On October 15, the students of Woodlawn High School were treated to a private screening of the film Woodlawn. As the lights dimmed, there was excitement in the air.
“I’m so excited,” Shekelah Weatherspoon, a twelfth grader at Woodlawn, said with a smile on her face. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”
The movie tells the story of Woodlawn student and football player Tony Nathan and how he, his coach Tandy Gerelds and his teammates overcame racial tension in the 1970s with the help of chaplain Hank Erwin and Christian beliefs. Nathan went on to play for the University of Alabama under Paul William “Bear” Bryant and later with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins from 1979 to 1987. Until 2008, Nathan was a running back coach for teams such as the San Francisco ’49ers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The film was directed by Hank Erwin’s sons Andrew and Jon Erwin and stars veteran screen actor Jon Voigt as Bryant and Sean Astin as Hank.
Principal of Woodlawn High School Jesse Daniel said the idea to show the film to the students came from and was sponsored by Briarwood Presbyterian Church. “Briarwood Church came to us with this idea to show the students the movie, and we thought it would be a great way to motivate and inspire the students; to show them that if they believe in themselves they can do anything,” Daniel said.
For some students it worked.
“I thought the movie was very inspiring,” Weatherspoon said. “It really made me think a lot about our community and how no one really talks about how things were back then. It really made me think about what has changed and what hasn’t, and I hope it brings people’s attention back to our school. No one really talked about Tony Nathan anymore until the movie came out, so I hope it gets people talking about us again in a great way.”
“I never really knew the background or the history of Woodlawn, so seeing it on the big screen made me really excited,” said senior Emondre Johnson, the current wide receiver for the Woodlawn Colonels. “It made me feel like I could succeed in any situation as long as I work hard enough.”
Director Andrew Erwin said that the story of Woodlawn and Tony Nathan is something he holds very close to his heart. Growing up, Erwin remembers that his father was very proud of the work he did with the Woodlawn students. “I grew up listening to this as a bedtime story,” Erwin said. “My dad would always share it with me and how his work affected the team spiritually. So I heard about the spiritual side and all about the big game [against Huffman in 1973].”
Wanting to bring the story of his father to life, Erwin began his research and discovered he wasn’t the only one proud of the team’s history: “As we dug more into the story I ran into Todd Gerelds, Coach Gerelds’ son, and he was writing a book about his father. He brought a seven-page journal entry that his dad had written while he was passing away from cancer in early 2000. And I read the point of view as a cynic having been won over by his team.”
Erwin said the journal entry was what opened his eyes to how deep the Woodlawn story actually went. “[Tandy Gerelds] wrote about literally driving around after that game against Huffman and shouting, ‘There is a God!’ and he said, ‘God I don’t even know if you’re real but whatever my boys are feeling I want that,’” Erwin said. “So I just thought to myself, ‘Wow, that’s a great story.’ Then we met with Tony and we found out about his relationship with his father and his story and it was those three entry points that gave us the context for a great story.”
When the Erwin brothers brought the idea of bringing his story to life, Tony Nathan was more than skeptical. “I thought it was some of my friends playing a joke on me,” he laughed. “They played a prank on me some time ago where they made me believe I was being drafted, so I just thought this was their round two.”
The day after the screening, the students of Woodlawn’s senior class got to meet Nathan himself. At an assembly, Nathan presented Woodlawn with a $25,000 academic and football scholarship on behalf of his family. The awarded student will receive $2,500 every year for 10 years. The scholarship will be awarded based on GPA, character and work ethic.
Nathan also received a surprise himself from the school’s current football team: his restored high school football jersey emblazoned with his signature number 22. Nathan gave an emotional thank you and then took pictures with the football players who presented him with the jersey. The students also had the opportunity to ask questions of both Nathan and his wife of 35-years, Johnnie, who also is portrayed in the film.
Erwin joked that his biggest task when going into the film was casting the perfect “Bear” Bryant. “I knew that if I didn’t cast the perfect actor to play Bear that I would have to move to a different state,” he said and then laughed. “But Jon Voigt came in, and he had a great respect for Bryant and he said that playing Bryant was like scaling Mount Everest: you climb as high as you can but when you walk away the mountain is still there. So he came in and he worked really hard to give the role justice and we even had fellow coworkers of Bryant there to make sure the role was portrayed accurately.”
Erwin said there’s no clear antagonist in the film because he believes that’s not the way life goes. “Instead of trying to pinpoint a villain, we try to show a situation,” he said. “Because I believe that’s what relates to today. And given the situation, there were a lot of villains in Birmingham at the time but the story we’re telling is about people who were put in a no-win situation and they found a way to win with forgiveness, unconditional love and the Jesus movement throughout the school.”
Bruce Stallings, executive pastor at Briarwood, said he believes that the students will definitely hold the film in their hearts and that other viewers will feel the same way. “I don’t see it as the type of Christian movie people usually think of in the sense of ‘Oh here’s two people trying to make a Christian point,’” he said. “I see it as a film that is just showing what happens when people allow themselves to have faith. And I think a lot of people are going to relate to that.”
Daniel said he believes everyone will be inspired by the movie and he can already see the impact on Woodlawn’s senior class. “I believe the film will inspire everyone,” he said. “I could tell during the movie the way they were responding to it was very positive and the movie was all they could talk about once we got back to the school. And I know that meeting Nathan meant a lot to them as well. It’s been great seeing the impact the film has already had on them.”
Nathan, who has since retired and is now a bailiff for former Dolphins teammate Judge Edward Newman, said that he hopes viewers walk away from the film with the desire to never give up despite any obstacles thrown their way. “I just want them to not give up on their dreams,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll inspire them to hold on to their dreams and work towards whatever goal they have. If you hold onto your dream then no one can take it away from you.”
“If you can be happy with the person you see in the mirror at the end of the day then you’re doing something right,” Nathan continued. “You have to be truthful with yourself first, and if you can be truthful with yourself and respect yourself there’s nothing you can’t do. And that’s what I want these kids to take away from my experience.”
Weatherspoon feels that the film will pass down a legacy to underclassmen: “I really think the movie will inspire future generations. And I hope that it pushes us to get back to what Woodlawn used to be, like with our football program. I hope we can all work together to make Woodlawn a better place. I hope we can get back to the feeling of strength that the school had in the movie.”