THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 18, 1996 TAG: 9610180735
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 66 lines
Tonight at 8 on TNT, the gang that produces those wonderfully artsy documentaries about the NFL brings us ``Football America,'' a show about the grass-roots side of football.
Forget Deion. Think Dakota - as in North Dakota, where a Division II college game is bigger than the Super Bowl.
And meet Bob Blechen, 60, who is still playing semi-pro ball in Ventura, Calif. Blechen was a tackle 40 years ago on George Allen's Whittier College team.
``I'm a gentle warrior who still goes into battle,'' he says, ``and is lucky enough to have the body, health and frame of mind to play football.''
Also remarkable are the players at Gallaudet University, a Washington, D.C., college for the deaf, where the football huddle was invented to keep the opponents from seeing their hand signals. Vibrations from a drum on the sidelines tell the players when the ball is snapped.
``Their story underscores the heart you'll find in our program,'' the producers say.
The two-hour show has nine segments. The two I like best are ``Pride and Dedication,'' about high school football played on rocky, muddy Alaskan glaciers, and ``Living the Tradition,'' the story of how a high school coach in western Pennsylvania gets his players to focus on the game.
He takes them to a preseason camp in the Poconos, where four practices a day begin at sunrise. That's the same devotion to the game that executive producer Steve Sabol of NFL Films found in Alaska, where the high school coaches are volunteers, road games are at times 800 miles away and the schools' hallways serve as locker rooms.
``Fiery passion on a field of ice,'' is how narrator James Coburn describes it.
It gets pretty icy in North Dakota, too, where the North Dakota State-University of North Dakota game brings the state to a standstill, with brother playing against brother.
``Football America'' also drops in on a rough touch-football league in prison, where lifers named Puma and Rad compete. TNT tells the story of a retired factory worker who's been running Pop Warner Leagues for 31 years.
The program is also about playing the game on a carrier's flght deck, a venue not unknown to viewers in Hampton Roads.
The show repeats tonight at 10 p.m. and midnight. It will be broadcast again Monday night and Oct. 25 at 10, plus Oct. 27 at midnight.
You can find out more about ``Football America'' online at http://www.turner.com.tntoriginals.
WITH INSTANT REPLAY, TOO: I've heard from readers who want to know what's become of ESPN2's ``Extreme Bloopers,'' which is extremely watchable TV (flips, dips, flops, slides, tumbles, crashes) hosted by Debe Dunning of ABC's ``Home Improvement.'' It'll be back Wednesday and Oct. 28 at 11 p.m., ESPN2 says.
OVEREXPOSED: Listening to Bob Costas and his gang on NBC doing baseball's American League Championship Series, I heard more than I wanted to hear about Yankee closer John Wetteland's sweaty, beatup cap, and the Goodyear blimp's 40 years of hovering over postseason baseball. Please, Fox, forget the hat and blimp during the World Series.
SOCCER'S SUPER BOWL: If you're a soccer fan who's grumbled about not seeing enough of the sport on national TV, Sunday is your day. ABC, at 3:30 p.m., covers Major League Soccer's championship game between Washington's D.C. United and the Los Angeles Galaxy. I predict modest ratings. MEMO: Call in your questions and comments about TV sports to Larry Bonko
at Infoline 640-5555, category 2486. by CNB