RE: Question for those who have seen the Ernie Davis film...
-- Geesh....and people wonder why West Virginians have a chip on their shoulder...seems like we have to put up with this kind of thing all the time
Jackson
New movie 'based on true story' shows WVU fans in false, ugly light
By Matthew Thompson
Daily Mail staff
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A movie about the first African-American to win college football's Heisman Trophy includes a dramatic scene from Morgantown, where fans hurl garbage and racial epithets at the player and his Syracuse teammates.
Opening Friday in theaters across the nation, "The Express" is a film about Ernie Davis, who won college football's most coveted award in 1961 and died of leukemia two years later. It stars Rob Brown as Davis and Dennis Quaid as Syracuse Coach Ben Schwartzwalder.
A review in the show business publication "Variety" says the movie's "most electrifying sequences portray Schwartzwalder's unbeaten 1959 Syracuse U. team playing West Virginia and Texas -- not exactly two bastions of racial tolerance -- with a level of racist vitriol pouring out of the stands that is a topical reminder of America's racial heart of darkness."
However, West Virginia and Syracuse did not play in Morgantown in 1959.
Davis and the Orangemen visited Mountaineer Field only once, on Oct. 22, 1960.
Dick Easterly, 69, of Tampa, Fla. was the Syracuse quarterback that day, when Davis rushed 14 times for 125 yards before a sparse crowd of 20,000.
Easterly saw "The Express" at a critics' preview last week in Tampa.
"I apologize to the people West Virginia because that did not happen," Easterly said. "I don't blame people in West Virginia for being disturbed. The scene is completely fictitious."
Now in his 62nd year of writing about WVU football, Mickey Furfari was in the press box, covering the game for the Morgantown Dominion-News.
"It's stupid," Furfari said of the scene. "It's pure fiction. The moviemakers should be absolutely ashamed.
"I am a strong believer in the First Amendment and of course it gives people the right to express themselves in truly idiotic and embarrassing ways. This is certainly an example."
Furfari noted Schwartzwalder was proud of his West Virginia roots. Schwartzwalder was born in Point Pleasant, and coached at Sistersville and Parkersburg high schools in the 1930s.
"Ben Schwartzwalder would be turning over in his grave about this," he said.
West Virginia's quarterback was Dale Evans, who's a retired high school and college coach now living in Spartanburg, S.C.
"It was 48 years ago, but something that ugly -- I would have remembered that," said Evans, 71. "I don't recall anything negative happening."
Evans, a native of Thomas in Tucker County, did recall one encounter with Davis in that 45-0 WVU loss.
Evans was hit late out of bounds and instinctively started to retaliate against the Syracuse player when Davis intervened.
"He grabbed my arm and said, "Don't lose your composure," Evans said. "Ernie was a very composed and an in-control football player."
Syracuse teammate Patrick Whelan joined Easterly at the preview last week.
Whelan, 71, of Safety Harbor, Fla., played center for the Orangemen.
"It's not important to the people who weren't there," Easterly told the St. Petersburg Times. "But we're sitting watching this thing, saying, 'Jeez, where did they get that from?'''
Clendenin High School's Donnie Young was being recruited by WVU Coach Gene Corum in 1960.
The next year, he enrolled at WVU, where he played linebacker and defensive guard.
"That's just awful," he said of the scene. "I was there in the early 1960s and there was simply nothing like that happening in Morgantown, either in athletics or otherwise.
"I've been involved in West Virginia football as a player, assistant coach and administrator for 43 years and I've never seen anything like that happen."
Cabell County extension agent and WSAZ-TV personality John Marra, 64, grew up in Morgantown and was a Morgantown High student in 1960.
"I would boycott the movie," Marra said. "I'm very embarrassed that a producer would put that type of scene in the movie."
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Question for those who have seen the Ernie Davis film...
