From Coach Bo Rein, to three former teammates killed in accidents, bizarre circumstances have shrouded LSU's history and left a legacy of sobering misfortune

For all of its good fortune in recent years, LSU has a haunted past that has claimed the lives of several people. From armed conflict to tragic accidents, LSU has experienced more than its share of tragedy.

Young Bussey led LSU in rushing and passing in 1937 and in passing the next year. He had a promising future with the Chicago Bears of the NFL only to quit to join the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was killed in the Pacific Theater in 1945, the final year of the war.

More than two decades later, former LSU quarterback Trey Prather died while serving with the Marines in Vietnam. He stepped on a land mine and succumbed to his injuries in 1968.

Before the 1970 LSU season, quarterback Butch Duhe complained of headaches. Shortly thereafter, he died from a brain hemorrhage.

Mike Miley quarterbacked LSU in 1973 only to choose professional baseball in signing with the California Angels. Two years later, he was killed in a one-car accident in Baton Rouge, La. Carl Otis Trimble, one of those who replaced Miley at quarterback, died in a tubing accident the next year.

None of that prepared the LSU faithful for the fate that befell Bo Rein in 1980 after having been named head coach 42 days earlier. After a recruiting trip to Shreveport, La., Rein was headed home on a private plane.

Bad weather forced pilot Lewis Benscotter to fly east, rather than south. For reasons still unknown, the plane began to climb and there was no response from the cockpit. Two Air Force fighter planes intercepted Rein’s plane over North Carolina, but there was no movement from either Rein or Benscotter.

The plane eventually ran out of fuel and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia, 1,400 miles from its intended destination.

LSU won the Southeastern Conference championship in 1986 with the likes of Eric Andolsek and Ralph Norwood on the offensive line and Toby Caston at linebacker. All three reached the NFL only to suffer untimely deaths under circumstances that were eerily similar.

Norwood, then a rookie with the Atlanta Falcons, died in a one-car accident in an Atlanta suburb in 1989. Andolsek, a starter for the Detroit Lions, was weedeating in front of his Thibodaux, La., home during the 1992 offseason when the cab of a truck struck Andolsek from behind and killed him.

The Lions lost another player in 1994 when Caston was killed in an automobile accident as the latest casualty in LSU’s saga of doom.