Latest on Elder Rice's Football team and the movie!

(PRNewsChannel) / June 07, 2010 / IDAHO FALLS, Idaho / Here Coach Darin Owens of Hillcrest High School is already a miracle worker and a hero to so many students and their parents, but soon the world will know how Coach Owens turned a team on a 24-game losing streak into state champions. That extraordinary story caught the attention of Hollywood and it will be turned into a movie for the big screen.

“This is an incredible story that will resonate anywhere. Anyone who loves football and a beating-the-odds story will love this one,” says Glenn Selig, who represents Owens and is founder of The Publicity Agency.

The film from Lightwave Entertainment, which has just begun the script development phase, will chronicle Owens’ life, career and coaching philosophy and focus on how Owens’ dedication led the Hillcrest High varsity team to pull off its first state championship in such an uncanny fashion.

When Owens took over as coach in 2008, the Hillcrest Knights had lost two dozen consecutive games. The team managed to score only a total of three touchdowns the entire 2007 season.

Prior to arriving at Hillcrest, Owens coached at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, Calif. where he turned that team around. He then turned around Northgate High School’s football program in Walnut Creek in 2007. Owens’ coaching efforts reversed the team's 13-game losing streak.

"What Coach Owens accomplished here in Idaho he had done twice before in California," said Charles Shackett, Bonneville Joint School District No. 93 Superintendent, in a recent email to staff. "At the time of that success, there was speculation on a book or movie, so I suppose with what he has accomplished here, it sealed the deal."

Selig says the fact that this is the third time Owens has managed to take a team from last to first makes the coach’s incredible story stand out from Hollywood’s other football classics like Friday Night Lights, Remember the Titans and Varsity Blues.

Lightwave expects to begin production on the film later this year.