Published: August 07, 2008 12:20 am            

Harkening to the past

McCain gives Marshall players pep talk on teamwork

HUNTINGTON — Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain harkened back to his days enduring a North Vietnamese prison to stress teamwork at a brief Wednesday appearance during Marshall University’s football practice.

The seven-minute pep talk featured his oft-told story of the fellow prisoner of war who defied beatings to fashion American flags from rags. The Arizona senator also recounted how he was shot down and captured before his five-year ordeal as a prisoner of war.

“It was a long time ago, and I don’t expect you to remember it,” McCain told the dozens of jerseyed Thundering Herd players huddled around him on one knee, the oldest of whom were born in the late 1980s.

Speaking after watching practice drills from midfield and chatting with coaches and a few players, McCain also invoked the 1970 plane crash the killed most of Marshall’s football team.

“I’m proud of a unique institution, an institution that went through a great tragedy and came out of it enhanced, a greater institution with a tradition of courage, a tradition of victory and a tradition of winning,” he said.

McCain had arrived in Huntington late Tuesday, phoning supporters at a Town Hall-style meeting in Pennsylvania from his hotel. After his 23-minute appearance at the Marshall practice field, he headed to Ohio by bus.

McCain did not ask for votes during his pep talk, nor did he allude to any of the issues framing the ongoing race with Democrat Barack Obama. Though players were invited to meet with McCain afterward, most if not all appeared to move on to their post-practice sessions with coaching staff.

Wednesday’s visit was McCain’s third to West Virginia this year, and the second to be closed to the public and with limited press access. And like last month’s stop at the nearby Tri-State Airport, the latest appearance preceded larger campaign stops in the neighboring battleground of Ohio.

A noisy knot of about two-dozen Obama supporters waved signs outside the stadium during McCain’s visit. Though relegated to a far corner of the parking lot, their chants could be heard faintly during the senator’s pep talk.

“His bus says ‘Straight Talk Express,’ but straight talk is not glad-handing football players,” said state AFL-CIO President Kenny Perdue, who helped lead the supporters.

        

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