KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you’re of a certain age and time, one sports movie still stands out above all others. “Brian’s Song” made its debut on ABC on Nov. 30, 1971, when I was an impressionable fifth grader and among the millions weeping — even as it also offered a profound social statement for its time in the most-watched made-for-TV movie ever made.
On the occasion of Gale Sayers’ death on Wednesday at age 77, that’s as much or more of his legacy than being the Kansas Comet.
Or the human highlight reel that he became with the Chicago Bears (eluding the Chiefs for the NFL team after they made him the fifth overall pick in the 1965 AFL draft).
And becoming at age 34 after an injury-sabotaged career the youngest man ever inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
When I hear Sayers’ name, I think first of “Brian’s Song” and his relationship with Brian Piccolo. Put aside some fictionalized aspects, and the appalling use of the N-word.
The essence of it was pure and groundbreaking.
Because it gave us all a chance to consider how much more it unites us than divides us and served as a powerful testimonial to how sports can bridge the divide in race relationships.
As we are again, or still, embroiled in matters of racial injustice in this country, that relationship speaks anew to an ideal we’ve yet to realize but serves again now as a reminder of what could and should be in a common cause.
“It’s still one of the movies, you watch it today, you cry,” Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said Wednesday.
He later added, “At a time when that really wasn’t kosher, those two bonded at a level that speaks purely of humanity and nothing else.
“Color is of no significance when you have a bond like that. That’s your brother. … And you had not seen those kinds of relationships in that manner on TV too often at that time.
“You definitely took that to heart.”
The movie, starring Billy Dee Williams as Sayers and James Caan as Piccolo, depicted the deep friendship forged between Sayers and Piccolo as they became what is widely believed to be the first interracial roommates in the NFL … even as they were competing for a job with the Bears and came from vastly different backgrounds.
The 26-year-old Piccolo had died of cancer in 1970, three weeks after the normally subdued Sayers had overwhelmed the audience at the Pro Football Writers Awards Dinner in New York — as told in wonderful detail by my friend and former Star writer Mike Vaccaro for the New York Post in May on the 50th anniversary of the dinner.
After coming back from a horrendous knee injury in 1968, Sayers was receiving the George S. Halas Most Courageous Player trophy when he deflected the spotlight to Piccolo.
“In the middle of last season, Brian was struck down by the deadliest, most shocking enemy any of us can ever face — cancer,” Sayers told the suddenly rapt audience.
Then he extolled Piccolo’s courage and memorably added, “You flatter me by giving me this award, but I tell you here and now that I accept it for Brian Piccolo. Brian Piccolo is the man of courage who should receive the George S. Halas Award. It is mine tonight, it is Brian Piccolo’s tomorrow.
“I love Brian Piccolo, and I’d like all of you to love him, too. And tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him.”
Those last words came back to me in a different way in 2017, when I had the piercing privilege of spending time with a declining Sayers and his wife, Ardie. Through mutual friends, I sat with them as he was honored in Topeka by the Native Sons and Daughters of Kansas as one of its Kansans of the Year.
Pleasant as he was, he spoke little and I knew he was in the throes of a cognitive battle that had not been publicly clarified. But I wasn’t ready for what happened during a KU-produced tribute that included NFL and Jayhawks highlights and clips from “Brian’s Song.”
As he gazed toward the screen, it seemed he wasn’t fully following what was unfolding.
This wasn’t something the family wanted to share then. But a few weeks later, Ardie thought otherwise and I spent a day with them at their home in Wakarusa, Ind.
She came to believe it was important to dispel false impressions people might have had about Sayers over the four years since he had been diagnosed with dementia — the onset of which she believed may have begun as far back as 2009.
“People must know,” she said then.
It also was important, she said, for the sake of others similarly afflicted and their families so they can know how important it is to stay vigilant. She also wanted to speak about the apparent role of football in this.
“Like the doctor at the Mayo Clinic said, ‘Yes, a part of this has to be on football,’ ” Ardie Sayers said, adding, “It wasn’t so much getting hit in the head … It’s just the shaking of the brain when they took him down with the force they play the game in.”
Sayers, alas, scarcely spoke during the seven hours I was with them. But as ever, there was something inspiring in the Gale Sayers experience.
As she resolved to laugh to keep from “crying all the time” and did all she could to put him at ease and help him exercise his mind, Ardie provided a profile in courage herself.
And there was this moment in their basement: As Ardie spoke of “Brian’s Song,” Gale walked over to look at a picture of Piccolo.
And it made me feel like deep inside he’ll always know what that relationship meant to so many, something I felt, too, in his sweet smile when we said goodbye. Something that transcends time and place now.
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