Autry Tries to Rewrite Script From NCAA

Want to see Darnell Autry in a movie? No problem.

Video stores all over Chicago are selling “Taking the Purple to Pasadena,” starring Autry as a sophomore who carries Northwestern on his back to the Big Ten championship and a game against USC in the Rose Bowl. The cost is $20, with profits going to the school’s athletic department.

It’s his first feature film. The NCAA says “The 18th Angel” won’t be his second.

On Wednesday, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Durkin blocked the NCAA from suspending Autry or stripping his two remaining seasons of eligibility, which it threatened to do if he appears in the Ryscher Entertainment film, “The 18th Angel,” which is in production in Rome.

The temporary restraining order lasts 10 days, and Autry has a Saturday deadline with Ryscher to accept the role and risk the NCAA pushing the matter further in court, threatening his eligibility again.

“We don’t know what he will do,” said Maureen Ward Kirby, one of two attorneys representing Autry. “That’s going to be up to him.”

Durkin has scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday to determine whether to convert the temporary order into a permanent one.

Autry, a drama major at Northwestern who wants a movie career, has been offered a part in the film, which has been described as a supernatural thriller and stars Maximilian Schell and Stanley Tucci.

He cannot be paid, because NCAA rules do not allow athletes to work for pay during the school year. Ryscher had offered to fly him to Rome during spring vacation, film his scenes and return him to Evanston, Ill.

When the NCAA objected, Autry took a two-day bus trip home to Tempe, Ariz. And he got a Chicago lawyer.

The offer is still open, but the film is scheduled to be completed on June 5, before the end of the school year.

“He will not be in uniform, it has nothing to do with athletics, there is no footage of him playing football, it has nothing to do with sports,” said Kirby, who along with Pete Rush is representing Autry.

In the film, a widowed professor moves with his daughter to Italy, where they meet the devil.

No, a football coach was not hired to play the devil, although he could have been. NCAA rules do not prohibit coaches from appearing in films, and plenty of them have, including Bob Knight of Indiana and Jerry Tarkanian of Fresno State.

Taking the rules a step further, if “The 18th Angel” were being filmed for television rather than theaters, Autry could appear and, if it was done during summer vacation, be paid for it.

“You can work during the school year and not be paid for it, cut grass or whatever,” Rush said. “But you can’t act in a movie without pay?”

Judy Schwam of Ryscher Entertainment said she did not know how Autry became involved in the project. But in an affidavit, the film’s director, William Bindley, said he had seen Autry in television interviews during the football season and was impressed with Autry’s “poise, presence, projection and demeanor.”

Bindley is a product of Northwestern, as are Charlton Heston and Ann-Margret.

In another court affidavit, Northwestern theater professor Les Hinderyckx called Autry “a serious theater student” and added that the movie opportunity would “contribute strongly toward his major program in theater.

“This is the kind of opportunity that I would encourage Darnell or any other theater student to take advantage of as a significant start for his career.”

The NCAA is concerned with uniformity.

“We want to enforce the rules,” said Bedell Tippins, a lawyer representing the NCAA. “There are 11,000 or 12,000 member schools who like to see some consistency in the application of the rules and not a carved out, isolated exception of the rules.”

Autry has been advised by counsel to stay mum.

“I really don’t know what’s going on,” Autry told the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, after a spring practice session. “I’m just going along with the punches.”

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The Rule

Footage of an institution’s intercollegiate game or event or of the individual performance of a student-athlete may not be used in a commercial movie unless all individuals appearing in the footage have exhausted their seasons of eligibility.

--NCAA Bylaws, 12.5.2.3.4