FORTY MINUTES TO BATON ROUGE examines the life and tragic death of LSU head football coach Robert E. “Bo” Rein at age 34. The fact that Rein never actually coached a day at LSU muddies the emotional waters and creates an unfortunate chasm between those who knew him and those who never got the chance.

 

     Rein, an Ohio native, projected great promise as a young coach at NC State.   He had a football pedigree that coaches envied. Mentored by the likes of Woody Hayes, Lou Holtz and Frank Broyles, there seemed to be nothing that would stop his ascension to the top. Lured away from NC State by Louisiana State University, Rein was destined for stardom.

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     Sadly, after only 42 days at the LSU helm, the evening of January 10, 1980 took a tragic and unfathomable turn. While returning to Baton Rouge from a Shreveport recruiting trip, Rein and his pilot Lewis S. Benscotter turned a 40 minute junket into a three hour 1,000 mile odyssey, that 40 years later still has us scratching our heads. The dream would come to a heartbreaking end as Rein's Cessna 441 twin engine turbo-prop plunged 40,000 feet into the moonlit Atlantic Ocean 100 miles off Cape Charles, Virginia. 

 

     For LSU, the sadness resembled a new friend they had just met and abruptly lost. For NC State, the loss was devastation and utter disbelief.  And for Ohioans...they had lost a beloved son.

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