Daryl Gross went to spring football practice two years ago and made the rounds. Looking at the product on the field – the Syracuse 2006 football team – SU’s director of athletics struck a conversation with members of the Syracuse Varsity Club about the football team’s glory days.

Inevitably, they brought up Ernie Davis. The topic quickly shifted to why no one has made a movie highlighting Davis’s career and personal life.

Gross loves talking about Davis – the star running back who wore the legendary No. 44, led the Orangemen to the Cotton Bowl in 1960, the Liberty Bowl in 1961 and became the first African American to earn the Heisman Trophy in 1961, all done during a backdrop of racial tensions.

Davis died of leukemia a year after he was drafted and traded to the Cleveland Browns in 1962, but Syracuse fans still talk about a man who affected their community 44 years later.

But no one will have to ponder anymore about whether the man who wowed SU with its only national championship will also have a chance to wow audiences on the big screen. Universal Studios plans to release ‘The Express’ on Oct. 10, 2008, directed by Gary Fleder (‘Runaway Jury,’ ‘Don’t Say a Word’). It’s based on Robert Gallagher’s biography, ‘Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express: The Story of a Heisman Trophy Winner.’

‘Beyond everything else, we wanted to capture what made Ernie Davis so special,’ said Derek Dauchy, the film’s executive producer. ‘Not a lot of people outside Syracuse would know about that. I think it’s such a tremendous story of being the first African-American player to win the Heisman Trophy, have an undefeated national championship season, going to the NFL but having a tragic event strike him. It’s a compelling story that more people should know about because he is such a great individual.’

Gross didn’t know Universal Studios already planned to make the movie, though, but he thought it should be done. That’s why he phoned Gary Foster, who has produced movies like ‘Tin Cup’ and ‘Sleepless in Seattle.’ Gross met him when he served as senior athletic director at Southern California.

‘At USC, they are filming on campus all the time,’ said Gross as he reminisced in his office about appearing as an extra on numerous ‘Scrubs’ episodes. ‘It never disrupted school. People are just used to walking past trailers.’

Gross struck a close enough relationship with Foster that he was allowed to appear on the set of ‘Tin Cup.’ Foster invited Gross for dinner alongside Kevin Costner one night as well. Gross felt comfortable Foster would listen to his proposal on an Ernie Davis movie.

After Gross sent Foster ESPN Classic’s 2001 documentary on Davis, Foster immediately called back.

”I am in tears. This is an amazing story,” Gross remembers Foster saying. ”But I got some good news and bad news. The bad news is I can’t do the movie. The good news is Universal Studios already picked up the script and are thinking about doing it.”

John Davis, a producer based in Los Angeles, wanted the movie rights as soon as Gallagher released his book in 1999, Dauchy said. Luckily, Gross also knows John Davis from his days at USC.

If there was going to be a movie about Ernie Davis, Gross was going to be involved.

‘There’s so many universities in the nation that have millions of stories,’ said Gross as he gazed at his Ernie Davis painting that hangs opposite the head of his meeting table. ‘For ours to be picked out, I don’t think it’s really set into people’s minds yet. It’s going to be all over the country, and it’s going to be released worldwide. It’s coming to a theater near you, and it’ll be everywhere.’

SU welcomes ‘The Express’

After meeting with John Davis twice, Syracuse Director of Athletics Gross and members of the SU athletic department held a meeting Feb. 2 to discuss ‘The Express’ with director Gary Fleder, producer Ezra Swerdlow, executive producer Derek Dauchy, football/stunt coordinator Allan Graf and production designer Nelson Coates.

They talked about ‘resources, logistics and history’ for the movie, according to Gross. It lasted three hours, according to former lacrosse coach Roy Simmons Jr. He was present because his father coached with Ben Schwartzwalder and knew Ernie Davis personally.

The producers also toured the SU campus and visited Marie Davis Fleming, Ernie Davis’s mother, in Elmira, N.Y. later that weekend.

