Wednesday, July 13, 2005
By Chico Harlan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
His scowling face -- square as steel -- inhabits the bloodiest corridors of NFL iconography, still, and possibly forevermore. Dick Butkus' most destructive hits still resonate, strictly because of their pure and brutish power, even though Butkus retired from the NFL in 1973.
As a perennial All-Pro with the Chicago Bears, Butkus changed things, rearranged them. The momentum of running backs. The faces of opponents. The game itself.
And now, Butkus is taking that same mantra -- to reverse what he sees -- and applying it to a most unlikely scenario. As a part of a new ESPN prime-time reality program, Butkus will work as an assistant coach at Montour High School, trying to rebuild a program that has failed to make the playoffs for six years in a row. He'll work with Lou Cerro, in his first season as coach at Montour. He'll live in the community. He'll serve as the centerpiece of a TV show that explores the nexus of community and football, following all the drama that results.
The show is called "Bound for Glory -- The Montour Spartans," airing at 10 p.m. Sept. 20 and every Tuesday night throughout the season. Already, the show is pulling lives into overdrive, as administrators and students known currently only by friends and family prepare for lives as public characters, as pieces in a story line.
They will be stars. They also will be working daily with one of the most imposing linebackers in NFL history.
"We're welcoming in the people from Hollywood," Montour athletic director Mitch Galiyas said.
The idea was born in Los Angeles among some of the brightest minds in reality television, then planted in Montour -- an area that perfectly fit the requirements producers had in mind.
Two years ago, the idea for this reality series was proposed to executive producer R.J. Cutler, the president and founder of Actual Reality Pictures, which is producing the show in step with Reveille and Full Circle Entertainment. He immediately loved the idea.
"It's a very simple idea about a school and town where football is in many ways the lifeblood of the community," Cutler said.
"We hear pitches all the time, but the minute we heard this, we knew it was great," said H.T. Owens of Reveille. "Think 'Friday Night Lights,' the book. So what happens if we go in there and try to foment a change, bringing in an iconic NFL player. Wouldn't that be great?"
Next they needed a player and a school.
They found a player who has acted in more than a dozen films. His previous coaching experience? It's a stretch. He coached a basketball team in NBC's teen television show, "Hang Time."
"I guess that's my only coaching experience," Butkus said. "Maybe I'll have to draw off that. Of course, that was scripted."
Butkus, 62, will move from Malibu, Calif., and live in the Pittsburgh area during the show. That's what producers required. Executives from the show interviewed more than 20 former NFL players before deciding that Butkus had the right presence -- and the right dedication -- for the job.
"We not only talked about who'd work well on camera," Owens said. "But we also thought about who would take it the most seriously. Who would get up early? Who would really work with this team?"
Since being selected for the show, Butkus has communicated with Galiyas and Cerro. Butkus asked for a Montour playbook. When camera crews begin shooting Aug. 8, when the Spartans begin training camp, Butkus will be there, well-studied.
The sudden onslaught of attention and cameras will, of course, barely qualify as a starting point, because the process that delivered such attention and cameras to Montour started months ago.
Executives of the show wanted to find a school that met two qualifications: First, football ran thick through the community. Second, the team had struggled in recent seasons, despite a proud past.
When "Bound for Glory" representatives arrived to visit Montour, a surge of enthusiasm swept over them. Two dozens students met them at a Downtown hotel, welcoming them to Pittsburgh. The school ordered 1,200 black T-shirts that read: "Bound for Glory." Administrators organized an assembly featuring cheerleaders, band members and a student-created multimedia presentation about the football program and the town.
So now, Montour is getting ready. Reality television, it turns out, can prompt change just as quickly as Butkus can. Montour is in the process of constructing a new locker room, revamping its weight room and building a new scoreboard. Cerro is even receiving a new office.
The goal is only partly designed for exposure. Mostly, its intentions are the same as Butkus': to change a team that went 1-8 last year into a school that can win. Regularly.
"High school football can be one of the better times in somebody's life," Butkus said. "I just want to mold them and help them turn things around."
"We've got to remember, even with the cameras around, we're still trying to win football games," Cerro said. "Blocking it all out will be the biggest challenge. Discipline will be even harder."
This time, though, Cerro has Butkus to help.
"The last few years we've been lacking, I don't want to say it's been weakness, but maybe we haven't been so aggressive," said senior lineman Anthony Pastin. "Maybe this will help us out."
(Chico Harlan can be reached at aharlan@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1227.)
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