Jacksonville will soon become the set of a true-story movie involving a local football mom.
A Hollywood screenwriter was in town Monday afternoon scoping a filming location at EverBank Field.
The story begins in 2007. Jacksonville mom Cathy Parker heard about the isolated community of Barrow, Alaska, and its effort to start a high school football program. Town leaders were trying to address the high school’s problem with drugs and a 50 percent dropout rate.
The kids were playing on an icy, rocky field, so from Florida, Parker raised money and got them an artificial turf.
“It was paid for by donations,” Parker says. “It happened just by people like myself and like you, people that just wanted to help, and many of the funds came out of Jacksonville, and the story went national and we started getting money from people all over the country.”
A new movie called "Touchdown on the Tundra" will tell the story. On Monday, Parker stood in front of EverBank Field, where some scenes will be shot.
“Well that’s one of my favorite parts of the whole story was having the team from Barrow come to Jacksonville and participate with our kids and learn how to play,” she says. “As a mom raising athletes, — and I have four of them — you want to teach them that the gifts that they’ve been given are not just for them. You want them to share those gifts with others.”
The Alaskan team participated in Bartram Trail High’s spring training and took a trip to see the Jaguars train and meet the players.
Screenwriter and producer Brian Bird says this is the type of story he likes to work on: true and uplifting.
“It is like ‘Blindside.’ We really see it as our ‘Blindside’ kind of movie,” he says. “It’s that level of a story. I feel very confident that we’re going to have some really good actors that want to be in this movie.”
No one’s been cast yet, but Bird says he anticipates many local folks’ getting screen time as well.
He says aside from EverBank scenes he anticipates a Jacksonville high school scene, a beach scene and a gator farm scene.
