Geneva grad profiles East St. Louis football
A Geneva graduate getting tight with the East St. Louis football program? Sounds like treason.
Colin Olsen is no turncoat. He’s a young documentary filmmaker working on a movie called “East of the Arch,” with a projected release in spring 2010.
A senior cinema major at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Olsen played safety for the Vikings team that lost in the 2006 Class 6A semifinals to Batavia — before East St. Louis bounced Geneva in the 2007 7A quarterfinals and beat the Vikings in the 2008 7A championship.
“I love football, but when that time was done, that time was done,” said Olsen, who is set to graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in May. “There was no reason to hold a grudge against those kids, who I didn’t even know. And even that Geneva-Batavia stuff, I’m past it.”
Earlier in his SIU career, Olsen attended an East St. Louis game. His interest was piqued. He read up on the program — citing Kevin Horrigan’s “The Right Kind of Heroes: Coach Bob Shannon and the East St. Louis Flyers” — and went to the 2008 title game in Champaign. Attempting to more fully experience how East St. Louis ticked, he spoke with parents and fans tailgating before the game. He came away completely impressed.
“People know that they’re a good football team,” Olsen said, “but there’s something more about this program.”
A year later, a documentary film class provided the opportunity for Olsen to “challenge myself” with a fitting subject. He picked Flyers football. Little did he know at the time the challenge that lay ahead.
“My initial intent was the ‘Hoop Dreams’ of football,” Olsen said.
He’d incorporate the challenges East St. Louis athletes face — “how they cope with their surroundings,” Olsen said — the coaches who try to keep them not just eligible but looking toward their future, the town itself. The film, which he’d planned as a 15-minute “overview,” would center around senior receiver Keante Minor, a three-sport athlete headed to Arkansas this fall on a full football scholarship.
Olsen approached East St. Louis athletic director Leonard Manley Sr., pestered School District 189 to the point where they knew when he’d be calling, and finally got the OK by Board Superintendent Dr. Theresa Saunders. Olsen started preproduction in February 2010 and started filming in late March.
He took some time out over the summer, gaining an internship in Hollywood with the American Film Institute, working on a film set as a production assistant mainly involved with lighting. Once school resumed it was back to classes, and back to making the 2-hour drive to East St. Louis several times a week. The cameras continued to roll as the Flyers hammered their opponents to the cumulative tune of 458-92.
“They felt they could win this thing,” Olsen said.
In Week 5, however, the Illinois High School Association received an anonymous call concerning a player’s residency within the district. The program was under investigation the remainder of the season. Finally, after back-and-forth between the IHSA, the school board and the courts, following East St. Louis’ first-round playoff win over Belleville West the Flyers were removed from the playoffs for using an ineligible player.
With that, the college senior’s 15-minute project morphed into a feature-length documentary. Olsen plans not only to follow this year’s graduates into summer, but to continue with the upcoming season to see how the program responds.
He’s currently attempting to reach East St. Louis natives Bryan Cox, Kellen Winslow, Dana Howard and Jackie Joyner-Kersee for testimonial interviews for “East of the Arch.” By the end of next week Olsen plans to have the movie’s first 10 minutes done; by May, the first half-hour to 45 minutes.
Olsen has a Facebook page devoted to the project, as well as a descriptive page on the Kickstarter funding website, found at http://kck.st/dYW3mP. A donation as low as $1 might get you a line in the credits.
When he began all this, Olsen understood the documentary filmmaker’s No. 1 rule: “Don’t become too attached to the subject.”
As he infiltrated the East St. Louis program and overall culture, however, it became hard for him to separate his feelings when, say, someone’s Halloween costume is a Flyer wearing handcuffs.
“I just learned a lot of new things about, kind of, how our society works,” Olsen said. “I feel like when everything came down on them, you kind of saw how people became more mean to these kids.”
Within the program, though, weights are lifted and plays run, coaches advise and athletes crack jokes just as they did when Olsen wore the Vikings helmet.
“I can’t say I don’t go a day there,” Olsen said, “and I don’t laugh.”
Big money
At last Friday’s St. Charles East-St. Charles North boys basketball game, each school’s drill teams presented the amount of funds raised at last year’s annual Kick-A-Thon during the varsity football game between the two schools.
Seniors from each drill team held aloft big signs, each with a numeral. The numbers on the placards added up to a whopping $67,747.86. The money is given to the American Cancer Society’s Fox Valley Chapter and the LivingWell Cancer Resource Center, as was also displayed on huge cardboard “checks.”
Initially started in 1994, the result of a kitchen-table brainstorming session to raise funds for the St. Charles High School drill team, the first effort went so well — funds raised for high kicks not only by drill team members but teachers, local business owners, residents, etc. — a partner was sought who could share in the wealth.
Football coach Buck Drach, whose late wife, Rose, was battling cancer at the time, suggested the American Cancer Society.
The cause proceeded. Over the past 17 years, Kick-A-Thon has raised some $517,000 dollars.
The 18th annual Kick-A-Thon will be held during the Cross Town Classic at St. Charles East on Oct. 21. Stretch those hamstrings and hip flexors.