Celluloid Hero : His Smooth Jumper Captures the Moment in ‘Hoosiers’

“I’ll make it.”

--Jimmy Chitwood, “Hoosiers”

Jerry Dawson has officiated dozens of recreation league basketball games at the small Salvation Army gym on Edinger Avenue. But something was bothering Dawson on this April evening, something he couldn’t quite place.

Maris Valainis stood out among the 10 guys playing in the 6-feet-4-and-under league game that night. Dawson recognized that jump shot, the one so perfect it should be cast in gold and sitting atop a trophy.

Ever seen the movie, “Hoosiers,” Jerry?

“ That’s who he is?” Dawson asked. “ He’s Jimmy Chitwood? I thought I’ve seen that jump shot somewhere before.”

It’s hard to forget it if you saw the 1986 movie’s final scene, where Chitwood hit the game-winning jump shot for tiny Hickory High School in the 1952 Indiana State High School championship basketball game.

Same jump shot.

Same player.

But not the same person.

“A lot of people walk up to me after I play, and they’ll say, ‘Hey, you look like that guy from ‘Hoosiers,’ ” Valainis said. “If I’m playing well, I’ll tell them it was me. If I’m not playing well, I tell them it’s not me.”

In the movie, Chitwood hit the winning shot that no doubt propelled him to glory.

In reality, Valainis was cut four times from his high school team in Indianapolis, played golf for a year at Purdue and dropped out as a junior to pursue an acting career that landed him roles that included an ax murderer in a TV series.

Eight years after his first and biggest role, Valainis, 31, works as a golf pro in Mission Viejo and wants nothing to do with the Hollywood scene.

And he’s quite content with playing hoops in a small, dark gym much like the one the Hollywood casting agent discovered him in back in 1985.

But some things never change. Valainis is among the rec league’s scoring leaders, averaging 18 points. His team is in first place.

Valainis made his acting debut in one of the best sports movies of all time. Filmed on a $7.7-million budget, “Hoosiers” has grossed $30 million on the big screen, with millions more in video rentals and sales.

The movie has become a cult favorite with basketball junkies, players and coaches, who show it to motivate their high school and college players.

It inspired Duke center Cherokee Parks, who watched it shortly before his Marina High team played for the 1991 Southern Section I-A championship. Parks shouted, “Hickory!” through an empty L.A. Sports Arena, just as one of the Hickory players had done before the big game.

“It’s amazing,” Valainis said. “I never realized what a motivational thing this movie has become. It’s great that after eight years, people still rent it and like it.

“It’s a little like the ‘Wizard of Oz’ in that it’s set back in another era but is enjoyed today and will be 40 years from now.”

“Hoosiers” is loosely based on the story of tiny Milan High School, which upset powerhouse Muncie Central in the 1954 Indiana state tournament final. The movie was written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh, both Indiana natives.

It’s the story of Norman Dale (Gene Hackman), a temperamental former college coach haunted by memories of punching a player several years before. Hickory, a small town that isn’t used to change, doesn’t exactly put out the welcome mat for its new, volatile coach.

The school’s vice principal (Barbara Hershey) keeps Chitwood, his best player, off the team, encouraging him to pursue an academic scholarship, rather than an athletic one.

As losses pile up, the townspeople grow tired of Dale’s sideline temper. And the fact that he has turned the town drunk (Dennis Hopper) into an assistant coach hasn’t helped, either.

At a meeting, the townspeople voted to fire the coach.

Enter Chitwood.

It seems he has been watching Dale in games and practices and likes what he sees. Chitwood announces: “If I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.”

The coach stays, Chitwood plays, and Hickory goes undefeated the rest of the way.

And for Valainis, it was the basketball championship he never got a chance to play for in high school.

Valainis grew up in Indianapolis, the sixth of seven children. Like most kids in Indiana, he wanted to someday play for the Hoosiers.

“I was a big IU fan,” he said. “My brother was going there in 1975-76, when they had the undefeated team. Every night they played, I would watch it on Channel 4--Kent Benson, Scott May, Quinn Buckner. It was a great team.”

Besides playing basketball, Valainis also found time to hit golf balls at a local course. By 9, he was working as a caddie along with his five brothers, and his swing developed must faster than his jump shot.

Always small for his age, Valainis played on youth basketball teams through the eighth grade. He always shot from his hip because he wasn’t strong enough to shoot a conventional jumper.

“I was only 5 feet 6 by my freshman year,” he said. “And I wasn’t very good.

“I wanted to make the freshman team very badly, so I practiced my shooting every day that summer. That was all I worked on. Finally, I got the ball up over my head when I shot.”

Still, Valainis was cut during his freshman year at Chatard High, a Catholic school of about 800 students. He was cut as sophomore and junior, too. Too short and too slow, he said.

“I finally grew to 6-1 by my senior year,” said Valainis, now 6-2. “But by then, the coach had his team.”

While he struggled in basketball, Valainis made Chatard’s varsity golf team by his sophomore year and played on three city champions.

After graduating in 1981, he joined Purdue’s golf team as a walk-on, playing only one season before quitting to concentrate on his mechanical engineering studies.

His college career came to an end early in 1986 when a casting director for Hoosiers walked into an elementary school gym and spotted Valainis draining jump shots from all over the court.

“This guy walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to try out for a basketball movie,” Valainis said.

