Ah, American Football. The smell of the pigskin. The roar of the crowd. The interminable pauses. Or, as we in the UK like to call it, Rugby For Scaredy Cats.
Some players, however, are more than worthy of a biopic, which explains why director Gary Fleder is making The Express, based on the life and achievements of Ernie Davies.
A college ball star who led his Syracuse University team to the national championship in 1960 went on to top that by becoming the first black player to win the coveted Heisman Trophy, college football’s top honour. But though he was sought after by several NFL teams, he never got the chance to actually play professionally – in 1962 he was diagnosed with leukaemia and died nearly a year later.
Charles Leavitt has adapted Robert Gallagher’s book Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express and Fleder will crank his cameras in February.