Larry Gelwix, the former LDS seminary teacher and unofficial Man of the Hour in
Salt Lake City, says he is enjoying his brush with fame, and so it would seem.
He dipped into his savings to take his family to New York for the premier of
"Forever Strong," the movie about Gelwix and his Highland High rugby team. He
attended another premier in Los Angeles and still another one in Utah.
He has been interviewed by radio, TV, newspaper and magazine reporters from
Texas, California, England, New Zealand, Argentina, New York and Chicago. When a
local reporter called the other day, he was making the rounds of Salt Lake TV
stations and had to check with a PR man to find an opening in his schedule.
"We're having a lot of fun with this," said Gelwix, whose cell phone vibrates
every few minutes during a two-hour interview.
Gelwix is the real-life coach who is portrayed in "Forever Strong" by veteran
actor Gary Cole. In his day job, Gelwix owns a travel agency. In his evening
job, he coaches high school kids.
For 33 of his 58 years, Gelwix has coached Highland's powerhouse rugby team.
It's probably inevitable that rugby, one of the world's most popular sports but
no more than an afterthought in America, would have its turn for a movie
treatment, since every sport from horse racing to cheerleading has already been featured.
Gelwix joins Don Haskins ("Glory Road"), Herman Boone ("Remember the Titans")
and Jack Lengvel ("We Are Marshall") as coaches whose stories are told on the
silver screen.
The answer to your next question: "I am thrilled with the movie," said
Gelwix.
The project began nearly three years ago when screenwriter Dave Pliler and
producer Brad Pelo became so smitten by rugby while filming a movie in New
Zealand that they decided it would be the subject of their next movie. Despite
rugby's status in America as football's ugly stepbrother, Pliler and Pelo wanted
to tell an American story. After consulting rugby aficionados and searching the
Internet, they noticed that the Highland club was the one name that surfaced
repeatedly.
Why wouldn't it? In the past 24 years, Highland has won the national
championship 18 times, finished second five times and third once. The team is so
good that when they finish second, Gelwix is asked, "What happened?" Its
won-loss record is a mind-boggling 379-9 against high school-age competition.
It is 48-17 against college teams.
Pliler and Pelo called Gelwix and requested a 15-minute interview at his
travel agency in Bountiful. It turned into three and a half hours.
"That was the genesis of 'Forever Strong,'" said Gelwix.
At that point, they didn't know what story the movie would tell. Once a week for
nearly two months, they convened groups of current and former Highland players
in Gelwix's Salt Lake home and, with cameras running, simply told them, "Tell us
stories." The movie is a collection of stories gleaned from those interviews,
woven into one season. All of the characters are based on real players, although
some are composites of several players wrapped into one player.
To capture Gelwix on the big screen, they put a microphone and camera on him
during practices and games. Cole also spent time with the coach.
"I was thrilled with the way Gary Cole portrayed me," Gelwix said. "Many of
my players and their parents say he captured my mannerisms. Most of the things
he says in the movie are things I say all the time."
In the basement of his Salt Lake home, Gelwix has a trophy case the size of a
walk-in closet that is packed floor to ceiling with trophies and medals from
three decades of rugby victories.
"Less than half of the trophies are here," he says. "We ran out of room. The
rest are in boxes." He picks up a medal and rubs it between a thumb and finger.
"There are stories behind each award. I remember the kids from each team." Some
of those kids are now in their 50s, and Gelwix is coaching their sons.
Gelwix, an outgoing man with glasses and a thatch of graying hair, was raised
in California, served a mission in the Midwest for The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints and earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Brigham Young
University in organizational communications. He became a Mormon seminary teacher at
Highland High to earn money to pursue a doctorate at Purdue, but his plans
quickly changed.
"I absolutely loved teaching," he said. "It was never work. It was the greatest
thing I ever did. I could influence young people for good."
He was an assistant football coach in the fall and a wrestling coach in the
winter. He missed coaching in the spring, so he decided to start a rugby team,
which doubled as the perfect off-season training program for football.
Gelwix, a former high school wrestler and football player, had been
introduced to rugby at BYU. Some of his friends played on the school's club team
and encouraged him to try out. He played at BYU for three years.
"In those days, if you were living and breathing you could make the team," he
said.
He put up posters in Highland High advertising the start of a rugby team. Six
kids showed up for the first practice. "Only one of them had athletic ability,"
says Gelwix. He recruited enough football players and wrestlers to field a team
of 25 players. It wasn't until 1986 that there was an official national
championship tournament, and that year Highland won the first of its 18 titles.
