MOBILE, Ala. ? Over the past couple of years, former South Alabama basketball player Dean Marshman has made his way back to the “Port City” in hopes of giving something back to both the campus and the city of Mobile ? two places that found a special place in the former Jag’s heart. 

Marshman, who now goes by the name Shane Dean professionally, lettered under men’s basketball head coach Ronnie Arrow from 1992-95.  Dean came to South Alabama after earning high school All-American honors at Mt. Vernon High School in Mt. Vernon, N.Y.  As a senior, Dean capped off a perfect 27-0 record with a state championship and helped lead the Knights to a Top 20 ranking in USA Today.

After graduating from South Alabama in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science ? Management degree, Dean began his career journey, one which didn’t start out in cinema.

 “I started off doing a modeling shoot, but I worked on a film called ?Instinct’.” Dean said.  “I was an actor, but at the same time that was my first time working behind the scenes.  Cuba Gooding Jr. and Anthony Hopkins starred in the film and the director Jon Turteltaub for some reason would let me stay around for the set ups.  While doing that, I realized that this was a dream of mine.”

During his nine-year career in the film industry, Dean has taken many things from his athletic career that have helped him in the industry, but one of the most notable to the young filmmaker has been in the area of preparation.

“Both definitely take a type of premeditation and a plan of action on what you want to do before you do it,” Dean said.  “You definitely have to have a plan and that is where it carries over to basketball.  You go into the game having a plan or strategy on how to win the game, and with film making, you go into it with a plan on what you think will make your movie successful.”

In his latest production, “The Saints of Mt. Christopher”, Dean finds a personal connection with his character ? Dreese Williams.

“I would say that the movie is somewhat taken from my personal experiences.  The character that I play is a high school kid named Dreese Williams that is fighting to get a scholarship and help his family.  He is basically working very hard on his basketball game to make things better at home.  That is a lot of the types of situations that come out of New York basketball.  The kids are trying to get out of the ghetto to make things better at home.”

For his first movie in which he has pulled the triple role of acting, directing and producing, Dean’s choice to come back to Mobile and the university was two-fold.

“I came back to the area first for the storyline.  The storyline is a Louisiana-based story and Mobile and the state of Alabama have the same type of “look” as Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast.  I felt that doing this would bring some notoriety to my school and at the same time, I wouldn’t be shooting in a place that I wasn’t familiar with.  I was very familiar with the arena and everybody there from my time here earlier in life and I just thought that it would be a great thing to put South Alabama on the map in the film.”

The Saints of Mt. Christopher is a story that centers on three main characters.  One of the characters is Phil Nevers, a coach at the University of South Alabama, who has his star player die of a heart attack.  There are allegations that the coach probably had known that the player had a heart condition, but played him anyway.  The coach leaves the school and gets in a situation where he is down in his life.  He loses his wife and his job and he is trying to climb back from that and get back into coaching, which he does at Mt. Christopher University.  The University has decided to reinstate its athletic program and hires Nevers to jump-start the program and validate its existence. 

The story also centers around two student-athletes ? Williams and Matthew Salter.  Williams is an African-American kid from Pelican, La., who comes from a poor background and is looking to get a basketball scholarship in order to help his family’s situation.  Salter is a white teen who moves to the south to live with his father in Louisiana and ends up at the same high school as Williams.  While at the predominantly black high school, the pair become best friends amid racial tensions at the school.  Upon receiving his scholarship to play at Mt. Christopher, Williams gets his friend a try out for the team, in which Salter earns a spot on the roster.

Upon his arrival at USA, Dean learned many things that shaped his life ? both on and off the court.

 “It was definitely intense to play for coach Arrow,” Dean said of his collegiate career.  “It was the best of both worlds.  (Arrow) definitely pushed education and sports.  The biggest thing that I got from the situation was how to endure through things.  Playing for Ronnie was about playing with mental toughness.  Whether it was on the floor or off it, he really stressed mental toughness.  The business that I am in is very challenging and it is hard to make a feature film, especially on an independent budget.  We were fortunate to get two stars in Tom Sizemore and Clifton Powell.  My staff has really put some hard work into the making of the movie and I can say that the things that I learned here have carried a long way.”

Fans of cinema should be familiar with the two co-stars as Sizemore has stared in movie such as “Saving Private Ryan,” “Blackhawk Down,” and “Pearl Harbor”, while Powell has been seen in “Ray” and “Next Friday.”

For some of the early scenes of the movie, Dean returned to the Mitchell Center to shoot crowd footage, filming on two occasions ? at the New Orleans game on Feb. 28 during the 2007-08 season and at the Arkansas game on Nov. 26 during the 2008-09 season.  This past spring, Dean also returned to downtown Mobile and shot some of the final scenes of the movie on several locations around the city.

Dean ? the CEO and co-founder of Bases Loaded Unlimited production company ? hopes to release the movie sometime during the 2009-10 season.

“We aren’t sure of the exact date yet, but are definitely looking at doing it during the basketball season,” Dean said.  “Hopefully our release date will be right around the start of ?March Madness’.  That would be perfect!”

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com.  Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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