Former NU hoops player stars in own film

The jump shots looked the same.

So did the drives to the basket.

It's been nearly 15 years since Maureen Holohan and I were teammates at Northwestern, but her game looked exactly as I remember it.

What wasn't familiar was the way in which it was packaged. On the big screen.

Let me tell you, it's a little surreal to see someone you know, let alone someone you spent many of your formative years with, in a movie.

But there was Mo, front and center, as the short version of the basketball movie she wrote and produced played out at a small downtown Chicago theater Monday night.

When a couple of A-list actresses turned down the script and an open casting call yielded no candidates who could even halfway fake the moves and mannerisms of a former Division I athlete, Holohan plucked herself out from behind the camera and put herself in front, too.

"It's still surreal to me even," Holohan said of seeing herself on screen. "I don't really like it. I'm not an actress, and I didn't know what I was doing most of the time we were shooting. But the character is so obviously me."

"$ GAME" is about a talented female basketball player who longs to play in the WNBA, but has been hampered by injuries, which somewhat parallels Holohan's real-life story.

The character in the movie, Jo, (nice play on the name there, Mo) is forced to come to terms with the fact that her career is likely over and that she needs to get a "real" job. Yet, despite her best intentions - and advice from her doctor to give her ailing wrist a rest, she eventually finds herself hustling male pickup ballplayers at some of the most competitive New York City playgrounds just to get her fix.

By the way, I could see Mo doing that, too. She's feisty like that.

But feisty is what yet again puts this go-getter on the verge of greatness.

The last time Holohan was in the news was after she self-published a series of children's books called the "Broadway Ballplayers," fictional sports-themed stories in which girls are the lead characters.

Holohan tirelessly traveled the country on a shoestring and hawked her books at women's basketball games, camps and clinics. She sold more than 100,000 copies herself before publishing giant Simon & Schuster picked her up.

Marketing of the series has hit a lull and Holohan would like to re-release it, but right now, her focus is pointed due west, toward Hollywood.

In true feisty Holohan fashion, she dumped her life savings of about $40,000 into the production of the short and hustled her way into some instant credibility by convincing a known Hollywood actor, Tom Cavanagh ("Ed"/"Scrubs"), to invest in the film and direct it.

"My favorite show was 'Ed,' the bowling alley-lawyer show," said Holohan, who spent the last five years writing the script.

"While I was working as a teacher in New York City, I went to a play Tom was doing and I waited for him afterward with a bunch of people who were getting his autograph and I told him I was a fan and I gave him my books."

Holohan figured she'd never see Cavanagh again and she went about her life, teaching and writing her script on the side.

In the meantime, she joined a posh gym in Manhattan called Club Reebok, which put a huge dent in her teacher's salary but seemed worth the investment since it was home to a lot of wheelers and dealers in the entertainment industry.

In fact, Holohan heard that Cavanagh, a known basketballer, worked out there, too.

Eventually, she found herself face-to-face with him in a pickup game. He told her that his nieces loved the books, and from then on, the two were tight.

Cavanagh put Holohan in touch with all kinds of Hollywood big shots and got stars like Richard Kind, Michael Ian Black and Judy Greer to star in the short for free with the hope that the full feature will go big-time.

And that's where Holohan is today, ready to go big-time. She's looking for investors for a full feature, has already been contacted by ESPN's creative department as well as a sports apparel company, and is trying to get the short into film festivals such as Sundance and TriBeCa.

"I've always known that I'm the kind of person who sets her mind to something and gets it done," Holohan said. "But to actually see an entire production take place and to know you orchestrated it has been amazing.

"I feel very optimistic about this. We've been getting a lot of really good feedback. I'm excited to see what happens with it."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com