This was one of the great RB's in college ever that never made it
We are a nation obsessed with untapped potential. That is never more apparent than our fascination with running back Marcus Dupree.Three decades after his star burned out, when he was barely out of his teens, we are still talking about him.
"The Best That Never Was" a new documentary about Dupree by writer-director Jonathan Hock will be shown on ESPN tonight (8 p.m. ET) as part of their 30 for 30 series.
Hock spoke to Game On! about the documentary.
Why the fascination with Dupree?
I think true greatness at the level of Marcus Dupree happens once a generation. And the idea that his generation, which is my generation, missed out on the one is hard to let go of. As sports fans we wait and wait for a guy like this to show up and when he does… it takes your breath away. And it keeps you coming back every Saturday, and every Sunday, to hope it happens again. What he showed in high school and college promised something that nobody had witnessed before in the NFL and we never got to taste it. You fall in love when you are a kid and its hard to let go of that.
Is this a happy or sad story?
I think it's a sad story about a person who is not sad. I think Marcus has genuine grace about himself. He does not harbor bitterness towards anyone who may have given him good or bad advice. He doesn't bemoan his bad luck. He acknowledges his own bad decisions without dwelling or them or wallowing in remorse. He feels blessed to have enjoyed the moments he was able to enjoy. That is a rare thing. What is so uplifting about the story is that so many of us dwell on what might have been.
When Dupree gets cut by the Rams during his comeback he seems to accept it and we believe him don't we?
That is what makes a very sad story ultimately a very uplifting film to watch. To see the perspective that he has its remarkable. It is as unique as his talent. To find life's blessings and enjoy those rather than dwell on what might have been.
Did you find it jarring that Dupree ended up to be friends with the son of the sheriff entangled in one of the ugliest racial incidents in our history?
I think Marcus led the town of Philadelphia, Miss., a town with a horrible past on its first steps toward reconciliation and leading to a better future. Today, Philadelphia has a black mayor. It is clearly not the town it was in 1964 when Marcus was born. I think it would be naïve to believe that he single-handed made this happen. But I do think it would be missing the point if you didn't acknowledge what this guy did was so extraordinary. What he did on the football field was so powerful, on a level that speaks across politics and beyond politics, and beyond hate and everything else that had brought Philadelphia down, that Marcus Dupree become the point at which black people and white people began to connect in a different way in the public arena. I think that is another thing that is so fascinating about him. It shows that the power of sports to reach across fences. The vagaries of race relations in the South are very deep and very hard to untangle. It is a very complicated situation….things are complicated and I think that the town's awful history, and the many great strides that have been made there, and Marcus's role in that, is something that is too important to ignore. One man's athletic greatness can be a point where people who would otherwise have no place to connect can begin to connect. T
Are there villains in this story?
Marcus story is the anti-Blind Side. Here is a guy who needed just one person who had the wherewithal to take hold of the situation in his best interests. And nobody did. I don't see it as villains but everybody in his life acted in their best interests and not in Marcus' interest. I think that's what people in college athletics do. Everybody is protecting everybody's interests. Who is looking out for the athletes? I think people try, I don't think anybody said in a pernicious way that 'I'm gonna cash in on Marcus and I don't care what happens to him.' Nobody in his life from Barry Switzer to Ken Fairly wanted bad things to happen to Marcus. Everybody loved Marcus. I think everybody in their minds were trying to do the best things for him. But the stakes are so high, and the money so big, and everyone stands to lose so much if it doesn't play out a particular way, you see people begin to act in their own self-interest.
Dupree didn't seem to want to be an NFL lifer did he?
You are talking about a guy whose career was really shipwrecked. ...All he does is go out and play football better than anyone else in the country. Then these forces take over his life. Forces that have lots of money and lots of power behind them. We would like to think he could steer the ships through the rocks…without losing his enthusiasm. I think that because there wasn't anybody to help him steer the ship I think its hard not to wreck and he got wrecked. I think if he had been handled differently and somebody take the wheel with him I don't think he would have gotten burned out. I don't think it would have felt like a curse to him. When he wrecked, I don't think its fair to say he wasn't going anywhere anyway. I think he was just lost so much early than anyone realized…I don't agree that he didn't have it in him to be a lifer in the NFL.
But he was tired of THE game if not the game. Fair?
Then I agree with you. He burned out on the game within the game. But it didn't rob him of his inner grace.
Why do sports stories resonate with us?
It's an interesting question, because this story and the (Luis) Tiant story are human stories first in a sports setting. I don't think of the stories I tell as sports stories. They're human stories about family, about loss and redemption. Marcus was just a guy trying to make his family proud, just like all of us. But sports are an all-or-nothing proposition - being a football player is not like being an accountant or a shopkeeper in that way. So when a small, personal, human story plays out in the world of sports, the stakes become so high and the drama so big because it's all-or-nothing. It's like we're watching the little dramas of our own lives played out on a stage more spectacular than almost any of us will ever personally experience. So that's a very compelling thing to watch.
