Moss, and 37 players.

Dawson and fellow assistant Gail Parker had driven down for the game so they could continue on for a recruiting trip. They were somewhere between Greenville, N.C., and Ferrum, Va. - where they were trying to get the commitment of a Ferrum College linebacker - when a news bulletin came over the radio.

"We knew it was serious, but it didn't sound devastating," Dawson said. "We had hope. So we stopped at the closest pay phone to call our wives, and once we had talked to them we found out the truth."

The truth was too devastating to fathom. Dawson was close to almost everyone on the plane. He had spent countless hours with his fellow coaches. Most of the players were kids he had recruited. And all of them were gone.

It tortured Dawson. He was racked with guilt. But he tried to do what he could to comfort the families who lost loved ones, and he agreed to give the school one more season when it was decided the football program would continue in 1971. After that, he had to walk away. He remained in Huntington and started a construction company, one that he still runs today.

If anyone's story is at the crux of the new film "We Are Marshall," it is Dawson's. He is the bridge for the movie between the 1970 tragedy and the 1971 rebirth.

Dawson treated everyone involved in the tragedy like family. He made the difficult phone calls. He was the one calling many of the families to inform them when the bodies of their loved ones had been identified.

Kevin Cottrell was only 8 when his brother Stuart, a sophomore safety, died in the plane crash. Dawson, a native of Valdosta, Ga., had recruited Cottrell out of Eustis, Fla.

Kevin didn't know his parents had sent a telegram to Dawson a week after the crash. They couldn't make it to the memorial service for the team, and they wrote to express not only their sorrow but to send their thoughts and prayers to the rest of the grieving families.

Kevin and his sister Sally went to Huntington in April to appear in a scene for the film in which hundreds of people were to gather at the memorial fountain. They had never been to Huntington, and they hadn't seen Dawson since he had recruited their brother. So they were blown away when they met him and he disappeared for a few minutes, only to return with the telegram sent by their now-deceased parents.

"That stuff (in the movie) about Red looking parents in the eyes and saying, 'I'll take care of your boys,' that's true," Cottrell said. "He sat at the table in our dining room with mom and dad and told them that."

Dawson became a shepherd for the Thundering Herd family on the set of the film, ensuring a truthful and tasteful retelling of their story by the filmmakers.

"I think it was a year ago late in September was the first time we talked to Warner Bros.," Dawson said. "They promised us what they were going to do, but I've had promises before that weren't backed up. But I can truthfully say that they have done everything they said … they backed up everything they first said they were going to do. It's very positive and of high quality."

Dawson spoke at the annual memorial service at the school for the first time this year. Previously, it had just been too difficult. He said during the speech that he often attended the service in the shadows, preferring to stand behind a large sycamore tree in the courtyard behind the student center.

"There were plenty of people to do the talking at these things," Dawson said.

Dawson got choked up during the speech, and stepped away to compose himself. He said: "I strongly believe in trying times the old master will show us the way. The way was to work hard so you knew you could sleep. But sleep never came easy."

The making of the film has led Dawson to relive some difficult moments. But ultimately it has helped him deal with some of the pain and the guilt.

Perhaps no one has gotten to know Dawson and understand him and his feelings about the tragedy better than Matthew Fox, the actor who portrays Dawson in the film. Fox, the star of ABC's hit "Lost," talked Dawson, who rarely flies, into visiting him on the set of "Lost" in Hawaii.

"We spent five days together," Fox said. "He met my family, you know, my wife and my kids, and she cooked up her special lasagna for him and then we just spent the first couple of days getting to know each other."

Eventually Fox had to delve into the events of 1970. He knew it wouldn't be easy, and it wasn't.

"He's not comfortable talking about it," Fox said. "I mean, this is a guy that's like John Wayne – he's like incredibly cool and strong and big – he's a cool guy. And he has moments where he is just calmly and coolly talking about the situation and something will just catch him and you'll feel it, and he can't really continue. There'll be some quiet and then he'll get it together and he'll start talking about it again.

"He's not that comfortable letting those emotions exist and is still constantly surprised by how much they sneak up on him 35 years later."

His emotions didn't sneak up on him when he watched the film for the first time the day before he spoke at the memorial service. They came right up the middle and sacked him like a blitzing linebacker.

"It was very tough to watch the film, which is why I insisted on watching it by myself," Dawson said. "I've seen it twice by myself and there was a lot of improvement in my behavior the second time, so I think the third or fourth time I might even be able to watch it in public."

Dawson and Fox appear to have grown close because Dawson allowed Fox to look behind the blinds. On the green carpet in Huntington for the premier of the film, Dawson joked that one thing Fox had learned from him was how to cry.

For his part, Fox found a man still hurting but still strong, a tough guy with a John Wayne veneer but an emotional side that runs deep.

A man everyone around here knows simply as "Red."