O'Donnell: Jeannie Morris grateful for aftermath of Brian Piccolo's short season
JEANNIE MORRIS WAS trying to link into a Zoom conference this week and her computer wasn't cooperating.
It was frustrating - even though her background knowledge of the subject to be featured was encyclopedic.
The Bears were presenting the annual Brian Piccolo Awards to David Montgomery (rookie) and defensive tackle Nick Williams (veteran), who is now a free-agent signee of the Detroit Lions.
Piccolo was the 26-year-old backup running back who died of testicular cancer 50 years ago this month.
Less than 18 months after his passing, he was brought to celluloid immortality by James Caan in ABC's "Brian's Song," still one of the greatest guy-cry films ever made.
Jack Warden won an Emmy for his portrayal of George Halas and Ed O'Bradovich almost won one for not swallowing either of his two lines as himself.
Screen Gems and the original producers listed the Gale Sayers/Al Silverman collaboration "I Am Third" as the book the telefilm was based upon.
Bears people who lived through the incredibly swift and sad eight-month ordeal from diagnosis to death know otherwise:
The true core source was material used in Morris's brilliant "Brian Piccolo: A Short Season."
She never received a dime from the original classic or its pointless 2001 remake.
"And I've never had a problem with that," she said, now living back in Chicago after 20 years in Seattle working on assorted media projects with daughter Holly Morris.
"The truth is, Al was working with Gale on an autobiography during the 1969 season, when Brian got sick. I was only vaguely aware of that.
"I didn't start out to write a book at all. Johnny (Morris) and I were very close to the Piccolos and Joy came to me during the early stages of Brian's illness and just said, 'The boredom is driving him crazier than the illness. I wish we could do something to fill the empty hours.'
"So I told Brian we should start taping audio of his story so we'd have something to go when he got better. He was all for it.
"Well, he didn't get better. And Johnny and I had a neighbor who was involved with Rand-McNally. He heard about the tapes and suggested I do a book and their trade publications division would publish it."
Silverman - a former editor of the late, lamented Sport magazine - heard of the Sayers-Piccolo back story, as the first interracial road roommates in the NFL.
No dummy, he added a chapter to his Sayers book and Look magazine ran it as an excerpt in late autumn of 1970.
That showcase sparked Hollywood interest. But when the script went into a very quick development, Ed McCaskey strongly urged producers to get a hold of Morris's work.
"In the end, all that mattered was the good that came out of such a tragic tale," Jeannie said.
"The book I wrote stayed in print for more than three decades and has sold an enormous amount of copies (to date, said to be more than 300,000).
"Half of the money went to Joy and the three Piccolo daughters and the other half went to The Brian Piccolo Cancer Foundation, the foundation that has done so much to make the cancer that killed Brian now a very survivable one.
"In his book, even Lance Armstrong acknowledged the work of the Piccolo Foundation in helping him survive his cancer.
"I can still cry when I think of all Brian and Joy and the girls went through. But somehow, I feel extreme gratitude when I think of what's happened since."
STREET-BEATIN': Not one but two major regional sports moguls are in precarious health straits. Friends are bracing and one could have very significant impact on the Chicago sportscape. ...
ESPN's Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa cheatin' harder drew barely 1 million viewers last weekend. (Or approximately 4.5 million less than Michael Jordan looking at a laptop in his living room did.) ...
Many are saying Bob Costas could have had the nutty MLB/MLBPA disconnect fixed before Memorial Day. And he wouldn't have even had to have played his Mickey Mantle card to get it done. ...
The Bearded Insouciant will make an extremely rare broadcast appearances when Rick Kogan moves his "After Hours" to a 7 p.m. start Sunday on WGN-AM (720). (The extraordinarily informed Kogan will be marking the 19th anniversary of the passing of great pal Tim Weigel.) ...
Rocker Jim Peterik is retooling yet another high-horn Bears tune. (Can he marry "Eye of the Tiger" to a Nick Foles offense?) ...
As on-air staffers continues to work from their homes, more spots of odd audio on WSCR-AM (670): Les Grobstein was sounding more like Barry White one recent overnight. ...
And Scott Thomson, on Colin Kaepernick's NFL status, quipped: "Sign him? They should just give him a franchise. That'd be an enlightened remedy."
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.