De La Salle movie shines spotlight on Eidson

Terry Eidson and Bob Ladouceur portrayed by Hollywood stars
When Terry Eidson began coaching football at De La Salle High School in 1981 — as an assistant junior varsity coach — he would have been hard pressed to imagine that as he prepares for his 34th season at the Concord Catholic school he would have an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor portraying him in a highly-acclaimed major motion picture.
Eidson, a Concord resident, was accompanied by wife Aggie, their daughters Kayleigh and Therese, and other family members earlier this month on the red, er, green carpet for the Hollywood premiere of “When The Game Stands Tall,” a TriStar movie chronicling the record-breaking 151-game winning streak from 1992-2003 that brought De La Salle football to the forefront of the American sports scene.
“The carpet was actually green football turf,” Eidson said about the Hollywood premiere with star Jim Caviezel (who players Spartans head coach Bob Ladouceur), director Thomas Carter, producer David Zelon and several young actors, including Alexander Ludwig and Jesse Usher, who portray De La Salle players.
Ladouceur and Eidson have coached together for 32 years at De La Salle (Eidson was promoted to head JV coach for his second and third years and has been on the varsity staff ever since). They are central figures in the movie based on the 2003 book of the same name by former Contra Costa Times columnist Neil Hayes. Each is credited as a consultant on the film as well.
Michael Chiklis, who won Emmy and Golden Globe awards for his portrayal of Detective Vic Mackey in the groundbreaking series “The Shield,” plays Eidson in the film. Hayes was thrilled with the casting.
“From the moment he came on set, Mike had Terry down,” Hayes says. “Bob and Terry are almost yin and yang: Bob’s introverted and quiet, while Terry is extroverted and loud and since they’ve been together coaching for 32 years, they’re like an old married couple. There’s some real humor in the way they needle each other and have a good time together – and Mike got that. He brought energy, comedy and a really fun element.”
Long history together
The coaches met the summer before Edison began at DLS. They were in a dorm at St. Mary’s College. Edison was just out of college and in a program with the Christian Brothers that he thought would lead to him joining that religious order and Ladouceur was taking a workshop on the Moraga campus. “We hit it off real well,” Eidson recalls. The two are religious studies teachers at DLS.
“Bob was outgoing and funny when we were at St. Mary’s,” he adds. “Then I went to De La Salle and thought, ‘he’s not so talkative on campus.’ I thought it was kinda weird.”
All these years later “Coach Lad” is still the quiet one and Eidson is the loud and wildly-gesticulating sidekick.
Hayes spent every single day before and during the 2002 De La Salle season, which began with them having won 125 games in a row — far and away the longest streak in major American sports history. He attended every meeting, practice and game and “When The Game Stands Tall” was the resultant book.
The winning streak finally ended with the first game of the 2004 season in Washington. Earlier that year one of the school’s greatest players, Terrance Kelly, was murdered in Richmond the night before he was to leave for a college football career at the University of Oregon. Ladouceur had had a heart attack that previous New Year’s Eve. These factors inspired Hayes to write an additional chapter for the paperback edition.
Intriguing friendship
Chiklis, who grew up playing football, hockey and baseball, says, “I was thinking about the things I’d like to accomplish in the second half of my career and I was looking to do something more inspirational. And it was just incredible how the door that opened was this story.”
He was immediately intrigued by the friendship between Terry and Bob. “Terry is much more demonstrative, but they complement each other as opposite sides of the coin.” Chiklis also loved that the story is not the expected tale of sports triumph. “I love that this movie takes place at the end of the Spartans’ streak, at that moment when the whole team is suddenly facing adversity,” he says. “That makes it something really special.”
Eidson, 56, is very impressed how the filmmakers captured the essence of the De La Salle program, mission and philosophy. “Bob and I are pretty happy about that.”
He was equally impressed with the football action. “They used ex-college players and they were not playing around. There’s some good contact and live hitting.”
Ladouceur and Eidson went to New York before this year’s Super Bowl for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes dinner with 2000 people. They got to see the first cut of the movie then and hadn’t seen it again until the premiere. “The music changed and it’s fantastic,” Edison adds. Sports luminaries Vin Scully and Jerry West extol the movie’s virtues on Facebook where “When The Game Stands Tall” has over 136,000 likes.
Edison’s biggest relief at the premiere was that Aggie’s brief cameo with Laura Dern (who plays Ladouceur’s wife, Bev) wasn’t cut from the final version.

Three showings of “When The Game Stands Tall” benefitting the Terrance Kelly Youth Foundation will be held this Sunday, Aug. 17, at 1, 1:20 and 1:40 p.m. at Century Blackhawk Plaza. The movie opens nationwide Aug. 22 including at the Brenden Theatres in Concord.