| | Drew Rosenhaus, sitting in his North Miami bay-front villa, pauses theatrically as he tries to settle on his favorite football movie.
|  | | Denzel Washington plays a high school coach in "Remember the Titans." |
"Well," the notorious agent for Warren Sapp, Zach Thomas and Fred Taylor said Friday, "I'd have to say 'Jerry Maguire,' first, and then 'Any Given Sunday.' To tell you the truth, 'Jerry Maguire' is not only one of my favorite sports movies, it's one of my favorite movies, period. It does a remarkable job capturing many of the positive and negative things about our business."
To tell you the truth, Rosenhaus is a little biased. "Jerry Maguire" does, quite frankly, a remarkable job of capturing one Drew Rosenhaus.
While he and fellow agent Leigh Steinberg were believed to be the models for director Cameron Crowe's Maguire character, Rosenhaus is the bodacious, fast-talking Jerry Maguire. Not only did Rosenhaus appear in the movie, Tom Cruise played him in the lead role.
What's not to like about that? Brief aside: So why doesn't Cruise ever play a sportswriter?
Now, you ask, what is the fascination with "Any Given Sunday?" Well, you see, Rosenhaus had a speaking part -- he laughably played a broadcaster -- and spent time with director Oliver Stone during the film's shooting in South Florida.
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Playing at Bristol U. |
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The NFL experts at ESPN pick their all-time favorite football films:
Ron Jaworski: The Longest Yard. It depicts the violent nature of the game.
Mark Malone: North Dallas Forty. It's the only football movie ever made that really documents what it's like to play in the National Football League.
Marty Schottenheimer: The Paper Lion. Because I was in it.
John Clayton: Brian's Song. I still cry everytime I see it.
Kevin Greene: North Dallas Forty. All that locker-room stuff (peeing in the hot tub, shots of painkillers) is what the NFL is all about. Yeah, baby, yeah!
Merril Hoge: Brian's Song. It depicts the real relationships that occur in the NFL. It's the camaraderie that endures long after a guy's playing days are over.
Joe Theismann: The Longest Yard. One of my best friends, Burt Reynolds, played quarterback like I felt I did. There were many times when I wanted the center to let a guy through so I could just bust him good.
Check out ESPN.com's reviews of some of the most notable football movies. |
"One of the best football movies ever was 'North Dallas Forty,' " Rosenhaus said. "It was a sensational, realistic and hard-hitting look at the dark side of professional football that, at the time, was revolutionary. Oliver Stone told me that it was a huge inspiration for 'Any Given Sunday.' It was a modern-day version of 'North Dallas Forty.' "
With the Friday release of "Remember the Titans," starring Denzel Washington as the crusading coach who spurs integration in a Virginia high school, the subject of football movies is a hot topic again. With the recent releases of "The Replacements," the 1999 movies "Any Given Sunday" and "Varsity Blues," and the 1998 Adam Sandler vehicle, "The Waterboy," football is the latest cinematic fascination, perhaps just ahead of natural disasters like "The Perfect Storm."
Speaking of which, these recent football movies are generally awful. Titanic, with all due respect to movies present and past, is a word that comes to mind.
"I don't think there's ever been a football movie that compares to 'Hoosiers,' " Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian said Friday. "And I'm not just saying that because I'm sitting here in Indiana. I guess 'Rudy' comes close. The other one I loved was 'Knute Rockne, All-American.' Funny, how they were both about Notre Dame."
Unlike Rosenhaus, Polian was not a big fan of "Any Given Sunday."
Said Polian, "I hated it. It was very far from the truth, kind of like all Oliver Stone movies."
Well, touché.
Stone's movies, like "Platoon," "JFK," and "Wall Street," certainly pack intensity. But seriously, can anyone act in a football uniform?
Consider the long list of actors who have played quarterbacks over the years. Starting with Keanu Reeves in "The Replacements," there is Jamie Foxx in "Any Given Sunday," James Van Der Beek in "Varsity Blues" and the legendary crooner, Mac Davis, in "North Dallas Forty." In "Heaven Can Wait," Warren Beatty played a quarterback who comes back to life to play in the Super Bowl. All of these guys, with the notable exception of Davis, are way too pretty to play quarterback.
How long would it take Kevin Carter or Jevon Kearse to break, say, Keanu Reeves in half?
|  | | "Jerry Maguire" is one of the favorite flicks for biased agent Drew Rosenhaus. |
"Actually," Polian said, "I liked 'The Replacements.' "
Yeah, but could Reeves play in the NFL?
"Uh, I'm not so sure about that," Polian said, laughing.
Actually, the correct call would be to cast NBC's Stone Phillips as a quarterback. He played one at Yale University, and he also happens to know his way around the camera.
Call me a romantic, but I was a big fan of "Everybody's All-American." Dennis Quaid played the up-and-down athlete who most people believe writer Frank Deford modeled on LSU's Billy Cannon. "Semi-Tough," starring Kris Kristofferson as a wide receiver and "The Longest Yard" are also personal favorites. "Brian's Song," the story of the late Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo, was poignant with James Cann in the lead role and Billy Dee Williams as his close friend Gale Sayers.
Polian favorite "Knute Rockne, All-American," released in 1940, stars future president Ronald Reagan. "Win one for the Gipper," the legendary coach tells his team. It's a role he basically played for the rest of his life.
Sadly, most of the football flicks in recent years are more along the lines of "Wildcats," a dreary 1986 movie in which Goldie Hawn is implausibly the head coach. And who can forget "All the Right Moves," another Tom Cruisefest, marked by the first appearance of Craig T. Nelson as a coach? But not, happily, the last.
Rosenhaus, self-references aside, has some other football favorites. The man who penned the book "A Shark never Sleeps," likes Beatty in "Heaven Can Wait" and, keep this to yourself, "Rudy."
Rosenhaus laughs. "Look, I'm not a big Notre Dame guy -- I graduated from the University of Miami. But that was a great, great movie. A big-time movie. It's inspirational. You always find yourself rooting for the underdog."
Hmm, sounds a little like Drew Rosenhaus.
Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com. | |
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