Arena League

For 'Longest Yard,' Hollywood taken by Storm

Arena football plays key roles in the film remake, taking the hardest of hits and lending behind-the-scenes expertise.

By FRANK PASTOR
Published May 27, 2005

TAMPA - Lineman Nyle Wiren passed up shoulder surgery in the offseason to walk in the shadow of wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Receiver/defensive back Clif Dell spent his time away from the field playing basketball with actor Adam Sandler.

All the two Storm players had to do in return was allow themselves to be ground into pulp.

Take after take after take.

Wiren and Dell are on the receiving end of two of the most vicious tackles in The Longest Yard, the remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds film that opens nationwide in theaters today.

In the story about a former pro quarterback (played by Sandler) and an ex-college coach (Reynolds), who put together a team of inmates to play a football game against a squad of prison guards, Wiren serves as a stunt double for Austin, a running back on the guards' team. Dell stands in for Nick Turturro, a receiver for the convicts.

Storm fans also may spot kicker Matt George or recently acquired lineman Paul LaQuerre playing for the guards. Former Tampa Bay players Louis Williams, Evan Pilgrim, Wilky Bazile and Gary Compton were among 36 current and former Arena Football League players involved in the movie, which was shot from July to October at locations in Santa Fe, N.M., and Los Angeles.

"Going every day and seeing everybody was cool," Wiren said. "Seeing all the guys we play with all the time, that's real cool to be around. Guys that you usually play against are on your same team there. It's a fun deal."

Bucs coach Jon Gruden and Storm quarterback and offensive coordinator Pat O'Hara had off-camera roles. Gruden drew up plays. O'Hara designed the playbook, trained quarterbacks Sandler and William Fichtner and recruited many of the players who serve as doubles in the film.

O'Hara acted as technical adviser to Mark Ellis, whose company, ReelSports Solutions, helps recruit and train player/actors and designs and implements sports choreography for movies.

Ellis has worked on sports films such as The Rookie, Miracle, Varsity Blues and Hardball. But it was the 1998 Sandler film The Waterboy that brought Ellis and O'Hara together.

O'Hara was playing for the Orlando Predators when Ellis invited him to an audition in Orlando. O'Hara passed the audition and kept in touch with Ellis. The next season, the two worked together on Any Given Sunday. Three days after a screen test in Miami, O'Hara learned that director Oliver Stone wanted him to play the role of Tyler Cherubini.

"Working with Al Pacino every day and standing this close to him every day for four months was amazing, and having dialogue," O'Hara said. "It was short dialogue a couple of times, but still, it's Al Pacino. Are you kidding me?"

When Ellis started ReelSports, he asked O'Hara to be his technical adviser for The Longest Yard. Near the end of the 2004 arena season, O'Hara began diagramming plays and breaking down the script from his home.

During preproduction, O'Hara helped run the training camp where players and actors were taught the plays. He trained Fichtner, quarterback for the guards and helped ESPN football analyst and former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sean Salisbury coach Sandler, who plays convicts quarterback Paul Crewe.

"Everyone was questioning me, "How is Adam going to pull it off?' " O'Hara said. "You always see Adam in a lot of different types of roles, and playing Paul Crewe in such a classic movie, he really wanted to make sure he did his best job to pull off the realism, so he really worked hard at it. I'll tell you what, I think you just have to see the final product. We're pretty pleased with it."

The plays O'Hara designed more closely resemble those in the outdoor game than in Arena football, but he did throw in a few trick plays. The real trick, however, was convincing the players who doubled as convicts to play beneath their abilities to reflect the fact they had been practicing for only two weeks.

"We had to start up from scratch and had to take professional athletes and make them bad and bring them back up in the movie, which is the hardest thing to do for a good athlete," O'Hara said. "We had to tone them down, and they gradually get better and you'll see that in the movie as it goes."

