Bennett films up-close look at Bullpups football team

Prayer and profanity have an allegiance in the locker room.

It’s something Denise Bennett understood as an athlete and something she wanted to delve deeper into as a documentary film maker.

Bennett, who teaches video production at the University of Idaho, followed the high school careers of the Gonzaga Prep Class of 2009 football players, starting with their freshmen season in 2005.

“I thought there might be interesting tensions between the religious and the secular,” she said of her subject. “I’ve always been fascinated by documentaries that look at subjects’ lives over a period of time.”

Bennett, who graduated from G-Prep in 1992, heard coaches implore: “Our Lady Queen of Victory, pray for us.”

“I don’t think that is as ironic as when a coach shouts at the end of a prayer, ‘Let’s go out there and kick some ass!’ ” Bennett said. “There is definitely some irony. It might be a wake-up call to them, ‘This is how we do things.’ I don’t think they’re aware of it and I don’t think they mean it in a mean-spirited way. I think it’s gone on for so long, that’s the way it is.”

The end result is “Pups,” a 28-minute film, a coming-of-age story laced with profanity and off-color, locker-room humor.

“What surprised me is boys sports are much different than girls sports and probably specifically football,” she said. “I think the emotional attachment these young guys have to the sport and to the team are different to what you see in girls sports.

“Some of the shocking things were the way the locker room smells and the way they kidded around with each other. That was different than what I experienced personally.”

“Pups” premiers at noon Saturday at the Magic Lantern Theatre as part of the Spokane International Film Festival. There are bound to be a few uncomfortable moments.

“I’m not sure how the school’s going to react, but I think it’s an honest representation about the way kids are,” Bennett said. “The profanity is a way to show they’re growing up.

“I think specifically the stuff on the bus when they’re joking around … is their way to show camaraderie in a weird sense. They razz someone … it just shows they like them.”

Although she originally envisioned a feature-length film with a large cast, she ended up focusing on Anthony Luna, Connor Roff, her nephew Dirk Bennett and John Lampert.

“Those are the kids I had access to the most that I thought played well on camera,” she said. “I also think they were an interesting illumination on the stereotypes you think of when you think of football players.”

“I’m hoping my aunt doesn’t get sued,” said Dirk Bennett, now an Arizona State student. “My parents are cool. They should be all right. My dad has been in that situation before. He played at Prep and then at Stanford. They know the traditions.”

Luna, who comes off as the most irreverent of the teenagers, is attending Oregon. Lampert is at Idaho and Ruff is playing baseball at a junior college in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Ruff said he wasn’t too worried about his mother’s reaction.

“That kind of comes hand-in-hand with playing football and being with 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds,” he said. “I think the main thing that can be taken out of it is how close all of us got to be and how much of an impact playing football with each other made on all of our lives. It made us better people, stronger people.”

The process was never a distraction, according to Dirk Bennett.

“She’s a cool lady,” he said. “All the guys liked her, all the coaches liked her. She pretty much acts like one of us, to be honest with you. Whenever the camera was around everybody had to come around by us so they could get their 15 minutes of fame.”

One reason the film isn’t longer is because the Bullpups missed the playoffs in 2008. The film ends when their hopes are dashed by a one-point loss to Central Valley, although there are two games left to be played.

“I had a longer cut, but I don’t think it sustained a general audience’s interest,” she said. “I tried to follow more kids, more coaches. A lot of kids I focused on ended up on the cutting room floor. That’s the challenge of making documentaries. It didn’t have that epic moment.”

But “Pups” definitely has its moments.