Details lend authenticity to football player’s story

It isn’t difficult to see the similarities between Gary Donatelli and Travis Freeman.

On the football field, both were offensive linemen. And once Donatelli starting playing at Indiana University, both wore red jerseys.

Both were high school standouts, though for different reasons. Donatelli was also a highly ranked heavyweight wrestler and a Chicago Tribune all star. Freeman played high school football despite going blind at age 12.

“Having played football, the thought of stepping onto a football field without vision would be more of a horror movie if it were my story,” Donatelli said. “He’s a real courageous young man.”

Donatelli is a producer of the film “23 Blast,” which is based on Freeman’s life. It opens today. “Blast” is Donatelli’s first feature film credit after a long career in television, including directing soap operas “Another World” and “One Life to Live,” which he saw through the series finale.

In the film, Travis Freeman is a star high school football player in a small Kentucky town. The real Freeman, now 33 years old and an adjunct professor at the University of the Cumberlands, grew up in Corbin, Kentucky. Freeman was going into seventh grade when he contracted cavernous sinus thrombosis, a severe sinus infection that reached its most serious stage.

Doctors told Freeman and his parents that 70 percent of people with his diagnosis die. Instead, Freeman said he became the second person in the world to have the infection only affect his eyes. In less than 48 hours, he went from 20/20 vision to total blindness.

“I was laying on my deathbed. Medically, there’s no reason I should have walked out of the hospital,” Freeman said. “But God had a plan, and God was working his plan and that was part of it for me.”

It took a year for Freeman to acclimatize to society without vision. His parents knew that their son, who had played football before he lost his sight, missed the sport. His mother asked the Corbin High School football coach, Willard Farris, if Freeman could work out with the team or serve as equipment manager.

“Coach Farris looked at my mom and said, ‘No,’ ” Freeman said. “If Travis Freeman does anything for this team, he’s going to play.”

Freeman learned how to play center for the Corbin High Redhounds without the ability to see his teammates or opposing players. The center stands in the middle of the offensive line and snaps the ball to the quarterback to start a play.

“It’ll just be like anyone else blocking,” Freeman said Farris told him.

“23 Blast” was filmed on location in Corbin, where locals filled the high school stadium as extras for the game scenes.

“It gave it an authenticity we couldn’t have gotten it anywhere else,” Donatelli said. “They love their team, but also they really love Travis.”

“23 Blast” came into being partially because of how special Freeman’s story is to the people of Corbin. Toni Hoover, the film’s writer, lived and raised her family in Corbin, including her son, Bram Hoover.

Bram Hoover moved to Los Angeles to follow his dream of acting but wasn’t landing the roles he wanted.

“What is a mother to do but buy the rights to a local story, co-write the script with that son, Bram, and then take it around to see if there’s anyone who could take it around and make it happen?” Donatelli said. “Now, her son Bram is going to be seen in 600 theaters.”

In the film, Bram Hoover plays Jerry Baker, who is Freeman’s best friend and teammate. 

Another football friendship brought a second IU alumnus to “23 Blast.” Though he started at IU as a scholarship athlete, Donatelli said he wanted to be seen as an artist, not a jock. He played football with the Hoosiers from his freshman year in 1969 to his sophomore year, when he quit the team to focus on wrestling and his arts degree.

“I didn’t want to break my fingers,” Donatelli said.

A walk-on named David Spungen took Donatelli’s place on the offensive line. Years later, Spungen and Donatelli met in New York, where they were both working in television and sports.

“I always felt like I had owed him a bit of something,” Spungen said.

Through the years, Spungen and Donatelli remained in touch and professionally “wound up filling the blanks in each other’s lives,” Spungen said. Spungen worked as an additional editor on the film, and his company, Creative Scenarios, created the film’s electronic press kit.

“Here we were working on a movie together about offensive linemen; here we are offensive linemen. It’s why we become friends in first place; it always felt right,” Spungen said.