We are a nation obsessed with untapped potential. That is never more apparent than our fascination with running back Marcus Dupree.Three decades after his star burned out, when he was barely out of his teens, we are still talking about him.
"The Best That Never Was" a new documentary about Dupree by writer-director Jonathan Hock will be shown on ESPN tonight (8 p.m. ET) as part of their 30 for 30 series.
Hock spoke to Game On! about the documentary.
Why the fascination with Dupree?
I think true greatness at the level of Marcus Dupree happens once a generation. And the idea that his generation, which is my generation, missed out on the one is hard to let go of. As sports fans we wait and wait for a guy like this to show up and when he does… it takes your breath away. And it keeps you coming back every Saturday, and every Sunday, to hope it happens again. What he showed in high school and college promised something that nobody had witnessed before in the NFL and we never got to taste it. You fall in love when you are a kid and its hard to let go of that.
Is this a happy or sad story?
I think it's a sad story about a person who is not sad. I think Marcus has genuine grace about himself. He does not harbor bitterness towards anyone who may have given him good or bad advice. He doesn't bemoan his bad luck. He acknowledges his own bad decisions without dwelling or them or wallowing in remorse. He feels blessed to have enjoyed the moments he was able to enjoy. That is a rare thing. What is so uplifting about the story is that so many of us dwell on what might have been.
When Dupree gets cut by the Rams during his comeback he seems to accept it and we believe him don't we?
That is what makes a very sad story ultimately a very uplifting film to watch. To see the perspective that he has its remarkable. It is as unique as his talent. To find life's blessings and enjoy those rather than dwell on what might have been.
Did you find it jarring that Dupree ended up to be friends with the son of the sheriff entangled in one of the ugliest racial incidents in our history?
I think Marcus led the town of Philadelphia, Miss., a town with a horrible past on its first steps toward reconciliation and leading to a better future. Today, Philadelphia has a black mayor. It is clearly not the town it was in 1964 when Marcus was born. I think it would be naïve to believe that he single-handed made this happen. But I do think it would be missing the point if you didn't acknowledge what this guy did was so extraordinary. What he did on the football field was so powerful, on a level that speaks across politics and beyond politics, and beyond hate and everything else that had brought Philadelphia down, that Marcus Dupree become the point at which black people and white people began to connect in a different way in the public arena. I think that is another thing that is so fascinating about him. It shows that the power of sports to reach across fences. The vagaries of race relations in the South are very deep and very hard to untangle. It is a very complicated situation….things are complicated and I think that the town's awful history, and the many great strides that have been made there, and Marcus's role in that, is something that is too important to ignore. One man's athletic greatness can be a point where people who would otherwise have no place to connect can begin to connect. T
Are there villains in this story?
Marcus story is the anti-Blind Side. Here is a guy who needed just one person who had the wherewithal to take hold of the situation in his best interests. And nobody did. I don't see it as villains but everybody in his life acted in their best interests and not in Marcus' interest. I think that's what people in college athletics do. Everybody is protecting everybody's interests. Who is looking out for the athletes? I think people try, I don't think anybody said in a pernicious way that 'I'm gonna cash in on Marcus and I don't care what happens to him.' Nobody in his life from Barry Switzer to Ken Fairly wanted bad things to happen to Marcus. Everybody loved Marcus. I think everybody in their minds were trying to do the best things for him. But the stakes are so high, and the money so big, and everyone stands to lose so much if it doesn't play out a particular way, you see people begin to act in their own self-interest.
Dupree didn't seem to want to be an NFL lifer did he?
You are talking about a guy whose career was really shipwrecked. ...All he does is go out and play football better than anyone else in the country. Then these forces take over his life. Forces that have lots of money and lots of power behind them. We would like to think he could steer the ships through the rocks…without losing his enthusiasm. I think that because there wasn't anybody to help him steer the ship I think its hard not to wreck and he got wrecked. I think if he had been handled differently and somebody take the wheel with him I don't think he would have gotten burned out. I don't think it would have felt like a curse to him. When he wrecked, I don't think its fair to say he wasn't going anywhere anyway. I think he was just lost so much early than anyone realized…I don't agree that he didn't have it in him to be a lifer in the NFL.
But he was tired of THE game if not the game. Fair?
Then I agree with you. He burned out on the game within the game. But it didn't rob him of his inner grace.
Why do sports stories resonate with us?
It's an interesting question, because this story and the (Luis) Tiant story are human stories first in a sports setting. I don't think of the stories I tell as sports stories. They're human stories about family, about loss and redemption. Marcus was just a guy trying to make his family proud, just like all of us. But sports are an all-or-nothing proposition - being a football player is not like being an accountant or a shopkeeper in that way. So when a small, personal, human story plays out in the world of sports, the stakes become so high and the drama so big because it's all-or-nothing. It's like we're watching the little dramas of our own lives played out on a stage more spectacular than almost any of us will ever personally experience. So that's a very compelling thing to watch.
