REMEMBER MINNESOTA SSOOMMEETTIIIMMEESS BBEEIIINNGG AA HHEERROO CCAANN TTAAKKEE YYOOUU BBYY SSUURRPPRRIIISSEE... It is sunrise at the 1986 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships, a formal event that includes the best teams in the country, and also pays homage to the oldest competitive sport in the world. This year, like every year, it is a spectacle of Gucci and Armani, caviar and champagne, and the most chiseled, bronzed athletes the Ivy League has to offer. The elite stand motionless on the shore as the muscled rowers snap into action. Meanwhile, fifteen hundred miles away in Bismarck, North Dakota, Brad Melby, 18, sits in his cherished red Camaro with his friend Terry, smoking pot and listening to Poison. Brad has spent his high school years stoned at the top of the bleachers, and he hopes that college will be different for him. To everyone’s surprise, he’s been accepted to the University of Minnesota’s General College, the junior college within the university. When he arrives, Brad is overwhelmed by the size of the campus, and soothes himself in the only way he knows how. Stoned again, he stands outside the closed cafeteria yelling through the glass at Lottie, the girl inside, a beautiful, hip young woman despite her hair net. She thinks he’s cute, but won’t let him in regardless. Not knowing what else to do, Brad sits outside a dorm hoping to catch sight of Vanessa, a sophomore, also from Bismarck. He has harbored a crush on her since childhood, one that leaves him tongue-tied in her presence. She is beautiful, smart, confident, graceful, and unattainable. She is also the coxswain for the men’s crew team, and she emerges from the dorm off to a recruitment meeting. Brad tags along, and once there, his attention is split between Vanessa and the six-foot long sub sandwich stretched across the table. Brad’s interest in sports has been limited to watching. He isn’t athletically inclined. He’s never competed in anything. And he’s not in shape. However, in this room Brad has one thing going for him: he’s tall. And this year, the U of M Men’s Crew needs a few tall men. At the University of Minnesota, rowing is a club sport, and team members have to pay to be a part of it. There are no tryouts, just the hope the team can recruit athletes who have been cut from other sports. Or lure an unexpected hero with the promise of a good sandwich. The lights dim and Coach Gleason, a small man with a large presence, shows an emotionally charged film meant to portray the sport in all its luster and glory. Gleason knows this glory well. He led his team to an Olympic medal as coxswain. Brad is enraptured by the absolute beauty and purity of rowing, and of Vanessa. This is the new beginning he was hoping for, and his best chance of getting closer to Vanessa who is unaware of his affections. Vanessa is skeptical of his ability to commit to the demands of the sport. Brad’s father is equally skeptical and reluctant to support Brad in anything that distracts him from getting an education. Nonetheless, Brad shows up for practice, undeterred. The first few weeks, however, are grueling, and the video fantasy of rowing is in stark contrast to the club sport atmosphere at the university. The crew’s equipment is housed in an abandoned maintenance shed, its rusted, corrugated tin an eyesore on the banks of the Mississippi behind the power plant. Brad doubts his ability to stay with it but his desire to be close to Vanessa buoys him. He meets Lottie after workouts on the loading dock behind the cafeteria. She is kind enough to feed him after hours. Brad inhales his food and recounts his day, unaware that Lottie is developing feelings for him. As the fall season unfolds, Brad fights to secure an open seat in the varsity boat with his rival Mitch, an aggravating, egotistical, heavy-chested savage. When Vanessa chooses Mitch in a straw poll, Brad admits his love for her and is rebuffed. Now, with no varsity seat and no chance with Vanessa, Brad’s motivations are gone. But he realizes that rowing has given him something he has never had before, ambition. He quietly admits to Lottie, “If I don’t row, how will I found out where my edge is?” Just before Christmas Break, a varsity crewman suffers an unfortunate accident, leaving his seat open for Brad. But there is trouble at home. Brad has been so distracted that his grades are not up to par, and Dad refuses to pay for his return unless Brad quits the team. Instead, Brad sells his coveted Camaro and returns to claim his varsity seat. Unfortunately, his hopes are dashed once again by the appearance of a transfer student, a Columbian Adonis with rowing experience. It