Summary: We Will Rise

The GIST

We Will Rise, by Steve Beaven, is the true story of a small Midwestern city, the college basketball team it loved, and the night that team was taken away. On December 13, 1977, a plane carrying the University of Evansville Purple Aces crashed shortly after takeoff. Everyone on board died, including the players and their coach. In all, 29 people were lost: team members, coaching staff and crew. Beaven tells the story in three movements. First comes the golden age that made the Aces matter so much to Evansville, Indiana. Then comes the crash and the grief that followed it. Last comes the slow, stubborn rebuilding that carried a new team to the 1982 NCAA tournament.

The book matters because it is more than a disaster story. Beaven is interested in what comes after: how parents, classmates, coaches who weren't on the flight, university leaders and ordinary townspeople carried on when their heroes were gone. He works from interviews and archival research and writes with real tenderness. The result is a portrait of how a sports team can become part of a community's identity, and how that shared love can become the thread a broken city uses to pull itself back together. The title is both a vow and a prediction, and the book follows that promise from heartbreak to renewal.

The Big Ideas

A Program Built on Family: The Arad McCutchan Era

To understand what Evansville lost, Beaven says, you first have to understand what it had built. That story begins with Arad McCutchan, a local son who grew up near Evansville and starred for the Aces as a player. He led the team in scoring and served as its captain year after year. He graduated in 1946. After his service in the Navy following World War II, he came home to his alma mater as head coach. He stayed for more than three decades.

McCutchan's genius, as Beaven presents it, was less about flashy schemes than about togetherness. He built his program on a sense of collective spirit. On the sideline he was a model of restraint: he rarely went after officials and didn't get drawn into loud arguments on behalf of his players. Off the court, he made the program feel like a family. Players found support and advice at his home on matters well beyond basketball. The coach's house became an extension of the locker room, a place where young men were looked after as people and not just as athletes.

He was also a quiet innovator who looked for small edges. Beaven describes how McCutchan introduced longer uniforms so players could be substituted quickly. He also chose white shoes, reasoning that they would help cut down on movement violations. These details reveal a coach who was always thinking and who believed that small, practical choices could add up to an advantage.

The combination worked. McCutchan's methods, together with the dedication and work ethic of his players, turned UE into a powerhouse. It drew national attention and pulled the best talent from the surrounding region. The program became a source of civic pride, something Evansville could point to and call its own.

Small School, Big Stage: Five National Titles and Roberts Stadium

The peak of the McCutchan era came in the 1960s. That decade the Aces won five national championships and established themselves as a formidable force in college basketball. Beaven shows that this success was not only about what happened on the hardwood. It was also the product of shrewd ambition.

A central piece of that strategy was Roberts Stadium, the arena that became the beating heart of Aces basketball. Evansville was a relatively small program. To bring big-name opponents and major events to town, it offered substantial financial incentives. The gamble paid off: prestigious teams came to play, the stands filled, and the city got to see its team test itself against the best. A small school in a small city had found a way onto a big stage.

This section of the book does important groundwork. By the time Beaven reaches the night of the crash, the reader understands that the Aces were not just a team. They were a symbol of what Evansville aspired to be: scrappy, proud, punching above its weight. By the late 1970s the program had just moved up to Division I, stepping into a new and more competitive era full of promise. That is why their loss would leave such a deep cultural void.

The Night Everything Fell Apart

The emotional center of the book is December 13, 1977. Beaven reconstructs the crash and its immediate aftermath in careful, painful detail. The plane went down shortly after takeoff, and no one survived. Rescue workers struggled to reach the wreckage, which lay in a waterlogged field that made every step toward the site harder.

As word spread through Evansville, shock gave way to a deep, communal sorrow. Beaven doesn't flinch from that grief, but he handles it with empathy and nuance. He gives voice to the parents who lost sons, the friends who lost teammates and the town that lost its heroes. He follows McCutchan, now no longer coaching the team he had built, as he spent long hours at the hospital and at a makeshift morgue. The man who had once welcomed players into his home was now facing the unthinkable.

Among all the losses, Beaven singles out one that hit the community especially hard: Bob Hudson, whose devotion to the University of Evansville was unmatched. His death stands for the way the crash cut through the whole fabric of the school, not just its roster.