He showed up the next day and was greeted by a line of 400 people outside the gym. Get in line, superstar.

“It was nuts,” he said. “I couldn’t wait around four hours. I had a job painting houses, and I had to get to work.”

But just as Valainis began to leave, the casting director emerged from the gym.

“He brought me right in,” Valainis said. “They (casting crew members) had me dribble and shoot for a while, then they invited me back to audition a week later.”

Valainis had no acting experience, not even a credit in a school play. But his audition, basketball skills and his dark, thin features caught the director’s eye.

“I was really nervous for the audition,” he said. “A local TV crew was there filming some of the auditions, and thank God they filmed the guy before me instead of me. I would have been so nervous, I wouldn’t have made it.”

Valainis made it, and so did a handful of other actors who portrayed Hickory players. Most of them were unknowns. Most grew up in Indiana, and all but one, Valainis, played high school basketball.

They practiced together two weeks before filming started in October in Knightstown, Ind., just outside Indianapolis. They installed a few plays to run during the basketball scenes. Hackman arrived early to help the rookies polish their acting skills.

Filming lasted 10 weeks, all of it done on location in Indiana. Days were long, and sometimes tempers flared.

On one particularly frustrating day, Hackman announced to anyone within earshot that the movie would become another “Heaven’s Gate,” considered one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time.

“We figured if anybody would know, it would be him,” Valainis said. “We were sort of surprised by all the success the movie has had.”

Many of the younger actors hung out with Hopper, who told them stories about his early days on the set of “Rebel Without a Cause” with James Dean. To kill time between filming, the players organized free-throw shooting contests and played cards.

“It was pretty laid back,” Valainis said.

The championship game was filmed at Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler University campus. Strangely enough, it was filmed at halftime of a high school game involving Chatard, Valainis’ alma mater.

“The Chatard coach came over and said ‘Hi,’ ” Valainis said, smiling.

The final game scene was one of the toughest to film. The players were exhausted from filming so many basketball scenes. Fans had to be moved to different sections of the arena to make the crowd seem bigger.

And Valainis’ winning jump shot had to be perfect .

It certainly wasn’t during rehearsal, when he missed jumper after jumper.

“I couldn’t hit the side of a barn,” he said.

An impatient Hackman suggested he move closer to the basket.

No need.

Valainis did just what Jimmy Chitwood told his coach he would do: “I’ll make it.” He drilled the shot on the first take. Cut. Print it.

“After I hit the shot, the crowd was supposed to charge on the court,” he said. “During practice, somebody noticed I wasn’t focusing on the basket because I was distracted by the crowd.”

Valainis’ winning shot brought a smile to Bobby Plump, the 57-year-old Indianapolis insurance agent who hit the winning shot for Milan in the 1954 title game. Before filming the final scenes, Valainis studied game films of Plump’s winning basket.

“Maris did a wonderful job as Jimmy Chitwood,” he said. “I know a lot of people in Milan were disappointed when the movie came out, because they didn’t use the town’s name or the school’s name. But I thought it was a fantastic film, and Maris was terrific for a guy who had no acting experience.”

Valainis has never watched the entire film at once. He was too uncomfortable watching himself.

“I don’t know,” he said, “it’s just funny to look at, to see yourself on screen. It’s an ego thing. I’ve become more and more comfortable with it now.”

Valainis missed the premiere of “Hoosiers” in Indianapolis. He moved to Southern California three weeks after filming ended and was “too paranoid” to miss scheduled movie auditions to attend the premiere.

“I was only 23 at the time, and I wanted to give acting a try,” he said. “I figured I was young enough to come back and get my degree.”

He stayed with his sister in Palos Verdes and managed a local golf course to pay the bills. He got an agent, who helped him land a handful of small TV and movie roles, including:

--A role as a Russian student in “Combat High,” a TV comedy about a military school, made in the spirit of the “Police Academy” movies.

--An ax murderer in one episode of a short-lived TV series called “Private Eye.”

--A spot playing basketball in a soft drink commercial that aired in the Midwest.

--A brief appearance as a soldier in “Casualties of War” with Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox. Valainis’ character was blown up in one of the early war scenes.

“I got to go to Thailand for that one,” he said. “I was there five weeks. Then I was laying by the hotel pool one day, and the assistant director came by and said, ‘That’s it. You’re finished.’ ”

Valainis took him literally.

It was his last movie role, although he has dabbled in a few stage productions in Los Angeles. He also auditioned for Woody Harrelson’s role in “White Men Can’t Jump.”

Will he ever give acting another shot?

“I doubt it,” he said. “There’s too much rejection. You get your hopes up for a role, then you don’t get it. I’m happy with what I’m doing now.”

Valainis moved to Costa Mesa in 1992 and has been the head pro and assistant manager at Casta del Sol Golf Course in Mission Viejo for the past year.

He plays hoops in a couple leagues, spends time with his girlfriend and plays golf all day. It’s not Hollywood, but it’s a heck of a good time.

So we know what happened to Valainis, but what became of his character, Jimmy Chitwood?

“Hoosiers” ends with the team celebrating the victory, so are we to assume that his character, Chitwood, landed a scholarship and went on to star in college?

Valainis grins.

“Yeah,” he said, “he went to college.

“Then he dropped out to become a movie star.”