‘Our obsession from the beginning was to get things right,’ Fleder said. ‘We wanted to get the details of what was happening and get the facts right.’

They stressed, nonetheless, they were making a movie, not a documentary.

‘In the end, (some people) may not be happy with it because they expect a documentary that lasts about five hours that has every detail of his life as they remember it,’ said Roger Springfield, SU’s director of media properties and production and the school’s liaison for ‘The Express.’ ‘That’s not the case with a motion picture, obviously.

‘I read the script and I can tell you they’ve done a great job in sticking to the right story. They had to make it attractive as a movie for people to watch, so they took some artistic liberties. But everything is keeping with the story.’

Syracuse opened its archives, making every resource, including memorabilia, photographs, newspaper clippings and books, available for research and use as props. Soon enough, Graf tracked down James Shreve, the freshman football coach of SU’s 1959 team, who gave him the playbook from Schwartzwalder.

‘That was good and fun,’ Gross concluded.

Racism in the movie

Director Gary Fleder disliked the original script he read two years ago because he thought it lacked historical context. He followed up with more research on Davis, including talking with legendary running back Jim Brown.

Fleder found Brown’s candor on his difficult relationship with Schwartzwalder and the racial prejudices instrumental in painting the movie’s tone.

‘The hardest thing is how do you dramatize that and display the reality that there is racism?’ Fleder said. ‘By being factually accurate, you can dramatize the times by presenting scenes that would be realistic.’

Fleder noted that the racial overtones backdrop the movie and are not part of the plot. Ed Hanley, the film’s football wardrobe supervisor, said Schwartzwalder, played by Dennis Quaid (‘The Rookie,’ ‘Any Given Sunday’) initially instructs Davis to run out of bounds at the 1-yard line to avoid racist reactions for scoring a touchdown.

Hanley said Davis, who is played by Rob Brown (‘Finding Forrester’) eventually refuses and Schwartzwalder realizes his wrongful approach.

Roger Springfield, SU’s director of media properties and production and the school’s liaison for ‘The Express,’ revealed the movie has a fictional character named Jack Buckley, who is meant to bring the racial overtones to light.

‘They created him to stir things up,’ Springfield said. ‘He’s a little bit of a real jerk and is somewhat racist. But he’s more of a jerk. Anyway, Ernie wins him over. But his character initially creates more tension with Ernie.’

Racial tensions reach a climax during the Cotton Bowl brawl.

‘It’s a war,’ football/stunt coordinator Allan Graf said. ‘It’s a major melee. We had to beef it up and make it exciting. You had to show the race card to show what Ernie Davis was going through.’

Filming at Northwestern

Nick Rafferty, the film’s location manager, found Chicago to be an ideal place to shoot for the movie. That’s because many of the architectural buildings match the 1950s time period.

Production in Chicago began on April 10, shooting practices at Lane Tech Field. The rest of production took place at Northwestern’s Ryan Field in Evanston, Ill. They used Ryan as a replacement for Syracuse’s Archbold Stadium and Dallas’ Texas Stadium, the site of the 1960 Cotton Bowl.

‘We made it look like Texas Stadium by mostly shooting in different directions,’ Rafferty said. ‘We tried using different fans, dress and banners.’

Because Archbold Stadium no longer exists, production designer Nelson Coates scanned a postcard of the stadium and used computer digital imagery to enhance the size. Every game is preceded by a shot focusing on that image.

Coates also scoured eBay for memorabilia, which ranged from microphones, typewriters and pens in the office of Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder.

‘Ryan Field is a strong basis because it has the same essential shape,’ executive producer Derek Dauchy said. ‘The big thing was getting the arch right. That took some pictures and reconstruction where we had the arch replacing a section of Northwestern’s stadium.’

NFL combine?

Though this was football/stunt coordinator Allan Graf’s 15th football movie, he felt new challenges with ‘The Express.’ It’s telling, as Graf has been involved with projects including ‘The Comebacks,’ ‘Gridiron Gang,’ ‘Friday Night Lights,’ ‘The Replacements’ and ‘Any Given Sunday.’

