The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

HORSTMAN 53
So I was like, ‘Hey, remember this movie I’ve been making forever? Don’t you think it would make a good
book?’ And she was like, ‘Actually, I think it would.’
We continued that conversation and the rest is sort of history. It led to a proposal that was accepted. It’s
been in the works for a couple years now and we’re racing down the tracks, which has been very fun and
exciting to see the film have its first broadcast run and do that in the world as I’m making choices about
what images to use for the book and moving into what will hopefully be publication in the fall of 2021.
TH: With the approach to the book then, something I’m thinking about in comparing books to movies, and
what makes me excited that this is going to be a book is that there’s a lot of room to elaborate on things.
You have more space for content in a book than in a 80/90-minute documentary. I am definitely someone
who is more scared of editing than generating. Writing 2,000 words is a lot easier than writing 200 words
for me. So I love the idea of getting to elaborate on every piece of story that’s here and pull out a bunch of
threads, but I know not every writer is that way. Is that an element of the book that you were excited for,
or was it a little terrifying?
MW: I think before I dove in it was so exciting because there’s just so much history. John Hannah for
example, was the president of Michigan State throughout the time my dad was there, and for most of his
tenure at Michigan State University as the president, he was the chairperson of the Civil Rights
Commission of the United States of America. He was instrumental in a number of major legislations. Like
Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964-65, and really had a very interesting role
in how Duffy Daugherty was able to create a pipeline to the South and recruit black players. He had that
support all the way up to the top of the university from President Hannah. To know that that was
happening, while my dad was playing football and maybe occasionally the president of the university
would make an appearance, you know how they do. To know they were in proximity to such major shifts
and change and lasting impact is pretty remarkable.
Going down that wormhole, I was like, ‘Yes, this is so great! I can talk about John Hannah! I can delve into
who the pioneers were before my dad.’ In 1913, Gideon Smith was the first black player at Michigan State.
There were other black players throughout the Big Ten Conference. The history kind of quickly got
overwhelming and became the hardest part. When you’re writing a historical narrative there’s things that
I’m super excited about that visually you can, I don’t want to say cheat your way through, but you can kind
of cut to the chase your way through in film, that in prose, wasn’t necessarily the case. If you’re going to go
there (in prose), you’re really going to have to fully flesh out that storyline or that thread that you’re going
down.
It’s far more interesting to not just think about that fact that exists, but the context around that fact and
who John Hannah was as a human being and what the Big Ten Conference was. Even here in Minnesota,
the University of Minnesota has kind of a challenging history and relationship to race. They’re sort of
credited as pioneers, certainly (Coach Murray) Warmath and the number of black players throughout time
before my dad, but they’re also responsible for the death of Jack Trice, who was a black player at Iowa
State and was effectively trampled by the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team. There’s that kind of
stuff that’s in the book that I’m really honored and grateful to shed light on because these aren’t well
ISSUE 4 | SUMMER 2021