TRM’s Riggs collecting TRM football films and videos for special project slated to come out in July
Ever wanted to have the chance to watch any and every football game that T.R. Miller has played in? You can have that chance, but head coach Jamie Riggs needs your help to have that opportunity.
“We are going to do a video project and our goal right now is to gather as much film and video of T.R. Miller football games that we can possibly can,” T.R. Miller head football coach Jamie Riggs said. “What we are going to do is make this stuff available to people on the internet as well as you can get DVDs of certain games if you want to do that. We are really excited about it and think it will be a great thing.”
Riggs says he hopes to eventually to have every T.R. Miller football game that they have access to, out there to the public.
“What we are doing right now is gathering everything that we can and that is where I need help,” he said. “Right now we have just about every game on video since I came here 24 years ago. I have not inventoried everything yet, and we may be missing a game here and there, but I probably can put my hand on it. The thing is with video, we always made copies, so there are copies out there. There is video out there if I am missing something from the last 24 years or so. We started videoing in 1990 with some being done in 1989. Prior to 1990, we filmed all the games with 16 MM film canisters. We have gathered all these ones we have.”
Back then, games were filmed by halves. Games would be filmed with the first half separate from the second.
“The photographer did his best to cut it as tight as he could because you only had so much film and it only lasted about a half,” Riggs said. “A lot of times, there are not much of the players in the huddle or anything because you were scared you were not going to have enough film to get the first half. At halftime, he would change the film and then you would have the film processed. In those days, you never really got the film from the game until Saturday night. We had to send it to Mobile on the bus and then get it back that night. When we started gathering what we had, we realized we only had half of the games. We might have the first on some then the second half on others.”
Riggs mentions that sometimes players, when they filmed, would “borrow” film of their senior years and never return it.
“I am putting out a call to anyone who has film that says T.R. Miller on it, I would appreciate if they would bring it back,” he said with a chuckle. “Some of it has been lost, but some has been around with some people having it. We want to gather all the film and send it off and get it on DVDs or hard drives and then we can load it on the computer for people to review.”
The project will be done through T.R. Miller’s video service Hudl.
“We are going to use them and have people pay a subscription fee and they will have access to every T.R. Miller film that we have access to, which will be several hundred games,” Riggs said. “In addition to that, we will provide some things from the current season of 2013 that they will have access to. Anything that we film and put on the internet, people will have access to. We hope it will be a great deal. So if you have been cleaning out an old closet and find an old film with T.R. Miller written on it, bring it my the field house. I would appreciate it.”
Riggs also mentioned that ff there are certain games people would like that they have certain memories of or want a copy, they can get those on DVD once they digitalize everything.
“We are going to do the same thing with the ones we have on video,” he said. “We are going to get it all on the computer and digitalize it. It is a lot of film. We have film from all the way back to 1962. So we have a span of 50 years. If there are films out there before 1962, we would like that too. We are missing a lot of film from 1974 to 1984. I have spotted film here and there. The film that we have found is surprisingly in good condition. Some is over 40 years old. Just because we have film canisters that say T.R. Miller and Evergreen 1970 does not mean it was that game. We had to go back and verify it all. As we did that, we got an old 16 MM projector and we started to go at it. We believe all of the films will look good. A lot don’t last real long because they were cutting corners on film. You can see a whole game in 25 minutes—every play of the game.”
Riggs said as they started viewing the films, there was more than the games on the films. “Some showed people on the sidelines and some in the stands,” he said. “That is interesting. We have some games filmed prior to 1965, which means they were filmed at the old stadium where the current Brewton Elementary School is. That is good for us who remember the old stadium. You can see the stands and different things. Also, we have video from the spring of 1965 and it is a scrimmage game in the afternoon of the old stadium. You can see cars going down the street, the coaches, the managers and the fans in the stand. It is interesting and I hope it will be something folks will be interested in.”
The project is hoped to be finished by this summer.
“People will hear more about it, but hopefully by the first of July we will have it available,” Riggs said. I have contacted the other teams and coaches we played against to see if they have any film of when they played us. If they have film of ours, if they send it to me, I will send them some of it. Also, if folks have smart phone, once we get it loaded through Hudl, they can get that app and watch it on their phones.”
If anyone locates any T.R. Miller film, Riggs asks they bring it to him at the field house at the school. For more information, contact Riggs at the field house at 251-867-8436.