The following is an excerpt from the Georgia High School Football Daily, an e-mail newsletter compiled by longtime Atlanta high school football writers Todd Holcomb and Chip Saye:
Westminster’s Gerry Romberg and Lovett’s Mike Muschamp have been coaching against each other the past four years in one of metro Atlanta’s better rivalries. Now, they’re going against each other on the big screen in the movie “The Blind Side” starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw.
Actually, Romberg and Muschamp – who are close friends – will appear only as extras in the movie, which was filmed at Westminster in May and June. But they were technical advisers for the football scenes involving the main character, Michael Oher (right, New York Times photo), a former Ole Miss tackle who was a first-round pick in the NFL Draft this year.
Another local coach, Douglass assistant Robert Hicks, was Oher’s stand-in during the football scenes. The actor who plays Oher – Quinton Aaron – isn’t especially athletic at 6-foot-8, 380 pounds, according to Romberg. Hicks, on the other hand, played three seasons for the Buffalo Bills.
Romberg’s and Muschamp’s jobs were to advise Mike Fisher, the football scene coordinator, on what the plays should look like. The script called for 14 plays, but Romberg and Muschamp were there to ensure they looked realistic.
“I worked with the offense, and Mike worked with the defense,” Romberg said. “We had to draw it up on a card like we would in practice. They wanted to make sure players were going to the right place on every play, especially when it came to Michael and who he was going against.”
The toughest part of the job, Romberg said, was the hours – 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. The game scenes from Oher’s high school, Briarcrest Christian Academy in Memphis, had to be shot at night.
“The big thing I found out about a movie is they shoot a scene over and over again to get it right,” Romberg said. “There were only 14 plays, but it took five days to shoot them. They had a scene with Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw in the stands, and it took a whole night to film it.”
In case anyone is wondering, Romberg and Muschamp got to meet Bullock.
“We’d been working with her, but we didn’t have a chance to talk with her,” Romberg said. “She had a bodyguard. But at the end [of filming], she thanked all the players and spent 15 minutes with us and took pictures and talked with us before she left. She seemed very down to earth.”
Others who had bit parts in scenes filmed in Atlanta were Houston Nutt, Nick Saban, Lou Holtz and Phil Fulmer. Fulmer’s scene was filmed in a Westminster office made to look like his own at Tennessee.
The movie, which will premier Nov. 20, focuses on the life of Oher, who was homeless through much of his childhood but was taken in at age 16 by a well-to-do couple (played by Bullock and McGraw) that helped him reach his potential as a student and athlete.
The movie is based on the New York Times bestseller by Michael Lewis, “The Blind Side: The Evolution of a Game.”
For more on the movie, click here.
Subscribe to the Georgia High School Football Daily by sending an e-mail to ghsfdaily@bellsouth.net.
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