This holiday season, a movie sure to tug at the heart strings is the true story of a small town in West Virginia struggling to cope with the death of its college football team.

A Quincy native was one of those who perished in that plane crash.

Now, those close to him share his remarkable story.

The movie “We are Marshall" portrays a real life tragedy with ties to our area.

A plane crashed in 1970, killing almost the entire team of football players and coaches from Marshall University.

One of the players who perished was Quincy Native David Debord.

"It was hard to take. You never expected it and you say, ‘maybe he wasn't on the plane’. When the news came and we knew he was one of them, it was hard," says Donald Morris.

Though Debord's death was hard and difficult for friends and family, they found comfort knowing he was pursuing his love of football, receiving a scholarship to Marshall University to fulfill that dream.

Thomas Parker says, "He had a lot of goals that were unusual for people in high school to have goals. But he had goals of playing football, basically following in his father's foot steps of playing pro football and he put in a 100 percent."

And, he gave 100 percent of his efforts until the very end.

Morris adds, "He was not a quitter, he was living his dream. He died leaving a football game coming back and that's what he always wanted to do. So if anything, he wanted to be remembered about the fact that he perused his dreams 110 percent."

Ffriends say Debord would have wanted people to remember him for his accomplishments rather than the way he died.