"The Express": The Ernie Davis story

I don't like the recent tearjerker wing of sports movies, both the tragic movies like this and the feel-gooders like the one about Vince Papale, etc. They all play up the dramatic aspects for effect. Just give me some truth.

 

And on a serious note, both as a history buff and a sports buff, there's nothing that bothers me more about these type of movies. The ONLY recent flick that hasn't disappointed in that regard has been "Miracle" (and I'm convinced the only reason that one wasn't completely Disney-fied was because TOO many people knew the story for them to fudge with the facts. All they did was get rid of the profanity from Brooks.)

But they got away with a casual dismissal of the facts in "Glory Road" and "The Rookie" and "Invincible", and they're going to get away with it in "The Express," too.

I appreciate the fact that they're getting the story out there. But it really ruins the movie for me.

 

Anyone who knows their history knows a Confederate flag has no place in West Virginia.

 

Remember reading about Davis in Paul Brown's book... sure made Modell look like the rotten bastard he eventually proved himself to be.

 

I have not seen the movie, but you are correct, West Virginia was a very bad choice.

This is an interesting bit of information. If Davis would have stayed in Uniontown and played high school football there, his quarterback would have been Sandy Stephens.

Stephens finished third in the Heisman balloting when Davis won the award.

It could have been the greatest high school backfield ever.

 

93D: That is tremendous.

 

Thanks, Colton.

I recently had a few poppers with a Uniontown coach who tipped me to that fact.

I think another player in the backfield played at Minnesota with Stephens. He was a good college player as well, just not Heisman level.

I remember hearing old timers talk about a kid from the old Midland High School who Paterno at Penn State was just in love with. Supposedly this kid was the greatest high school football player to come out of Midland and possibly the best athlete to come out of the town, which is saying something.

This player (whose name I cannot remember) was never able to play for Paterno because of an illness.

The steel mills made a lot of people sick. A lot.

 

Like Pride of the Yankees?

 

Or Hoosiers?

 

Someone who's seen the movie can correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression from the trailers I've seen that the Confederate flag stuff was at the Cotton Bowl, not the WVa game ...

 

Maybe, but the reason there actually is a West Virginia is that section of original Virginia succeeded from the Virginia to join the Union and break from the Confederacy.

 

No, I get that. Still, doesn't mean a West Virginia version of the Klan didn't spring up at some point.

Ask an elderly black person who grew up in southern Indiana or Illinois if there was Klan there. When black people migrated north to work factory jobs in the first half of the 20th century, so did the Klan.