ESPN's new show, Bound for Glory, premiered tonight. All I can say is this show is really well done, and Dick Butkus is a perfect for this role. This is what unscripted reality TV should be.
The show was covered in this story which appeared today on the front page of the New York Times Sports section.
Read more about Bound for Glory in my prior post, and watch the show which airs original episodes on ESPN at 9:00 CDT Tuesdays, and repeats on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.
Mr. Butkus Goes Back to High School
McKEES ROCKS, Pa. - Dick Butkus - the model of the furious, ferocious middle linebacker, the former Chicago Bear who once smashed footballs and bodily fluids out of unsuspecting running backs - was grumbling. He was muttering. Who would want to annoy this guy? These teenagers, players on loan to him, were irritating him by missing assignments and failing to play hard enough. It was enough to make the bristles of his crew cut revolt. These youngsters were not doing their jobs.
"We've got no depth," he said. "We're small, but we're slow."
Mr. Butkus - the proper way to address Richard Marvin Butkus if you are not serious about winning - surveyed the tree-lined Montour High School football practice field in this Pittsburgh suburb. Once, he thought he might coach the Bears. But here he was, at 62, a sometime actor, an insurance man, a star of old Miller Lite commercials, on a high school field as the head coach of the once-successful football team at Montour - at least until next month, when he finishes shooting the eight-week ESPN reality series, "Bound for Glory," which has its premiere Sept. 20 at 10 p.m.
He is viewed here by players, parents, administrators and producers as the legend who can return glory to this soured program, a nurturing mentor who will leave behind a foundation of pride. These youngsters know him from their fathers' tales or from old footage that showed his speed, his strength, his snarling, seething power - a living lesson in human intensity.
"All we know is he was tough," said Anthony Iorio, a linebacker who has a Butkus-friendly nickname: Meat. "We saw the highlights of him slinging people down to the ground."
Montour (1-1) was preparing to face the formidable, larger, better Hopewell team. Kickoff drills were going awry. Receivers were not holding on to the ball. And there was the running back who prefers playing in games to going all out in practice. Butkus loved to practice, over and over and over, at Chicago Vocational High and the University of Illinois and then with George Halas's Bears. He finds any lapse in hard work unacceptable. You play, you play hurt, until you are too injured to give it all. "If they don't want to practice, then get out of here," he said with a growl.
He leaned on an orange tackling dummy, his back aching, his artificial right knee unaccustomed to all this standing. Mostly, he observed quietly, but sometimes he gimped onto the field, stood behind the defense, pulled a player or two aside to explain fine points.
Lou Cerro, the assistant head coach, with a crew cut slightly longer than Butkus's but a thicker body, stood beside his boss.
"They're making mistakes," Butkus said, displeased.
"I know," Cerro said, shaking his head. "They're lazy."
"If we're not on them, they go back to their old ways," Butkus said.
This is, of course, reality TV, so there are cameras following players from the field to their classes to their homes. "It's like they're not here anymore," said quarterback Nick DiAnni, explaining how the cameras have become part of their lives. Parents, friends, teachers and cheerleaders are the additional characters in what producers believe will be a compelling look at a small town's hope that a group of teenagers will reverse years of losing, the circumstance that led to Montour's being chosen in a search of high schools. To attract the producers, Montour students staged a pep rally and made a DVD about the history of the football team.
Clay Newbill, one of seven executive producers, whose credits include MTV's "The Real World," preferred to call "Bound for Glory" a documentary that aspires to inspire, not an exploitive reality series.
"There are no eliminations, no one has to eat anything horrible and we won't marry off any midgets," Newbill said. "But it is a reality show. The kids are real. Dick Butkus is here, and what happens to the kids is real."
R. J. Cutler, another executive producer, added: "In this one man, you're looking to embody the potential for an entire community to undergo a transformation. He carries their hopes and dreams."
Butkus said his job was to instill in his apprentices a respect for the game and to push them to win their conference championship, a long shot given their cumulative talent; he gave only the place-kicker a chance at getting a scholarship from a top college. "I just hope they're not expecting too much of me," he said in a quiet aside about the outsized expectations.
Montour has benefited from beating out dozens of schools. Reebok supplied uniforms. Numex donated modern weight-training equipment. Dodge provided Butkus with a Ram Mega Cab. Energizer gave a new scoreboard. And the booster club led a drive to build a desperately needed locker room. The corporate gifts required that the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association waive a rule so the students' amateur status would not be jeopardized.
For all the rah-rah generated by the series, there is a fundamental awkwardness. Cerro, who had achieved success at another Pittsburgh-area school, Seton-LaSalle, was hired first, in February, to restore Montour's glory. Soon after, though, he learned that, for TV purposes, Butkus would be the new head coach and he would be demoted to his deputy. Butkus has coached only one team, the basketball squad in "Hang Time," a teenage situation comedy.
Cerro, a stolid former high school lineman, said that he could have vetoed the arrangement, but that he decided after a meeting with Butkus that he would go along. "I saw how this would help the school out," he said.
The two have found an equilibrium that seems unforced. Cerro and his assistants still appear to be running the team. He is in charge at practices but consults with Butkus, who seems happiest when teaching players how to tackle correctly.
Butkus arrived from Malibu, Calif., without a playbook or a distinct coaching philosophy, but he has a singular voice and is being deployed to demonstrate outrage or admiration, whichever is required. Ray Crockett, who won two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos, serves as another of Butkus's assistants. Their weekly lunch at a local diner, where they swap candid opinions of the players, is taped for the program.
"I won't accept losing," Butkus said. "It's a cancer. We're making inroads. You can see it in their faces."
He cannot stand slackers, like the player who does not want to play on special teams. "I just about hit the roof," he said. "I didn't understand."
Butkus used to play on kickoff teams when his right knee, the one he has had replaced, was killing him. "If you love the game, we should have a problem getting you off the field," he said.
The practice was nearly over, and Cerro gestured for Butkus to give a brief pep talk to the players after three hours of sweating.
"Shhhhhh," said the players, kneeling before him.
In two days, thousands of people would jam the bleachers for the annual homecoming. "Think of how bad homecoming will be if you lose," he said. "Don't lose your edge. No mistakes. Any questions, bring them up. We have to score early. Everybody has to pull that rope together."
"Yes, Sir!"
But the Spartans would lose that Friday's game, 47-15.
i am the reciever form the show number 19 derrick dj johnson his name is ryan welsh has hasnt signed to a school yet
Posted by: derrick DJ Johnson | Wednesday, February 01, 2006 at 03:52 PM
what is the name of the Montour kicker, the kid who can boom 58yard field goals??
Is he signing with a college?
Posted by: hello | Friday, November 25, 2005 at 02:21 AM