Denise La Grassa Producer’s Notes
When my year-long assignment as television producer of WILL’s Central Illinois WWII Stories came to an end, WILL-TV asked if I might be interested in shifting gears to begin work on a documentary. I was asked to join forces with John Paul, original producer/creator of a project about the history of Memorial Stadium. I was eager to participate — to rise-up from the foxholes and transition into a sporty kind of battle story. In our new project, skirmishes would be replaced by scrimmages . And in the story of the stadium, tactical counter-forces came from one of the mightiest of weapons on Memorial Stadium’s Zuppke Field , Dick Butkus.
It became clear at the start that our story was not about football really, but about people — those who played a unique role in building the stadium and creating the foundation of what we know today as intercollegiate football.
In the making of our documentary, we were forced to leave behind interview footage that didn’t quite fit in. Check out a few of of my favorite interview out-takes.
