Neill Edward Calabro |
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Going Long, Going Nowhere - synopsis Red is tall and slim and throws the ball a distance of seventy yards. He scrambles with the best of teams and somehow, even when tackled, remains to stay cool looking and clean. Bob is overweight and he has a confidence that is aching to get out. He wants to show it on the field, and also to ANNA TROVE, the darling southern cheerleader that Red also has his eye on. Red can get any girl . . . so naturally he wants them all. Bob and Red both have one strong commonality -- an antagonist; the football coach at their class 1-A high school. COACH JOHNNY GRANT doesn’t know the sport well. In fact, he’s a former police officer, now math teacher at Mesquite High, a school of less than 800 kids. But since the actual coach passed away two years ago, Johnny has been thrust into whipping these kids into shape. Problem is -- his results are more whipping than shaping. With the seasons changing ... along with attitudes, CLYDE MILLER, the sixty-five year old grounds keeper for Mesquite, found overweight Bob Minks distraught on the football field late one night and gave Bob some valuable playing advice. As Bob’s game improved 100 percent from those seemingly simple observations, his new courage instills him to rally the team ... not only on the field to salvage their winless season, but he literally rallies the team to face Clyde. They have suspicions that Clyde is more than just a groundskeeper. He knows football; and with passionate pleas to not let these Boys of Mesquite fail ... the team hopes Clyde will help them face the future as winners. Clyde is vehement about denying their wish. His life took a change for the worse years ago when his coaching career ended by a bad call he made as an assistant coach for an NFL team. Bob and the other Mesquite players only discover that Clyde was part of the big leagues. They don't know the whole story, only that whatever happened to Clyde, it has him tackling depression and bouts of alcoholism. Plus, Clyde has a strange habit of fighting with God ... through crazy arguments with Mesquite’s crow population; seemingly looking down on Clyde with discontent. Problems or not, the steely look in Clyde’s eye when he speaks of the game tells Bob and the boys that he is the better candidate than Coach Johnny Grant. They muster a strong offense when tackling the school board to take a chance on the most unlikely hero . . . someone who doesn’t want to be one.
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