Then, Beaven recounts, tragedy struck again. David Furr, the one player who hadn't been on the doomed flight, was killed in a car accident soon afterward. It was a blow so cruel it seemed almost impossible to believe. With it, an entire team was effectively gone.

Beaven also sits with the hardest questions: faith, fate and the randomness of tragedy. Why did this happen? Why did some people miss the flight? Why was there so much loss in so little time? The book offers no tidy answers and doesn't pretend to. It treats the mystery of grief honestly and shows healing as a slow, uneven process rather than a neat arc.

Starting Over: Dick Walters and the Rebuild

A city that could easily have given up chose instead to honor the fallen by carrying their spirit forward. The vehicle for that choice was a new basketball program, built almost from nothing.

In early 1978, the university hired Dick Walters, who had been coaching at the College of DuPage. Beaven portrays him as a striking figure for the job. He had fierce determination and an unusually sharp feel for the media landscape, and he was worldly and something of a nonconformist in the coaching profession. He had actually applied before, for the job that Jerry Sloan ended up getting. At that time McCutchan had seen Walters' community college background as a weakness.

After the crash, though, the university's needs were different. It required someone who could assemble a competitive team quickly. Walters threw himself into the work with energy and resolve. He set out to build a sturdy program, recruit talented players and bring fans back to Roberts Stadium. Beaven shows that this was a delicate job. Walters had to create something new while respecting a community still raw from loss. He had to be ambitious without seeming to erase what came before, and he had to handle the lingering emotional weight of the tragedy with tact.

The rebuild is where the book's title starts to come true. Each recruit, each game and each returning fan became part of a larger act of remembrance and recovery.

The Run to the 1982 NCAA Tournament

The story builds toward the 1981-82 season, when the reborn Aces made an exhilarating and unexpected run to the NCAA tournament. The team was new to the Division I postseason. Beaven describes their opening game against Marquette University as a nail-biter.

UE went into halftime down ten points. The second half became a showcase of grit, led by Brad Leaf. Leaf had struggled badly early, hitting just one of twelve shots in the first half. He then exploded for sixteen points after the break to drive the comeback. Beaven takes readers right down onto the court for the tense closing stretch, with Leaf pushing the ball forward, McKinstry working in the left corner and a sharp move by Rick drawing a foul on Marquette, all while announcer Larry Calton called the action.

For Aces fans, that game meant far more than a box score. The team on the floor had come to embody the city's unyielding resilience. Just a few years after losing everything, Evansville was back on a national stage, and its people saw their own recovery reflected in those players. Beaven saves the final moments for readers of the book itself, and the drama is worth discovering firsthand.

Putting It to Work

We Will Rise is a narrative history rather than a how-to book, but its story carries lessons that reach well beyond basketball:

• Build culture before you need it. McCutchan's focus on family and unity created a community deep enough to grieve together and strong enough to rebuild. Organizations, teams and families that invest in genuine connection have something to fall back on when crisis comes.

• Small, smart choices compound. Faster substitutions and fewer violations were modest tweaks, yet they reflected a mindset of constant improvement. Steady attention to detail can help a small operation compete with bigger ones.

• Think boldly about your stage. Evansville used financial incentives to bring top opponents to Roberts Stadium. Sometimes the way to grow is to invite the best to your door.

• Let grief take the time it takes. Beaven shows healing as slow and uneven, with questions that never fully resolve. Don't rush yourself or others toward closure; honor the loss honestly.

• Rebuilding can be a form of remembrance. The new Aces didn't replace the old team; they carried its spirit forward. Moving on doesn't have to mean forgetting.

• Pick the right leader for the moment. The background McCutchan once doubted in Walters was exactly what the crisis required. Different seasons call for different strengths, so reassess what you need when circumstances change.

• A bad first half isn't the whole game. Brad Leaf's turnaround against Marquette is a vivid reminder that early struggles don't decide the outcome, on the court or off it.

Who Should Read It

This book is for college basketball fans and lovers of sports history, especially anyone with ties to Indiana or the Midwest. It will also move readers who have never followed the game but are drawn to true stories of loss, community and comeback. Anyone who has grieved, or who has watched a hometown pull together after a disaster, will find in Beaven's account a compassionate and ultimately hopeful testament to how ordinary people rise from the wreckage.