Norman Jetmundsen and collaborators work on documentary film ‘Sewanee 1899 Unrivaled’
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Photos courtesy Norman Jetmundsen.
A stained-glass window in All Saints Chapel at The University of the South at Sewanee honoring the 1899 Sewanee football team.
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Photos courtesy Norman Jetmundsen.
Above: An illustration by Birmingham artist Ernie Eldridge depicting Sewanee’s game against Auburn University in Montgomery on Thanksgiving Day 1899.
It would be a gross understatement to say college football is popular in the Deep South, including Alabama.
The sport is also fast, furious and, for the players, potentially dangerous, with serious injury always a possibility.
But the sport is, in some ways, fairly tame compared to college football in its early days, according to Norman Jetmundsen, a writer, filmmaker and attorney from Mountain Brook.
“Players not only played both ways, but if they came out of the game, they could not return, so they had to stay in when they were hurt,” he said. “In fact, it was considered cowardly to come out of the game unless you were seriously hurt.”
It was against this backdrop that the 1899 Sewanee Tigers went unbeaten in 12 games at a time when most teams in the South only played three or four games a season.
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Two photographs of the 1899 Sewanee football team that went 12-0. The team’s manager, Luke Lea, wearing the suit and hat, arranged for the team’s epic 2,500-mile, five-game road trip that season.
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Not only was Sewanee unbeaten that year, they nearly held all of their opponents scoreless.
“Only one team even scored on them that year, Auburn, coached by John Heisman,” Jetmundsen said.
Jetmundsen — a 1976 graduate of Sewanee — believes the amazing story of the 1899 Sewanee team deserves to be told.
The team “had the most amazing season in college football history — it will never even be attempted now, much less equaled or surpassed,” Jetmundsen said.
That’s why, for the last five years, Jetmundsen and his college classmate, David Crews, have been working to produce a documentary film about the team called “Sewanee 1899 Unrivaled.”
The film, which Jetmundsen and Crews are still working to complete, uses archival photos and interviews with football coaches, including the late Tennessee Volunteers legend Johnny Majors; descendants of the team members; analysts and historians to tell the story of the 1899 team.
Jetmundsen and Crews are raising all the money for the film themselves.
“Our goal is $300,000, and we are about at $250,000, so we are still seeking donations,” Jetmundsen said at press time.
Crews has done several documentaries, including “The Toughest Job,” a documentary about the late Gov. William Winter of Mississippi.
Other project partners are pitching in to help in various ways, Jetmundsen said. They are working with a talented video editor, Matthew Graves, in Charleston.
The film was originally Jetmundsen’s brainchild, he said.
About five years ago, he suggested to Crews that they produce a film about the 1899 Sewanee team, who loved the idea and helped him.
“Having never done anything like this, I had no idea what I was getting into,” he said. “But here we are five years later and thousands of hours of work, and we are close to finishing the film.”
Norman Jetmundsen
Jetmundsen wrote the script for the film, but the project is definitely a collaboration overall between him and Crews.
“David and I have collaborated on the themes of the film, and we have conducted over 40 interviews of coaches, descendants, analysts and historians,” Jetmundsen said. “In addition, we have done research and worked on numerous edits of the film.”
The main reason for preserving this story is the Sewanee squad’s epic road trip that season, Jetmundsen said.
“They traveled 2,500 miles by train and played five games in six days: Texas in Austin; Texas A&M in Houston; Tulane in New Orleans; Sunday off; LSU in Baton Rouge; and Ole Miss in Memphis,” he said.
Personal enrichment is certainly not the goal of the project, Jetmundsen said.
“David and I are doing this for our love of the story and of Sewanee,” he said. “We are not getting paid for our time.”
In fact, when the documentary is completed, Sewanee will own the rights to it.
The filmmakers are figuring out a strategy to get the film seen.
The 1899 Sewanee team had the most amazing season in college football history.
Norman Jetmundsen
“We hope to sell it to a major TV or cable company or streaming company when the film is completed,” Jetmundsen said. “If that doesn’t work, we hope to find a way to distribute the film and perhaps enter it in some film festivals.”
There are numerous Birmingham connections on the project, Jetmundsen said.
► The Rev. Gates Shaw from Birmingham is the narrator of the film.
► Bobby Horton, a veteran musician and composer who often works with the famed documentarian Ken Burns, is doing the music for the film.
► Artist Ernie Eldridge has created a dozen original illustrations of the 1899 Sewanee football team and its season.
► Karin Fecteau is working with Jetmundsen and Crews on the film’s artistic and creative design and on a coffee table book to accompany the film.
► Mary Lynn Porter has served as the production’s executive assistant.
► Boutwell Studios in Homewood is assisting with the soundtrack for the documentary.
► Crewsouth Video and Spencer Cooper have done many of the filmed interviews for the film.
► Kate Gillespie of Birmingham designed posters and helped with the website.
► The late Alana Garrett Hogg designed the website, and FRED Communications by Design and Derick Belden are keeping the website up to date.
It is important from a historical standpoint that the filmmaker has interviewed a number of descendants of the team members, Jetmundsen said.
“If we were not doing this now, much of the story and lore would be lost forever,” he said. “We are telling an amazing story, but we are also preserving a part of Southern and college football history.”
And the filmmakers are finding that reality is indeed at least equal to myth.
“When David and I started this project, we both agreed that we would probably find a lot of lore about the team but not much factual,” Jetmundsen said. “In fact, it has been just the opposite: the truth and facts support and even outweigh the lore. It’s truly an amazing story.”
A published writer, Jetmundsen is also the author of “The Soulbane Illusion,” “The Soulbane Stratagem” and “The Soulbane Illusion,” a series of novels based on “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis.
A native of Mobile, Jetmundsen earned an English degree at Sewanee, a law degree at the University of Alabama and a Master of Letters degree in law at Magdalen College at Oxford.
For more information about the film project, go to sewanee1899.org.