For one, Graf wanted the players to weigh around 265 pounds to match how big most players were in the late 50s, early 60s. That meant being extra selective for the 400-500 people Graf estimates tried out. He selected 220 and divided them up to conduct exercises done in the NFL combine.

After 40-yard dashes and other agility drills for three days, Graf narrowed his selections to 36 players for both the Syracuse football team and its opponents. Then they were off to study the playbook.

While players were expected to master it, Graf wanted everyone to improvise to make the play on the field more realistic.

‘When we rehearse, we know Ernie Davis is going to run the ball off the right tackle and gain 12 yards,’ Graf said. ‘That’s as far as we go, but the rest of it is real football. I don’t like the word ‘choreography.’ I know who will make the tackle, but everything else is real. If you barely get the block or barely break the tackle, that’s real football.’

Filming at SU

From the beginning, director Gary Fleder insisted on shooting at Syracuse.

‘I was uncompromising,’ he said. ‘It would dishonor the story if we shot it somewhere else and didn’t include Syracuse. SU has a huge alumni base. I wanted to respect and honor that.’

But there were serious doubts whether that would happen.

‘The studio didn’t want them to come here because they were over budget,’ said Roger Springfield, SU’s director of media properties and production and the school’s liaison for ‘The Express.’ ‘Gary really had to fight and insist they come here to shoot. They felt they could just not duplicate the campus anywhere, and it was important to have those shots.’

All officials associated with the movie acknowledged Springfield’s claim. But ‘The Express’ was filmed on June 22-23, thanks to concessions from Springfield and SU Director of Athletics Daryl Gross.

They worked with school officials to stop construction in front of the Hall of Languages. They opened the Carrier Dome for movie officials to set up shop. Springfield scoped out buildings to avoid since the movie couldn’t show any new buildings, to stay consistent with the time period. He also kept student tours from disrupting the filming.

The scenes included Davis’ arrival on campus, a meeting with athletic director Lew Andreas and jogging through campus. Syracuse students were invited to attend, as was Reggie Schwartzwalder, former coach Ben’s wife, as extras.

‘They had a signal, and all at once (the extras) started walking,’ Reggie Schwartzwalder said. ‘It was like somebody pushed a button and turned it on.’

Thankful for Gross helping secure Syracuse as a film site, production designer Nelson Coates didn’t hesitate to express his appreciation. He gave him a painting of Archbold Stadium, which was reconstructed using computer digital imagery. It originally was a prop in the movie in Schwartzwalder’s office. Now it hangs in Gross’ office.

‘It was very intense to make it happen,’ Springfield said.

Premiere at Syracuse

SU Director of Athletics Daryl Gross remembers what it was like attending the Feb. 2, 2004, movie premiere of ‘Miracle,’ a film about the 1980 U.S. hockey team defeating the Soviet Union to get to the Olympic gold-medal game.

At the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Gross rubbed elbows with Kurt Russell, Renne Russo, Goldie Hawn and Wayne Gretzky. After the movie, the entire Team USA team appeared from behind the curtain.

There’s no question Gross wants to build that type of excitement with Syracuse hosting the premiere of ‘The Express.’

‘We’re still negotiating that and we probably need to have a more specific meeting with the details,’ Gross said. ‘It’s going to be here in Syracuse. There is no question about it.’

Actually, that’s not true.

‘None of us have power over that,’ director Gary Fleder said. ‘It’s Universal Studios’ decision. I have no influence whatsoever.’

Gross acknowledged he has heard other possibilities for the debut, such as Davis’ hometown, Elmira, N.Y., and Cleveland. If Gross gets his way, he already knows it will take place in the Landmark Theatre in Armory Square.

‘Red carpet, big theme party afterwards,’ Gross imagined out loud. ‘The whole bells and whistles. Hollywood does it no better, and it’d be great to have a premiere in this town and have some fun with it.’

Published on October 16, 2007 at 12:00 pm