Ernie Davis, one of the most famous athletes to ever wear a Syracuse football jersey, has received just about every accolade a college player can attain. He won a national title, won the Heisman Trophy and has his jersey number retired.
By 2009, though, he'll achieve something even rarer: a feature film about his life.
The film will be named "The Express," based on Davis's nickname, "The Elmira Express." Shooting is set to begin in April.
"We are all so excited about what this movie means to the community, the university and the football program," Director of Athletics Daryl Gross said. "We're so excited because all of us in Syracuse know Ernie Davis. We know what he meant to this university and what kind of person he was. His life was short, but he made such an impact."
"The whole idea of this movie is an incredible thing for us," head football coach Greg Robinson said. "Ernie Davis set a standard for the student-athlete and specifically, the football student-athlete, at Syracuse University."
The movie is just the latest in honoring SU's rich football tradition during the Ben Schwartzwalder era, who coached the Orangemen from 1949-1973. SU won the 1959 national championship at the Cotton Bowl and Davis became the first African-American to win the Heisman in 1961.
In 1962, Davis was selected No.1 overall in the NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins and was traded to Cleveland. He was diagnosed with leukemia and died in 1963 before he ever got the chance to play in the NFL. The film is based on the book "Ernie Davis, The Elmira Express" by Robert Gallagher.
The movie will be directed by Gary Fleder, whose resume includes 2003's "Runaway Jury," featuring John Cusack and Gene Hackman, and "Don't Say a Word" with Michael Douglas. Famed actor Dennis Quaid is set to play Schwartzwalder. Quaid has also starred in "Any Given Sunday," "The Rookie" and "Traffic."
There is no word on who will play the role of Davis, but producer Ezra Swerdlow said the actor will be talented, although not necessarily be the most famous actor.
Both Fleder and Swerdlow spoke at a reception held in the Iocolano-Petty Football Complex Friday, along with the executive producer, the football/stunt coordinator and the production designer, all from Universal Studios.
The movie focuses on Davis' playing days at SU, his struggles during the Civil Rights movement as a black athlete and his tragic battle with Leukemia.
"The reason to make the movie is because it is a very intimate, very personal, very specific story to this community," Swerdlow said. "We're not making a documentary. We are going to have to take all of the information we get from everybody and turn it into a theatrical narrative."
Ezra wants to shoot the movie in a good filmmaking city and has planned for suburban Chicago. Shots of the SU campus will be taken to recreate how the University looked during Davis' tenure.
The biggest foreseeable problem is finding stadiums similar to Archibald Stadium to film the football games, as well as the 1959 Cotton Bowl scene.
"That's part of our challenge," Swerdlow said. "A period movie is always a challenge, but this one is particularly challenging because the stadium doesn't exist and many stadiums are gone from the era. There's just a few left. A lot of them are being renovated. Every time we go to one, it either has Astroturf or it has a new deck or it has a new skybox. So we have a lot of technical challenges."
The plan now is to film at Northwestern's Ryan Field and other stadiums from that era. Universal Studios will use visual effects with the footage of the actual stadium to create a hybrid that resembles how they looked during that time period.
There are also talks about involving SU students from the film department to assist in the shoot, but that could be difficult given that much of the shooting will be done outside of Syracuse.
"It's early enough in pre-production that obviously for the shoot here, we very well would like to talk to the film department," Swerdlow said. "It would be very valuable to see if we could do that."
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