Writing kings: Dan Wetzel, ESPN PR’s David Scott wrote new Cuba Gooding Jr. movie on chess

If you look at the credits for the film, Life is King, which comes out Friday, sports readers will find a familiar name, Yahoo! Sports columnist, Dan Wetzel, and sports media types will see David Scott, ESPN’s director of communications for news content. Along with director Jake Goldberger, they wrote the film.

I will have more on how Wetzel and Scott got their project on the big screen later this week. Consider this a sneak preview with the sneak preview.

Here is the rundown from the film’s site:

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Life of a King is the unlikely true story of Eugene Brown and his one-man mission to give inner-city kids of Washington D.C. something he never had – a future. He discovered a multitude of life lessons through the game of chess during his 18-year incarceration for bank robbery. After his release and reentry into the workforce, Eugene developed and founded the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable of due to circumstances. From his daring introductory chess lessons to a group of unruly high school students in detention to the development of the Club and the teens’ first local chess competitions, this movie reveals his difficult, inspirational journey and how he changed the lives of a group of teens with no endgame.

Yahoo’s Wetzel deserves praise for work on Penn State story

I’m overdue in saying this, but Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports is doing an outstanding job in covering the entire mess at Penn State.

His coverage of the Sandusky trial was riveting, as he captured the heartbreaking testimony. Even with the guilty verdict in, Wetzel hasn’t let go of the story.

Monday, Wetzel wrote a piece from State College on Joe Paterno’s appointment book and whether he knew more than he let on about Sandusky.

From the piece:

Paterno’s appointment book could serve as a confirmation that he met with Curley on or around the date Curley says they met, Feb. 27, 2001. Or it could exonerate him, showing Paterno was off on vacation or unavailable for even a phone conversation. While it often lacked great detail, for a Penn State community desperate for any facts or explanations, the appointment book could offer a morsel of truth.

Unfortunately it doesn’t; at least not yet.

Here is Wetzel’s achive of his Penn State coverage.

Kudos to Wetzel for staying on the story. And kudos to Yahoo for letting him stay on the story.