Beetlejuice (1988) features an eclectic group of fictional ghosts and spirits in the afterlife, but one group of deceased football players was based on a real-life tragedy. Beetlejuice is Tim Burton’s comedically strange journey into the afterlife, explaining what happens after one dies and the insane rules, punishments, and tactics one can use to frighten the living. As the director's second major film venture, Beetlejuice introduces the wacky, macabre themes that follow in Burton's films like the metaphor-filled Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride, as well as the characters he created in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The plot of Beetlejuice follows the newly deceased couple Barbara and Adam Maitland who return home as ghosts to find that an obnoxious new family, the Deetzes, has moved in. Besides the teenage daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder), who is obsessed with dark and strange subjects, the Maitlands decide to use the help of Juno, their afterlife case worker, and a menacing poltergeist, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), to scare the Deetzes away. Discovering how to navigate the afterlife proves difficult for the Maitlands, who meet a variety of bizarre ghosts, including an entire football team, along the way.
When Adam and Barbara first go beyond their attic to the afterlife’s bureaucratic society, they encounter a college football team in Juno’s office that appears to be even more confused than themselves. As one of the players is speaking with Juno, he calls her “coach” and relents that he doesn’t believe they survived the crash, though the specifics of the crash aren’t revealed. The deceased football team is actually based on a real-life tragedy involving the Marshall University Football Team in 1970. While on the way home from a game, their plane crashed and tragically took the lives of 37 players, 8 coaching staff members, and 25 team boosters.
While the Marshall tragedy provided inspiration for Beetlejuice's afterlife and Neitherworld ghosts, Burton isn’t expressing that the deceased players are actually victims of the Marshall crash. For instance, the crash was in 1970 and the team is supposed to be recently deceased in 1988. Also, as one of the players continually calls Juno “coach,” she responds by telling him that she isn’t their coach, he survived the crash. In reality, the head coaches all perished in the crash with the team. Another difference is that Marshall’s team colors are green and white, whereas the Beetlejuice team is wearing red and white.
Beetlejuice’s goofy, meathead football player ghosts provide comic relief in the macabre ambience of the afterlife, though do present a sorrowful reminder of the real team that perished. In a manner, the football team is the most joyful part of Beetlejuice, possibly as a reminder of the joy the Marshall team brought to their fans before the crash. Tim Burton, who is rebooting The Addams Family, even gives the team another celebrated cameo at the end of the film as they join in a dance with Lydia to Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line.”