HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Frank Loria Jr. was still safe in his mother's womb when his father died in the plane crash that claimed most of the Marshall football family on Nov. 14, 1970.

Huntington, W.Va., was the first coaching stop for Frank Loria Sr. He had only recently finished a stellar career at Virginia Tech, one that eventually would land him in the College Football Hall of Fame. He was a two-time All-American, and he was in his second year as the defensive backs coach at Marshall at the tender age of 23.

It's likely he was headed for a distinguished coaching career. Current Hokies coach Frank Beamer was a teammate of Loria's, and he has said that if Loria were alive Loria would be the head coach in Blacksburg and he would be an assistant coach.

"Coach Beamer is a great coach and he's a class guy for saying that," said Loria Jr., who will turn 36 later this month.

Loria Jr. is the spitting image of his father with his dark, chiseled features and slight build. His mother said it was always intended that he be named Frank. It wasn't something she had done just to honor her late husband.

The man already had garnered plenty of accolades himself. A West Virginia native, he was legend in these parts.

"For me as a kid, he was like a superhero," Loria Jr. said.

Loria Sr. was Virginia Tech's first consensus All-American. He was an undersized safety at 5 feet 9 and 175 pounds, and yet he wasn't somebody with whom anyone wanted to tangle. The Hokies official athletic Internet site calls Loria "one of the most tenacious football players ever to play for Virginia Tech." He finished his career with seven interceptions and still holds school records for career punt-return average (13.3 yards), career punt return touchdowns (four) and punt returns for touchdown in a season (three).

He was an Academic All-American as well.

"I always knew about him growing up," said Loria Jr., now a sales rep for a medical company in New Jersey. "Mom was good about making sure we knew. We celebrated his life instead of always being sad about what had happened."

If his father was his superhero, his mother became his everyday hero.

"There's not a more gracious, honorable woman than my mother," Loria Jr. said. "I have two sisters who were just 3 and 2 at the time, and my mother was 7 months pregnant with me. But she kept everything together."

Since remarried a couple of times, Phyllis Riccelli, like so many others who lost loved ones in the crash, remembers the moment all too well.

"My parents had come to visit, and they had taken the girls (Vickie Loria Buchner, now 39, and Julie Loria Squirewell, 37) to church," Riccelli said. "I had listened to the game on the radio and had just left it on. Then I heard them say something about a plane crash."

Riccelli says she noticed a clock trophy in the room near the phone, one of many awards her husband had earned. The hands on the clock had stopped moving. The time? About when the plane went down.

"The phone calls started right away," Riccelli said. "And you started thinking, 'Of course there are survivors.' "

There weren't. Her parents whisked her and the girls away to their hometown of Clarskburg, W.Va., about 175 miles from Huntington. They awaited word on Frank Loria's body.

"The days seemed like months," Riccelli said. "Finally Red (Dawson, another assistant coach) called and said they had found Frank."

Riccelli said the priest who had married the couple presided over Loria's memorial service. She recalled that it was beautifully done.

Loria Jr. and his mother did not return to Huntington until 2000, for the 30th annual memorial service for the crash victims held on the Marshall campus. In 2005, Loria Jr. was asked to deliver a speech at the memorial, and everyone who was there will tell you he also delivered beautifully.

His father would have been proud.