A variety of movies have featured the sport of amateur wrestling. Foxcatcher, Legendary, Reversal, The Hammer and Win Win are a few examples of directors employing one of the world's oldest sports in plot backgrounds.
Almost four decades ago, Frank Jasper was cast into the role of Brian Shute for Vision Quest. Hoisted logs andstadium steps, tight yellow tank tops and tighter blue short-shorts; each became part of our sport’s collective consciousness.
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Jasper’s character, Brian Shute, was birthed into wrestling lore. Shute fascinated us.
In the way horror fans embraced Freddy Krueger, we did the same with Shute. We wanted him to lose, but there’s no movie without him.
I was 14 when Vision Quest was released in theaters. I was still 14 when it made its way to video rental stores (look ‘em up, kids). It was the summer when childhood pal Dax Pearson and I pulled off our first underage heist: We'd figured a way to rent the R-rated movie from Video Village on Delhi Pike.
Raise a glass to expired statutes of limitation.
A cast including Linda Fiorentino, Michael Schoeffling, Forest Whitaker, Ronny Cox, Harold Sylvester, and Charles Hallahan captured that elusive certain-something, allowing Vision Quest to become the definitive wrestling flick. No other comes close.
Lead character Louden Swain, played by Matthew Modine, informed his coach he'd be dropping an ungodly amount of weight. The reason? He wanted to wrestle a wrestler no other high schooler in the state of Washington wanted to face, Brian Shute.
Shute, the returning, undefeated state champion, was downright scary. He wasn't granted significant on-screen appearances, didn't have many lines. Like Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Shute was perfectly and by-design kept off screen by director Harold Becker for most of the film until the culminating showdown.
Instead, he lurked ominously in the plot’s background the entire movie. Shute was present, even when he wasn’t.
***
Frank Jasper began wrestling his freshman year in high school as a scrawny 115-pounder. Lifting weights and tennis would eventually become his primary passions. His racket skills earned him a scholarship to Northern Idaho. He lasted a quarter.
“I was rebelling at the time and dropped out,” Jasper said.“I was young, disillusioned with the college thing.”
Around that time, Jasper read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book, The Education of a Bodybuilder. It left an impact.
“I started working out seriously," he said. "Went from 155 to 185, eventually going over 200 pounds."
While out of school, Jasper took a job as an iron-worker. The gritty, grinding days took their toll. He re-enrolled in classes at Eastern Washington University.
“I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he said. “I just knew I had to finish.”
Jasper continued hitting the weights while working in EWU’s athletic training program. It was there he'd meet a variety of athletes, including members of the wrestling team.
“Rick Thiefault comes in one day and he’s talking about a movie he’s in, in Spokane,” Jasper said. “He says they were still looking for wrestlers, and tells me I should try out.”
Jasper says what he thought was an audition for a role as an extra became much bigger.
“I found out there were spoken lines," he said. "I was like, ‘What?’”
Jasper landed the larger-than-expected part. The character of Brian Shute was born.
“It was all so new to me, everything that goes into a movie,” he said. “The attention to detail by Harold Becker was amazing.”
Becker noticed a three-day difference in hair-growth length on Jasper, and told him to get a haircut. The close-up shot of Shute’s fingers on Swain’s elbow in the Shute-Swain match was Becker’s call, contributing subtle nuance to the drama of their movie-ending match. Matthew Modine, refusing to use a stunt-double, insisted he himself endure the slams Jasper had to inflict.
The experience left its impact on Jasper.
“Like the title itself, the whole experience was spiritual for me,” he said.
Jasper didn’t know the lasting power Vision Quest would have. Nobody did. He didn’t know the impact it would have on the lives of others, either.
“When people tell me this is why they became a wrestler, that the movie inspired them, or that this is why they became a coach, that’s what matters,” Jasper said. “When a guy tells me this is what got him through The Citadel, or three tours in Iraq, that’s the stuff that gets me. That’s what amazes me.”
Jasper lives in California today. He and his wife, Sandy, founded Osani Holistic Healthcare in 1995, emphasizing holistic approaches to personal health and well-being. He's friendly and engaging. He laughs loudly, far from the menacing character he portrayed over 35 years ago.
Matthew Modine would go on to a fruitful career in Hollywood, while heartthrob Michael Schoeffling left it all behind; Jasper last heard Schoeffling found a preferred, quieter life building furniture. Forest Whitaker became one of the most recognized actors of the 1990s and early 2000s. Madonna, with her cameo role as a lounge singer, became Madonna.
For the famous and un-famous, life ebbs, flows and passes. Actor Charles Hallahan, Swain's coach in the movie - he of the three-button golf shirt and singlet worn in practice - died in 1997, too young at the age of 54.
My friend, Dax, the one with whom I'd pulled off the Great Underage Video Rental Caper, died in a single-car accident on September 18, 2016. At 45, Dax was also too young.
I think of the two of us now, watching Vision Quest in his parents’ home on Hiddenlake Lane. I think of our youth-granted, blissful ignorance.
Never could we have known that someday I’d get to interview the guy we were watching - the one hauling the log up the stadium steps - unable to call Dax to tell him. As guys beginning the backside of our 40s, we’d call each other about twice a month, brag on our kids, and get to our Vision Quest allusions and quotes. Catching up and laughing were our primary orders of business.
Dax never wrestled. Still, he loved Vision Quest.
Frank Jasper has heard that quite a bit.
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