With football season underway, Professor Mike Yawn spoke with some current and former football coaches in Huntsville to uncover their favorite films about the nation’s pigskin pastime. Shane Martin, Gordon Brown, and Willie Fritz identified football films that mixed comedy, drama, and inspiration, while Ron Randleman called an audible, and discussed the basketball film “Hoosiers.”
Coach Shane Martin Interview
Coach Shane Martin grew up in Texas and Louisiana, but came to SHSU for his college degree. He is, as he says, “a proud Bearkat.” He’s been coaching and teaching full-time for 20 years and has spent twelve years with Huntsville Independent School District. He is now the head coach for the Huntsville Hornet football team.
Mike Yawn: Coach Martin, what is your favorite football-related film?
Shane Martin: “Brian’s Song” (1972). I watched it as a kid, and it made me a Chicago Bears fan. The film is realistic, about football and life. It’s an inspirational story of Brian Piccolo’s fight with cancer, which took his life.
Brian’s Song
MY: Even without diseases such as cancer football careers are short and are a fraught with the risk of injury. Is that something you worry about with your players?
SM: I have a 16-year old who has had ACL surgery twice. Injuries can happen to anyone, whether on the field or crossing the street. With football, you’re taking your chances, but with anything you do, there’s the possibility of something going wrong.
MY: The movie was based on a book by Gale Sayers (played by Billy Dee Williams), whose brilliant career was ended by a knee blowout.
SM: Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo were both running backs who came in as Bears’ rookies at the same time. Sayers was coping with his knee injury at the same time Piccolo was fighting cancer, and these challenges offer lessons. We tell people to live each day as though it were their last, and that’s true for some people, not just athletes. I encourage my players to give it their all, not just on the football field, but also in the classroom.
MY: The film has interesting actors: James Caan as Piccolo; Jack Warden played George Halas; and Dick Butkus and some of the Bears played themselves.
SM: Yes, Butkus played himself, and he and a lot of those other old players were some tough old goats, just like Halas.
MY: Any other films related to football that you have enjoyed?
SM: A lot of coaches will say, “Remember the Titans.” Again, you’re taking the game of football and addressing the larger society, segregation and the like. I used this film when teaching my health classes, to teach my students to deal with peer pressure, hatred, and racism. I think there are life lessons in a lot of the football games that we play or coach.
Remember the Titans
MY: You’re teaching life lessons and football. What larger lessons do sports teach?
SM: Young people, like all of us, need to better understand dedication is a big part of what it takes to be successful at something that requires skills. Football is now becoming more and more of a year-round sport. The relationships you build and cultivate through dedication, should be there throughout life. I had the model of my defensive coordinator at Yoakum High School, Jimmy Yeager, who meant a lot to me. He was a coach and a father figure to me. Role models as well as life experiences teach young people right from wrong, so that they take more away from football than a won-loss record.
Coach Gordon Brown Interview
Gordon Brown came to SHSU in 1948, played football for three years, and graduated in 1951. He went on to coach at Conroe, Katy, Deer Park, and [he whispers this] Stephen F. Austin, before moving into administration at Conroe and Katy. Despite his many roles in many schools, he says, “My heart is always with SHSU.”
Mike Yawn: Coach Brown, what’s your favorite film about football?
Gordon Brown: There are a lot of them, but I’d say “The Blind Side” is my favorite.
MY: That’s an interesting film. Of course, most people know Sandra Bullock was in it, but the director, John Lee Hancock, also directed “The Rookie,” another real-life sports story. Also, “The Blind Side” was based on a book by Michael Lewis, who also wrote “Moneyball.” So the movie has a lot of sports and film connections.
GB: Absolutely right, and while I like the sports, I also relate to this movie because of the way I grew up. We were happy, but the work was hard. For the most part, we worked in the fields, although later I got a job paying 50 cents an hour at a filling station. My plan was to go to Baylor, but Coach Kenny Wilson from SHSU came into my filling station and said, “Can you help me find Gordon Brown?” I told him that was me, and he said, “We’ve been watching you play football, and we want you to come to SHSU. We’ll give you room, board, tuition, and $7 a month laundry.”
I said, “Where do I sign?”
That’s why I relate to the character in “The Blind Side.” I didn’t have the magnitude of problems Michael Oher [the main character in “The Blind Side”], but there were enough similarities to get my vote.
The Blind Side
MY: Tell us specific things you liked about the movie?
GB: The country has many youth like Oher who can be productive and happy if given opportunities. We have other youth who have a different set of problems. They may be affluent but undisciplined, and when someone comes in and shows an interest in them, it gives them hope, even when they haven’t been the citizen they may have liked to have been.
Michael Oher
I have a background as a coach and a school administrator. I know many children might not have the resources, encouragement, and love to guide them and help them develop realistic dreams. But those who teach them to reach upward are models for these students.
