More Than Champions - Trailer

MORE THAN CHAMPIONS is a collection of amazing stories inside the racial divide in schools through the eyes of sports. In the sixties a war was taking place in our own country.  The franchise includes a documentary, a feature film, an episodic series views stories of race, desegregation and trials through the eyes of basketball where the trophy is not what you would think. 

This franchise begins with a documentary, extends into moving stories set deep in the South and ends with a feature film promising to be filled with action, suspense, drama and ending in reconciliation.  Our nation needs hope and its time we come together to become MORE THAN A CHAMPION!
 We invite you to watch this short promotional video and our coaches video so you can see how to get involved in the latest Veritas Mission Films documentary in our sports entertainment franchise. MORE THAN CHAMPIONS.

The 60's brought great change in our country.  In Georgia, it was very racially intense especially for a young man named Sam Oni, who was recruited from Western Nigeria.  Desegregation and basketball provided a way for people to begin a new way to communicate and share commonalities not previously recognized.  This film and the stories behind it carry the residue of how these champions coped. 

Executive Producers from Georgia Jag Gholson &  along with African Academy Award celebrity, Dr. Miller Bargeron Producer, are joining Dr. Kevin McAfee and his team about this moving opportunity to change the way the world sees racial divide through this sports film. Sam Oni will come speak to groups, colleges and forums regarding racism using the visual language of film.  He was the first black student in the South accepted to an all Christian college rooming with Don Baxter a "Hall of Fame" member for Mercer University.   

Coaches Call - We Need You! 
Our coaches are a group of film professionals, entrepreneurs and athletes whose team is coming together illuminating stories with a real purpose, racial unity.  On the outside, the racial divide of desegregation was an even more fierce competitor on the court.  It's time to stand up and we need your help to make a difference, today, Our goal is to find financiers who will champion this cause with us. 
We must begin a dialogue in helping racial relations and it's now.  With out country filled with division over race relations, this begins a new and fresh dialogue and what we need is to be solution centered.  Would you join our team, just contact our coaches, the clock is starting and we are in overtime. 

The deep South in the early sixties was racially challenged and broken when a brave, gifted African agreed to come to America to help solve the desegregation problem at Mercer University.  Sam Oni was from the Yoruba Tribe and he would arrive in America with a purpose and a dream.  Leaving the safety of his own people, he was met by the church which brought faith to a different narrative. Race relations were cruel to Sam and even his "star roommate" at school.

These racially diverse friends set a new standard of acceptance with culture and Mercer's first integration into the all white college. They would face problems, more than one could imagine.  Hatred & prejudice from both sides led the civil rights leaders to march against these horrible lynchings, attack dogs and power hoses of abuse.  People would suffer bombings even in churches and experience many fears unspeakable. Sam's dream would become a reality to be "more than a champion", but only through patience, love and grace.  

The story of MORE THAN CHAMPIONS requires a championship team to make it all happen because the film series involves many stories of truth, all designed to bring answers to racial relations through practical solutions.  Stories of family, faith and freedom are not "politically correct", but they are needed to change the world.  Desegregation and stamping out prejudice within the family of man, would change everything.  We need you to become a part of this "movement" in racial unity today!  Would you be willing to be a donor promoting race relations with this award winning film team?

A New Beginning

As Sam Oni entered Mercer and roomed with the all-star center on the basketball team Don Baxter, he found out quickly what it meant to be a real champion in life and what it meant to also live in real rejection and experience losing on so many levels on and off the court of life. Don later was inducted into Mercer's Hall of Fame. 

​This movie is about hope. Great school teams were rising to greatness during this tumultuous time in race relations history and they were focused on the trophy.
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Their love of the game made playing together a natural phase of competition.

Deep in the South during the 1960's there was a segregated rumbling that was not just in the noise of the day, but on the hardwood floor on the basketball courts. Players were challenged with crossing social barriers for the love of the game. They became friends first and foremost, even during the trials.

​Healing needed to begin, but not without a great sacrifice and cost during the many seasons of championship basketball teams as cultures came together in a new way, through sports.

In the world when the church should have stepped up and built a bridge between races, athletics did just this and lifelong friends were made, which still stand to this very day.  The lesson learned from these great men as they reflect on the life of an unsung champion, Sam Oni crying out for freedom. 
Listen to their stories...

SPORTS STORIES OF DESEGREGATION IN THE DEEP SOUTH

Sam Oni was finally coming to America as a "recruited solution" by Mercer president Rufus Harris in his desire to integrate an all white college with its first black student. Knowing it was going to be hard in the deep South, but not fully realizing deep costs and pain Sam would truly suffer. Dr. Martin Luther King was speaking at the Lincoln Monument the week Sam came into the United States.  This unknown hero arrived to face all the persecution imaginable.  This is where our stories of desegregation really begins...
Read Sam's Story

Focusing on Character, Racial Division & Reconciliation Through Sports
(Beginning a new dialogue for even today...)

Inside our group of stories, many came from championship teams from Mark Smith High School in Macon, Beach High School in Savannah and more.  During racial divide, they had growing respect for each other as team mates and competitors.  Even as basketball was one of the ways to begin the desegregation process, a sense of brotherhood brought them into true friendship, while at the same time, churches were tearing them apart.  

These early teams set an example of true sportsmanship, and Southern congregations made Sunday the "worst day" of segregation in society.
The teams all just wanted to enjoy the game, when everything around them seemed to be hitting the hardwood floors with harsh racism.  The civil rights issues were plaguing the nation, racism was getting worse, and they ignored the noise, and just kept on playing.  
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​This is more than a story of a sport and a championship, but a real honoring of a better way to live was in play, to change the world and see the purity in recognizing our own commanailities to stand for truth for all people, regardless of race.  This documentary births MORE THAN CHAMPIONS focusing on powerfully emotional stories of desegregation, sports and faith. 
HOW WOULD WE EVER COME TOGETHER...
COULD STORIES ADDRESS OUR RACE PROBLEMS, OUR SOCIAL DIVIDES?
BEGINNING WITH CREATING A NEW DIALOGUE, REGARDLESS OF RACE
​BEING A FAMILY, BEING ONE...
​THIS FIRST STEP BEGINS WITH SPONSORS,
CONSIDER BEING A CHAMPION TODAY
AND INVEST IN THIS LEGACY
​A LEGACY OFFERING SOLUTIONS
YOU CAN DONATE TODAY at VMFA
 www.veritasmissionfilms.com
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