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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.
It uses the football season of 2002 to introduce Walter and the way he's welcomed as an important part of the Hampden-Sydney community.
Sure, he hands out towels, does the laundry and a range of other chores at the school's gym.
But as the film shows, he's also at the post office several times a day to help students and teachers carry heavy bundles, the same way he shows up most mornings to do a few hours of painting on one of the school's many buildings.
The son of the school's first full-time athletic trainer, Walter now lives with brother Scott Simms, who moved back to Hampden-Sydney to look after his brother when the pair's father, Dr. Gilman Simms, passed away.
Walter has lifetime privileges in the college cafeteria, where he eats most days with students who develop close ties to the man they all call Shorty.
Toss in a regular radio show, an easily recognized bicycle and the prized football jersey with his name on it, and Simms is perhaps the most well-known figure on campus.
Hampden-Sydney spokesman Thomas Shomo said school officials were thrilled when the New York-based production company contacted them and the Simms family with the idea of doing a documentary on Walter.
The company knew of Walter because one of the crew had played football at Hampden-Sydney. The school helped by providing a place for the crew to stay, as well as dinner privileges in the cafeteria.
Shomo said that although the crew knew Walter's devotion to Tiger sports would be a big part of the film--he can recite every football player's jersey number from the past 20 years--they didn't know the football season would become the film's framework.
But when the team had a turnaround season, defeating Randolph-Macon in a dramatic end-of-season win, it became the vehicle for telling Walter's story.
Sissy Simms and her son, Tyler, have been to many of the movie functions.
She was initially worried how her son would handle the segment on his father's death, but assured him she'd be there to provide support when he saw it.
"He did just fine at the Richmond première," she said. "He loves Walter and, a little bit like his father, is surprised when people see anything that unusual in him. To them, he's always been just Walter."
Aside from the football scenes, she said Tyler gets a kick out of one segment time and time again.
"He likes it when Walter tells the boy to take his hat off inside the building," she said.
For more information on "Shorty" or to get a copy of the film, visit the production company's Web site at revearth.net.
To reach ROB HEDELT: 540/374-5415 rhedelt@freelancestar.com