By GLENN GUILBEAU
(Reprinted from Jan. 13, 1990, Tiger Rag. Originally in Jan. 10, 1990, Alexandria Daily Town Talk.)
Bobby Morrison awoke and sat straight up in his bed at the Capitol House Hotel in downtown Baton Rouge.
“My body knew something was wrong. It was really eerie,” he said of a dark memory now turning 10 years old.
Then the phone rang, and he heard the words he’ll never forget.
“Bo’s plane’s missing,” fellow new LSU assistant coach Jon Mirilovich told him.
Bo was Robert E. “Bo” Rein – LSU football coach from Nov. 30, 1979, to Jan. 10, 1980. He was the Bo Louisiana never got to know.
Rein died 10 years ago today on Jan. 10, 1980, at the age of 34 in a plane crash 100 miles off the Virginia coast. He was the only passenger with pilot Lewis Benscotter. They took off from Shreveport after a recruiting trip in a small private plane, but turned due east to avoid nasty weather. Then verbal contact with Benscotter was lost and never regained.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The tweet below was posted today – Jan. 10, 2026. Suzanne Rein (left) smiles as her husband Bo Rein waves during a press conference at LSU on Nov. 30, 1979.
46 years ago today Bo Rein, the newly hired HC of the Tigers, died in a plane crash during a recruiting trip. Rein was a rising star coming off a successful stint at NC State. Jerry Stovall would take over as the new LSU HC. pic.twitter.com/lHObUgF9fI
— Vintage LSU Football (@vintagelsuftb) January 10, 2026
Morrison, Mirilovich and other assistant coaches Rein brought with him from his staff at North Carolina State who were bunking at the Capitol House rushed to the Baton Rouge Airport and were allowed to track Rein’s plane on radar for hours.
“The last thing we heard coming on the radio was, ‘The plane turned and rolled over to the right and went directly to the sea,’” Morrison remembered.
No bodies were ever found. No one is sure what happened, but the generally accepted theory after the crash investigation was that that oxygen was lost in the cabin, and both Rein and Benscotter passed out in flight.
The plane had passed over North Carolina State in Raleigh, where Rein’s parents from Niles, Ohio, were babysitting Bo and Suzanne Rein’s two young daughters. Rein’s wife was in Portland, Oregon, visiting her parents.
“The one thing is, he’s never going to get old,” Morrison, now an assistant coach at Michigan, said. “He’s always going to be that young, hook-nosed Bo I remember.”
Morrison and Rein were born in 1945 in Niles and grew up playing ball together. Morrison was a star linebacker and Rein a star running back on the 1963 state championship team at Niles McKinley High, where they also won a state championship in baseball with Morrison as the catcher and Rein the ace pitcher.
On the morning of Tuesday Jan. 9, they jogged the three miles from the Capitol House to the LSU football offices. On Jan. 11, the day after Rein’s recruiting trip, Rein, Morrison and the rest of the staff were scheduled to meet his new LSU team for the first time after replacing coach Charles McClendon.
Former LSU running back star and All-Pro NFL defensive back Jerry Stovall, who was a running backs coach under McClendon, left his job in fund raising in the athletic department to be an emergency replacement for Rein. He retained Morrison and other Rein assistants for two seasons.
“Bo was a great coach,” Morrison said. “I always wonder where he’d be today. I’m sure he’d be one of the top coaches in the country. It was inevitable. He had that something you can’t put your finger on that the great ones have.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Arkansas defensive coordinator Monte Kifffin under Lou Holtz replaced Bo Rein as North Carolina State’s head coach in December of 1979 after Rein became LSU’s coach. His son Lane was 4 years old at the time. On Dec. 1, 2025, Lane Kiffin became LSU’s head coach.
Rein’s mother Virginia still struggles daily to get over her son’s death.
“He was so likeable, and never changed,” she said. “A phone call from him could lift your spirits no matter how down you were.”
Rein called his mom shortly before the plane left Shreveport.
“I’ve got to run. Plane’s waiting, and I have to get back to school,” she remembered him saying. “The plane was never found. It’s all just blank, gone, and that’s it.”
Rein’s dad Paul doesn’t talk about it.
“He has never talked about it,” Virginia Rein said. “Just nothing. But I always talk about everything he did. They say you’re supposed to forget, but he’s what I live for. He gave us our happiest years. We drove everywhere to see him play.”
Rein played running back for coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State from 1964-66 and played shortstop and left field for the Buckeyes’ national champion baseball runner-up team in 1965 and national champion team in 1966. He went 1-for-4 with a double and a run scored in Ohio State’s 8-2 win over Oklahoma State for the ’66 nnational title at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska. Rein and Ohio State returned to Omaha in 1967, which was the last time the Buckeyes reached the CWS. Rein currently holds the career stolen bases record at Ohio State with 49 from 1965-67.
A 40th round pick by the Cleveland Indians in 1967, Rein met his future wife Suzanne while playing for the Triple-A Portland Beavers in the Pacific Coast League. Knee and hamstring injuries made him retire from pro baseball and he became an assistant football coach under Lou Holtz in 1969 at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, for two seasons. After assistant stints at Purdue in 1971, North Carolina State under Holtz from 1972-74 and Arkansas in 1975 as offensive coordinator under Frank Broyles, Rein at 30 years old became the youngest head coach in college football at North Carolina State in 1976.
After a 3-7-1 season in ’76, Rein went 8-4 with a Peach Bowl win in 1977, 9-3 with a Tangerine Bowl win in 1978 and 7-4 in 1979 with an Atlantic Coast Conference title at 5-1. And that was the last ACC title in football for the Wolfpack.
Bo and Suzanne were married for 11 years.
“When you’re a coaches’ wife, you have to be fairly independent,” Suzanne Rein said. “He was always gone, but you knew he was always coming back. Now, he’s just never around. And he always kind of believed he was invulnerable. And I believed that, too. We all do.”
Suzanne returned home to Portland, remarried and became Suzanne Klang three years after the tragedy.
“I have a new life,” she said. “But he’s always in my thoughts.”
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