"The rest is history," the coach said with a smile.
If nothing else, the movie finally gives Highland the attention it deserves.
Despite its remarkable accomplishments and its reputation in rugby circles, the
team has been largely ignored by a national and local media that are preoccupied
with basketball and football. It doesn't help matters that rugby is not an
official high school sport; it is a club sport with no real affiliation to any
school. That means the club must raise funds privately to field a team, and all
11 coaches are strictly volunteers. (Gelwix won't even be paid for the movie.)Gelwix said he quit his teaching job after four years and entered the travel
business in 1979 because, "I had to pay my bills." He eventually became a
founder and principal owner of Morris Travel, which he and his partners sold in
1995. He and partner Mark Falmo started Columbus Travel in 2001.
Gelwix has done a weekly radio travel show under the nickname of the "Travel
Guru," first on KSL for 12 years and now on KNRS for five years running. He also
does a three-minute segment on Wednesday mornings on KUTV.
Gelwix, who has five children with his wife, Cathy, reluctantly gave up
teaching in the classroom to survive financially, but he still teaches on the
field. He believes that what sets Highland Rugby apart from other teams is its
overriding philosophy.
"It's not about rugby," he says. "It's about helping young men grow up with
their feet on the ground and hopefully avoiding a lot of the junk of life. Rugby
is just a vehicle. It's infinitely easier to turn out championship teams than
championship boys."
Gelwix has one primary rule: Don't do anything that would embarrass you, your
family or the team. "Everything is covered by that," he said. More specifically,
alcohol and drugs are forbidden. Lying or dishonesty of any sort is the gravest
sin on the team and results in suspension.
Before the start of each season, Gelwix requires the boys and their parents to
sign a code of conduct. He also requires parents to talk to their children about
team rules.
"I've had wonderful feedback from parents and kids about that," he says.
"I've had fathers tell me they had never felt comfortable talking with their
kids about matters of life or about moral values or behavior, and that this
opened up a whole new relationship between them and their sons. I can't
guarantee that these kids will always make the right decisions, but I can
guarantee they will know the difference between right and wrong."
He suspended a team captain once for cheating in school. "That was hard," he
says. "We don't do it in a vengeful way. We give them extra attention and let
them know we care about them and want them back. It's not a punishment; it's a
consequence."
Once a week, following the most rigorous workout ("they listen better when
they're tired") Gelwix sits his players on the grass and talks about values for
15 minutes. Sometimes that includes role playing in matters of drugs, honesty,
etc.
Gelwix has many favorite sayings and mottoes — "Gelwixisms," the players call
them. The name of the movie is one of them — "kia kaha," which in the Maori
language means "forever strong." The longer version: "Be forever strong on the
field, so that you will be forever strong off the field."
Others: "Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent." "It
doesn't matter who scores, it only matters that we score." "No regrets." "Good
decisions don't make life easy, but they do make it easier." "If you lose your
honor and integrity, you've lost everything." "Attitude and effort are
everything." "If I can't trust you off the field, how can I trust you on the
field?"
Gelwix never cuts players, reasoning that if they are willing to work hard they
deserve to be on the team. It means he must field five teams — two varsity
teams, one junior varsity team and ninth- and eighth-grade teams.
He eschews the traditional, negative, in-your-face coaching style. He often
takes players to lunch, individually or in small groups, to discuss their lives.
"The conversation is not about rugby," he says. "It's about how they're doing
in school and at home."
Former Highland player Bob Nilsen, former president of Burger King and now
co-owner of Cafe Rio restaurants, was once asked at a business gathering in Hong
Kong to name the teacher who had most impacted his life. He named Gelwix.
"This is the real stuff, and it's hard to communicate in a movie without it
being corny, even though the movie is well-done," he said. "Coach Gelwix was our
friend, and he loved us. He's impacted the lives of thousands of kids. My son
plays for him, and the change I have seen in him has been nothing short of
extraordinary."
"Coach Gelwix was very much a mentor," said Morgan Scalley, another former
Highland player who went on to star in football for the University of Utah,
where he is now an assistant coach. "He had the players take ownership of the
team on and off the field — players would hold players accountable. The younger
kids came in watching how the team leaders acted and how they did things the
right way and it set the tone for them."
Certainly, Gelwix is reading these recollections and enjoying them immensely. He
prizes the boxes of letters and e-mails he has collected from former players
that express similarly fond sentiments about their Highland experience.
Years ago he decided "there's a better way to coach." He seems to have found
it.
E-mail: drob@desnews.com