She’s shed a few tears over ‘Brian’s Song’

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It was worrisome for a moment to click on Randy Harvey’s post this morning about the top 12 sports movies that begat tears because I was worried ‘Brian’s Song’ would not be first. That is the crying-est movie, sports or non-sports, ever.

My mother, sisters and I watched it the night it made its television debut, and we weren’t sure what to expect. It was about the Bears, Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, and the friendship that developed between the black football star and his workmanlike white teammate.

And it was about football. And the Bears. So we settled down to watch this sports movie (in suburban Chicago).

It took about 10 minutes for the movie to make one sister cry (she cried at every showing of ‘Wizard of Oz’ because of how mean those flying monkeys were). So that wasn’t a true test. But within 20 minutes my mom, my other sister and I were all weeping.

My dad (the poor Cubs fan some of you met last week) walked into the living room with about 10 minutes left in the movie. He was frightened by all the loud sobbing. He yelled, ‘What’s wrong?’ Not one of us could choke out anything but sobs, so his next question was, ‘What are you watching?’ One of us managed to say, ‘The movie about the Bears.’

Dad rolled his eyes and shrugged as if to say, ‘If it were about the Cubs I’d get it.’ Then he got his own dinner.

Still can’t watch that movie without a box of Kleenex.

-- Diane Pucin