O'Hara used his connections from 11 seasons in the arena league to recruit players to fit the movie's needs. He sought ones with particular body types capable of pulling off stunts and withstanding grueling 12-hour work days.

O'Hara knew right away that Wiren, with his shaved head, menacing stare and rock solid 6-foot-2, 260-pound frame, would be the perfect stand-in for Austin.

"He and I do look a lot alike when we're in pads," Wiren said. "We walk the same, because both of our knees are (messed) up."

Wiren was asked to absorb one of the most memorable hits in movie history, a clothesline tackle that prompts the famous line, "I think I broke his freakin' neck."

"I said, "We need a special guy for that to sell it,' and I told Mark, "I've got the guy in Nyle,' " O'Hara said. "Wait till you see it. Nyle just sells it and just really gets pummeled."

As a stunt double for Turturro, who plays Brucie, a pesky receiver on the guards' team, Dell took his share of hits, including one from the trailer in which a safety hits him as he catches a slant and Dell's helmet is sent flying.

"It's supposed to be one of the best hits out there," Dell said. "All the producers love it, and Adam Sandler thought it was the greatest thing ever."

The performances of Dell and Wiren could lead to parts in an upcoming film, Invincible, in which Mark Wahlberg plays Vince Papale, a 30-year-old bartender who made the Philadelphia Eagles after an open tryout in the mid '70s. Dell is being considered as Wahlberg's body double, O'Hara said.

"He was so impressive in The Longest Yard that, hopefully, he'll be able to pull it off again," O'Hara said.

O'Hara spends his nights working on the playbook for Invincible. He enjoys his movie work, and ReelSports soon will branch into other venues such as camps, combines and individual training, giving him other options.

But O'Hara said he believes his future ultimately will be in coaching.

"The movie business is what it is," O'Hara said. "It's competitive. It's tough. They only make so many football movies. Right now, it's good timing for me."

O'Hara's timing wasn't as good on Sunday, when cast and crew got together to watch the premiere of The Longest Yard. In fact, the entire Storm contingent was absent.

"We had a game," Wiren said.

TAMPA - Former Storm lineman Rasheid Simmons filed a civil lawsuit against the Orlando Predators for injuries he suffered during a scrimmage Jan. 22 at the St. Pete Times Forum.

Simmons, who suffered a career-ending neck injury and is undergoing physical therapy in New Jersey, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Hillsborough County, seeks more than $15,000 in damages.

The injury occurred after players exchanged shoves during pass-rushing drills before the scrimmage, the lawsuit states. Simmons, who was not involved in the drill and had his helmet in his hands, collided headfirst with another player who was wearing a helmet after Orlando's Justin Cleveland shoved him.

Simmons fell to the ground, where the Predators' Patrick Scott jumped on top of him and punched him in the face, rendering Simmons unconscious and completely paralyzed about 10 minutes.

Simmons was strapped to a spine board and taken to Tampa General Hospital, where a CT scan revealed a herniated disc in his neck. Despite surgery to remove the disc and fuse two of the vertebrae in Simmons' neck, he no longer can play football and is unable to perform other normal physical activities, according to the lawsuit.

The Predators released Scott the day after the scrimmage. The Storm cut Simmons a day later. Cleveland continues to play for Orlando.

SKILLS COMPETITION: Storm QB Shane Stafford will compete in the ArenaBattle Celebrity Skills Challenge June 10 at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. Former Heisman Trophy runnerup Michael Bishop and ex-Buc quarterback Joe Hamilton are among 12 other Arena players committed to the event, part of the festivities leading up to the ArenaBowl on June 12.

DEATH AN ACCIDENT: Los Angeles lineman Al Lucas' death from blunt force trauma to his spinal cord during a game has been ruled an accident by the Los Angeles County coroner's office. He died at 26 on April 10 after trying to tackle a New York Dragons kick returner. Lucas was a coach with his alma mater, Northeast High School in Macon, Ga.

Information from other news organizations was used in the report.

[Last modified May 27, 2005, 00:40:18]