Reggie Oliver

Athlete

Reggie Oliver was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and came to Marshall University to play football. He was not on the team plane that crashed on November 14, 1970, because he was a freshman and ineligible to play. He became the quarterback of the Young Thundering Herd the following year and played until 1973.

After Oliver graduated, he played for the Jacksonville Sharks in the World Football League before returning to Huntington to become an assistant football coach and teacher at Huntington High School. In 1984, he was inducted into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1994, he was named head football coach at Alabama A&M.

Oliver died in 2018 after suffering a serious head injury from a fall in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2020, Huntington Mayor Steve Williams designated the public streets surrounding the former Fairfield Stadium site as Honorary Reggie Oliver Square.