So the movie “The Blind Side” helps me better understand what encouragement and opportunity can do for students. It should help all of us be responsible to see that the environment is such that all students can be successful. This is a timely film, a reminder that we are in this together, and we need to work together to help others and to make a contribution to our country.
Coach Willie Fritz
Coach Willie Fritz graduated from Pittsburg State University before embarking on a coaching career that took him to Sam Houston State University, Blinn College, University of Central Missouri, and back to SHSU, where he has led the Bearkats to two straight National Championship games.
Mike Yawn: What’s your favorite football film?
Willie Fritz: I’ve got a few of them. My favorite is the original “The Longest Yard,” with Burt Reynolds…
MY: …and Eddie Albert…
WF: Albert was the Warden. The film combines comedy and drama, with a bad-guy kind of a hero.
The Longest Yard (Burt Reynolds)
MY: What are some of your other favorite films about football?
WF: For comedy, the one I like is “The Best of Times,” with Kurt Russell and Robin Williams. It’s hilarious. The main character, played by Robin Williams, dropped a touchdown pass in the 1972 championship game, and he’s never gotten over it. He keeps reliving the game, and he finally convinces the town to replay the game. The QB is played by Kurt Russell, whose character probably has the greatest football name of all time: Reno Hightower. It’s a very funny movie.
The Best of Times (Robin Williams & Kurt Russell)
The other movie I’ll mention is “The Little Giants.” I have three children of my own with whom I watched the movie. They’re grown now, but we still repeat lines from that movie.
The Little Giants
MY: Anything inspirational from the football world?
WF: “The Junction Boys.” A good friend of mine was the QB on whom one of the characters was based. In the movie, his name is Skeet Keeler, but in real life his name is Elwood Kettler. He and I coached together here at SHSU back in the early 1990s. He lives in Trinity. I enjoyed it, I think, because I had a special connection with that movie.
MY: That’s about Bear Bryant’s coaching days when he was at Texas A&M?
WF: Yes, Paul “Bear” Bryant took the boys out to Junction, Texas for pre-season camp. I heard so many stories from Kettler, and the film shows how these guys fought through harsh conditions. The ones who survived were highly successful in their careers, and they ended up going undefeated a year or two later.
The Junction Boys
MY: What is it about football that is useful to all your players, irrespective of whether they play professionally or go in another direction?
WF: I think you learn more in the sport of football than in any other sport. Football is not easy. Putting full equipment on when it is 100 degrees, lining up and running into somebody across from you is tough work. Structure and teamwork are required. Eleven people have to be on the same page. You learn sacrifice, helping your buddy, determination, and toughness.
MY: Speaking of toughness, this is the toughest question. What’s your prediction for the Bearkats this year?
WF: Our goal is to win the National Championship. We are practicing every day to do that.
Coach Ron Randleman
Coach Ron Randleman began his coaching career in Iowa in 1965, coaching football, basketball and track. He coached for forty years, including more than two decades at SHSU, where he was Conference Coach of the Year four times and remains the winningest coach in SHSU history.
Mike Yawn: We’ve heard a lot about football films. Would you like to tell us what your favorite sports film is, football or otherwise?
Ron Randleman: I would have to say “Hoosiers.”
Hoosiers
MY: That’s from 1986, starring Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper. What is it about that film that you enjoy so much?
RR: Many things. I like the setting. I’m originally from Iowa. I started out coaching and recruiting in Iowa, going to hundreds of schools in the area. I also like Gene Hackman, and he was very good in the movie. Finally, I had many friends who played basketball in Indiana, and I know that basketball is to Indianans what football is to Texans.
I played basketball in high school, and my first two years in coaching, I coached both football and basketball. Back then, everyone played in the tournament, and it was just one class. In the 1950s, the school Roland had about 50 people, and they played Davenport Central, which had about 4,000. It was one of the smallest schools in Iowa against one of the biggest, but Roland had a player named Gary Thompson, who went on to be an All-American at Iowa State. Roland won that game, something that occasionally happened in the one-class system. And that’s sort of the story line of “Hoosiers.”
Those were some of the things that caught my interest in this film.
MY: “Hoosiers” is about redemption, the idea that there is a champion in everyone. I know that’s about basketball, but you must have seen that as a football coach.
RR: So often in athletics people come through in crucial situations. It’s not necessarily the star. It can be anybody who has a big moment. Team events are special for that reason. Every person who is on the team is an important part of the process, and you never know when someone is going to have an opportunity to step up and do something significant. It’s one of the great things about team sports.
MY: You’ve had a lot of success with team sports, and for the past five or six years, you’ve been teaching at SHSU. Will you still be teaching?
RR: No, not this year. Right now, I’m going to be a fan and enjoy the success that Willie and his guys will have this fall.
mikeyawn 