Fire Up Your VCRs for "Jerry LeVias: A Marked Man"

[MrMustang1965]

"Jerry LeVias: A Marked Man", a documentary on the great SMU Mustang and the SWC's first black scholarship athlete, will premiere on the Fox Sports Network on Saturday, December 6 at 6 P.M. It's a production of Greg Lucas and Patti Smith. Tune in and see some GREAT clips/highlights of LeVias setting the Cotton Bowl turf on fire with his talent and speed! :thumbupcool:

[Bergermeister]

...wonder if they'll tell the w h o l e story????

[peruna26]

Hello! Do you know if that is showing only in the Metroplex area, or if it is a national broadcast?

Thank You in advance

[MrMustang1965]

It's a nationally broadcast program. Tune in and tape it!

[Houston Pony]

This is gonna be good stuff.
Originally, Tony Martinez produced this, and Tony M is a maestro in terms of documentaries on sports figures.
I'm sure we'll all be proud with the outcome.
Levias was and is a classy human being, and I'm anxious to see this.

[Bergermeister]

Interesting. I've heard quite a bit to the contrary. Don't know the man, but some of my buddies were somewhat prominent players (starters) on the same teams. Guess I'll tune in.

[HighfalutinHorse]

...what are you trying to say, Bergermeister? :hmm:

[MrMustang1965]

Originally posted by Bergermeister:
Interesting. I've heard quite a bit to the contrary. Don't know the man, but some of my buddies were somewhat prominent players (starters) on the same teams. Guess I'll tune in.

Well, I don't know your 'buddies' who were somewhat prominent players on the team, either. But it's a well-known fact that LeVias was ostracized and segregated by many of his teammates who held prejudices against black athletes. The DMN article earlier this year made LeVias sound like he was not bitter about his treatment back in those days. Why don't we just watch the documentary on Saturday before we start judging...?

[Houston Pony]

Documentary intense for LeVias
BY DAVID BARRON

Jerry LeVias has granted dozens upon dozens of interviews in the last 3 1/2 decades about his travails as the Southwest Conference's first African-American scholarship athlete.

But the experience of filming Jerry LeVias: A Marked Man, an hourlong documentary that airs at 6 p.m., Saturday on Fox Sports Net, was so intense that he began having nightmares as he relived those difficult days of breaking the SWC's color barrier in the mid-1960s.

"(The show) brought a lot of things up," LeVias said this week. "The mind is an amazing thing. There was a lot of stuff I had forgotten because it hurt so much. Since this has been going on, I've had a lot of sleepless nights and nightmares about things I had put in my subconscious."

It's a remarkable admission by a man whose story, appropriately, is the first entry in FSN's new documentary series Sports Legends of the Southwest. Greg Lucas wrote and narrates the program and co-produced it with Patti Smith with editing help from FSN's Hank Garcia.

"(LeVias) really was the Jackie Robinson of the Southwest Conference," Lucas said. "He had to succeed to help things proceed."

There's not a lot new in the program to fans familiar with LeVias' story. A product of the same Beaumont neighborhoods that sent Mel and Miller Farr, Gene Washington and Bubba and Tody Smith to non-segregated colleges outside Texas, LeVias was targeted by SMU coach Hayden Fry in the spring of 1965 as the SWC's first black scholarship athlete.

LeVias wasn't the first African-American to appear in an SWC game, following Baylor's John Westbrook by a week in the fall of 1966, but he was the league's first black star. He led the Mustangs to the 1966 league championship, their first since the Doak Walker-Kyle Rote era, all the while enduring horrific abuse from opponents and, frequently, teammates.

"I talked lately with a lot of guys from that SMU team, including some who didn't realize a lot of what I was going through," he said. "One of my teammates who used to make a lot of racial taunts came up to me and apologized. That meant a lot to me."

So while the subject matter is familiar to old-timers, it will be a revelation to younger viewers and to those who may have forgotten LeVias and Fry -- both of whom will be inducted next week into the College Football Hall of Fame -- and Westbrook.

As for the painful memories and the sleepless nights prompted by reliving those days, "it's been a positive," he said. "I've had to open myself up to a lot of stuff that happened.

"I've found my way back to my faith and realize how strong I was as a young man and how much faith had to do with it. You get out in the world and forget about things, but this has brought me back."

[Hoop Fan]

I know I am getting cynical, but is this one more thing by the media that will somehow make SMU look bad? I'm guessing the emphasis will not be on how SMU was the first school to grant a scholarship, but rather how bad some folks acted towards him once he got to SMU. I wonder if there was ever a good person who actually had an association with SMU. I'm being sarcastic of course.

<small>[ 12-05-2003, 11:01 AM: Message edited by: Hoop Fan ]</small>

[bubba pony]

I was a freshman when he was a senior. he was great. you never gave up because he could return a kick off, and in fact often did.

http://www.blackprwire.com/display-news.asp?ID=1367

[OldPony]

I remember his teammates huddling around him at the TCU game because of death threats. They would gather around him and walk him back to the huddle. Some may not have liked him but I thimk that shows where most of them were mentally. I remember some guys hazing Jerry a little but I knew no one on the team who ever spoke in anything but good terms about him away from the team.

[NavyCrimson]

i guess the rest of us are going to have to purchase it or whatever - well whatever.

[mrydel]

What a class act!

[EastStang]

I tuned in. I thought it was balanced. There were folks who ostracized him and it was tough on him the first two years. But its amazing how all that changed. He clearly has his head on straight and he showed that he is quite an ambassador for SMU. Also give credit to Fry for being bold enough to break the barrier. It also showed the glory days of SMU. That can't hurt and the publicity that our school was a trailblazer can't hurt in recruiting. I hope Bennett gives a videotape to every recruit.