may not be good news for Brad, but Coach Gleason finally foresees his best spring season ever. It’s enough for Gleason to take out a second mortgage on his home in order to purchase the “Nietzche,” a sleek, fast, magical rowing shell from Italy. The crew arrives in Texas for the first race of the spring season. Mitch’s attitude wears on them all, and Gleason is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice. He sends Mitch packing knowing that with Brad, he will not have his winning season. Brad has never been the strongest rower. But in rowing a crew isn’t limited by its weakest member; a rower who makes a team great is better than a great rower. Finally in the varsity boat, Brad wins his first victory ever. He also comes to the realization that he’s been chasing the wrong girl all along. He arrives back on campus with his sights on Lottie. The spring season finds the team sailing from one victory to the next, defeating all comers, including their hated rivals Wisconsin, and earning an invitation to the 1987 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships. Now it is the University of Minnesota taking its place alongside Gucci and Armani, caviar and champagne, and the most chiseled, bronzed athletes the Ivy League has to offer. In their first heat, our Golden Gophers surprise them all and earn the prestigious center lane at the finals. Even so, they are shunned by the elite teams. In a moment of hubris, our heroes suffer an accident that destroys their powerful shell, the Nietzche. Now on the eve of the finals, and without a shell, they sit in despair until Brown University comes to their rescue with a spare boat. They desperately struggle to rig the boat in time, and show up at the finals, tired, frustrated, and nearly defeated already. In the spirit of Invincible, Miracle, Chariots of Fire, and Breaking Away, Remember Minnesota is the heartwarming drama of one young man’s inability to understand the word, No. It is the against-all-odds story that asks the question, can an unexpected hero lead an unlikely team to an unforgettable triumph at the most prestigious collegiate championship in the country? Yes! UUNNEEXXPPEECCTTEEDD... UUNNLLIIIKKEELLYY... UUNNFFOORRGGEETTTTAABBLLEE... REMEMBER MINNESOTA Chace Crawford BRAD MELBY Brad, a recent high school graduate, has an important choice to make. He can leave his well-earned slacker reputation behind and remake himself in college, or he can float along exactly as he has, a bit lost, somewhat directionless, and filled with hope but not enough motivation to carry him through. Gossip Girl Brad has never won anything, not even the girl. The truth is, he never tried. So the tests and challenges that face him require a fortitude and commitment to which he Jared Padelecki is unaccustomed. And as Brad finds out, rowing introduces him to untapped reserves of power and tenacity that help him surpass his every limitation. Perhaps it is the grueling nature of the sport. Or perhaps, more importantly, it is the purity of rowing, the complete and utter selflessness, which demands each crewman operate in perfect sync, a unit of the whole. Initially, everyone doubts Brad and his abilities. Even his coaches wonder what will happen when he stops giving a hundred and ten percent. To everyone’s surprise, Supernatural, Cry Wolf, particularly his own, he never does. As a result, he Gilmore Girls discovers inspiration, confidence, and love, though not in ways he could have imagined. Matt Dallas Garrett Hedlund Kyle XY Taylor Kitsch Friday Night Lights, Four Brothers, Troy, Eragon Friday Night Lights (TV) Jena Malone VANESSA CHURCHILL Vanessa moved to Bismarck in elementary school, and Brad was the first person she met on the playground. She always liked him but came to disregard him as he developed friendships with underachievers. Originally from Boston, Vanessa grew up on the banks of the Charles River. This spawned her love of rowing, which was then nurtured by her father. Vanessa’s soft beauty and petite frame hide the fiery Into the Wild, The United bulldog inside that, once unleashed, becomes an States of Leland unrelenting force. Athletic in her own right, it is being a coxswain that best combines all of her considerable gifts Emma Roberts – intelligence, tenacity, intuition, and in no small measure, a commanding way with men. She enjoys the seductive power and respect she holds with the team. As coxswain of the U of M Men’s Crew, Vanessa is the brain and nerve center of the team, serving as both dictator and motivator. More than merely steering the boat and calling its pace, she must assess the competition on the fly, and determine the plan of attack.