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Heartwarming film linked to family in Spotsylvania

New documentary, 'Shorty,' features well-known sports fan at Hampden-Sydney, but there's a local connection, too

ROB HEDELT •   Rob Hedelt's archive •   E-mail Rob Hedelt

Date published: 6/8/2004

By ROB HEDELT

SPOTSYLVANIA'S Mary "Sissy" Simms had mixed feelings a while back when she prepared to watch the rough cut of "Shorty," an independent film on her late husband's uncle.

Mind you, she has nothing but love and respect for the film's subject, Walter "Shorty" Simms.

The irrepressible 57-year-old with Down syndrome is known and loved by family, faculty and students alike at Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville, easily earning him the unofficial title "No. 1 Fan."

What concerned Simms was a segment in which Walter grieves seeing pictures of his nephew, Sissy's late husband, Brad Simms.

The former Hampden-Sydney football standout was killed in a hunting accident in the spring of 2001, about a year before Revolution Earth Productions, with star Danny Aiello as executive producer, began shooting the documentary.

Making the death all the more painful to the Simms family was that it happened near their home on the edge of the Hampden-Sydney campus, while the Spotsylvania resident was home for a weekend visit.

"Seeing Walter still so upset about Brad's death, I realized we probably hadn't helped him enough back when that happened," Simms said recently at her home in Spotsylvania. "We were all struggling to deal with our own grief.

But she said the movie--which eventually proved to be a welcome distraction for the family--helped them all in a way Walter often does.

"In his simple, almost childlike way, he often cuts through to the root of things. In the film, he put words to what we were all struggling to do," she said. "He says of Brad, 'We'll always love him, but we have to keep on living.'"

For those who haven't heard much of the heartwarming hoopla over "Shorty," which got support from both the college and the National Down Syndrome Society, it debuted this past December at the Mosque in Richmond with a Hollywood-type splash.

This year, it's being seen at film festivals, Hampden-Sydney alumni gatherings and Down Syndrome Society functions from New Orleans to Atlanta to Northern Virginia.

I was moved by the film when it was shown at an alumni function recently in Fredericksburg.

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Date published: 6/8/2004