Last Game for Three Way High School
Tile maven and artist Ted Lowitz tipped us off to the film Six Man Texas playing at the Lake County Film Festival. The festival runs from March 4 through March 8. Venues include College of Lake County and Gurneez Diner. Click here to purchase passes to the festival.
Six Man, Texas is about community and commitment and survival. Set against the backdrop of shrinking rural economies, it is a story of tiny towns with schools too small for 11-man football. Can the rural towns of Six Man, Texas keep their schools open and keep playing the game that unifies and defines their small communities?
Ageless North Shore interviewed producer and director Alan Barber about the making of Six Man Texas. Barber is a 2nd act story for sure. He began Six Man Texas, his first film project, when he was in his early 50′s. The name of his production company: NEVERTOOLATE films.
Alan Barber films cotton fields in Whitharral, Texas
Alan Barber: But I do still have a day job (architerra.com). I always had an interest in film, but when I attended College in Texas in the early 60′s, film was not an option. I started in Architecture School but ended up with a BFA in Ceramics six years later. This project is what re-started my long-held desire to communicate through film.
Ageless North Shore: On your web site, you say that the film is inspired by an event in the 1960′s. What was that event? Why has it stayed with you?
Alan: It was a trip to Dallas for Texas/Oklahoma U football game in the fall of 1962 while attending Monterey High School in Lubbock. The route to Dallas from Lubbock in those days did not follow interstate highways so we drove through every little town along the way. On Highway 114 in Guthrie, my friend Jackie and I stopped at a restaurant for a quick lunch. The restaurant was empty except for a corner table of ranch hands in coveralls and cowboy hats having mid-afternoon coffee.
We finished our Plate Lunch Specials and were having the Dessert of the Day when one of the ranchers approached our table.
“Where you boys from?”
“Lubbock….”
“Yeah, go to school there?”
“Yeah, we go to Monterey,” we said.
“Monterey, it’s a good school. You boys oughta move here.”
But he went on to sell the virtues of Guthrie and its small friendly high school and friendly townspeople and the great opportunity we would have to make top grades in a smaller school. And, he added, …you could play football!”
We said that we were not jocks and did not play football at Monterey. He looked at us as if we had simply lied to his face.
After a few awkward seconds of silence he set the record straight, “It don’t matter, you boys’re big enough!”
I felt the need to be a bit more emphatic, “Thanks,” I said, “but I don’t see how we could do that, what would we say to our parents?”
He stared at me for a second, and then, ”Well.you boys think about it, we sure could use a couple more guys to make our Six Man football team this year.” Then he walked back and sat down.
“Jackie,” I said “…..what the hell is Six Man football?”
I never forgot that incident!
Ageless: When did you decide to make this film?
Alan: Almost forty years after that experience, I decided to take a film class in the fall of 1999. For a year
Colter Snipes of the Aquilla 2000 football team
or two previous I studied screenwriting and took some screenwriting courses and seminars. I pitched the idea of making a documentary about Six Man football in Texas. I still knew nothing about it, I just remembered that incident and thought it would be a unique, little known subject.
I picked up a traveling and shooting partner (Laura Toups, Co-Producer) and by the summer of 2000 we visited our first small towns and I started doing research. We saw the All-Star Six Man games that summer and I met some of the coaches.
In late August of 2000 we visited Sanderson in far west Texas and shot our first footage and interviews. Some of that footage and a piece of that interview actually made it into the final cut.
Ageless: What do you want Northerners like us learn about Texas from watching the film?
Alan: Folks in any city will see a part of Texas that is still alive despite the economic challenges. At one time in America, small towns were the lifeblood of rural economies. I hope the film will provide a small glimpse into both the human and economic side of these small places where some folks still love to live.
Ageless: Your film has been in numerous film festivals. What is the film festival circuit like?
Alan: The best moment for me was at AFI Dallas. After the world premiere screening to a sold-out house, and after the red carpet media interviews, Coach Vance Jones, veteran Six Man football coach put his arm around me, with tears in his eyes, and said, “You have truly captured the heart and soul of our communities, thank you.” At that moment I understood the reason I had done the film, and I considered it a success.
Here is a trailer from the film:
See Six Man, Texas at 6:15 pm, March 5, Room B159 or 3:00 PM , March 6 . Room B271
College of Lake County, 19351 West Washington Street, Grayslake, IL
