Bo Rein

Robert Edward Rein (July 20, 1945 – January 10, 1980) was an American football and baseball player and football coach. He was a two-sport athlete at Ohio State University and served as the head football coach at North Carolina State University from 1976 to 1979, compiling a record of 27–18–1 . Following the 1979 season, Rein had assumed the role as head coach at Louisiana State University, but was killed in an aircraft accident in January 1980 before he ever coached a game for the Tigers. Rein is the namesake of football player awards at Ohio State and NC State.

Early life Rein was born and raised in Niles, Ohio, where he is still remembered as a legendary high school athlete for the Red Dragons of Niles McKinley High School.

When Holtz moved on to New York Jets of the NFL in 1976, Rein became the youngest college football head coach upon his hiring by North Carolina State. Guiding the NC State Wolfpack football team, Rein was an advocate of the coaching philosophy of Ohio State's Woody Hayes for whom Rein played. During Rein's four years at NC State, he led the team to two bowl games, defeating Iowa State in the 1977 Peach Bowl and defeating Pittsburgh in the 1978 Tangerine Bowl. However, it did not play in a bowl game, having declined an invitation to the Garden State Bowl–to date, the last power conference champion to decline participation in a bowl game.

Among Rein's top players at NC State were Outland Trophy winner Jim Ritcher, a center for the Wolfpack who later started at guard on four Super Bowl teams with the Buffalo Bills, and linebacker Bill Cowher, who later coached the Pittsburgh Steelers for 15 seasons and won Super Bowl XL.

Following every season, the NC State football team awards the "Bo Rein Award" to a player that makes a vital contribution in an unsung role.

Death Following the 1979 season, Rein was hired away from NC State by Louisiana State University. In January 1980, Rein took a recruiting trip to Shreveport, Louisiana. On his January 10, 1980, return trip back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, his private aircraft crashed, leaving no survivors. Rein, who was hired at the end of November 1979, had been head coach for less than two months.

Rein and experienced pilot Louis Benscotter left Shreveport in a Cessna 441 aircraft. The flight was planned to be a 40-minute trip, but when Benscotter rerouted east to avoid a storm, air traffic control lost contact with him. The aircraft climbed to and kept heading due east. After being tracked on radar, the aircraft was eventually intercepted by U.S. Air National Guard Convair F-106 Delta Dart fighter aircraft over North Carolina, off-course and at an altitude of , feet higher than its maximum certified ceiling. The military pilots could not see anyone in the cockpit and the aircraft continued on over the Atlantic Ocean, where it crashed after running out of fuel. A US Coast Guard crew spotted some debris, but no wreckage was ever recovered and the bodies of Rein and Benscotter were never found.

The cause of the crash is undetermined but was most likely cabin depressurization causing hypoxia, a lack of oxygen, resulting in the occupants losing consciousness as in the 1999 South Dakota Learjet crash.

In 1982, Rein's widow, Suzanne Kay, reached an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed amount after filing a $10 million damage suit against a number of defendants, including the Cessna Aircraft Company, Cruse Aviation Inc., who serviced the aircraft, and Nichols Construction Corporation, who owned it.

Head coaching record Football