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Take 5: Football Biopics

BY ANDY EDELSTEIN | andy.edelstein@newsday.com

October 8, 2008

' The Express," which opens Friday, tells the story of Ernie Davis, the Syracuse University running back who, in 1961, became the first black to win college football's prestigious Heisman Trophy. Here are five other notable football biopics:

KNUTE ROCKNE - ALL AMERICAN (1940) - Pat O'Brien starred as the larger-than-life Notre Dame coach. Ronald Reagan played his star running back, George Gipp, whose premature death became the subject of Rockne's legendary "win one for the Gipper" motivational speech. (And of course, President Reagan would often be referred to as "The Gipper.")

JIM THORPE - ALL AMERICAN (1951) - Burt Lancaster played the American Indian athlete who starred as a college and professional football player and major-league baseball player. He was also an Olympic gold medalist (pentathlon and decathlon), who was stripped of his medals when the International Olympic Committee learned he had played pro sports.

BRIAN'S SONG (1971) - Considered a classic TV movie, this drama recounted the friendship between Chicago Bears running backs Brian Piccolo ( James Caan), who was white, and Gale Sayers ( Billy Dee Williams), who was black. The friendship intensified when Piccolo was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

FIGHTING BACK: THE ROCKY BLEIER STORY (1980) - TV movie about the life of the Pittsburgh Steelers running back, played by Robert Urich. After his rookie year in the NFL, Bleier was drafted into the Army. Wounded in Vietnam, he was told he would never walk again. But Bleier defied the odds and returned to help the Steelers win four Super Bowls.

GRAMBLING'S WHITE TIGER (1981) - Bruce Jenner played quarterback Jim Gregory, the first white to play football for historically black Grambling University, who was the object of derision from both whites and blacks. Harry Belafonte played the legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson.