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Director Lara Slife captures an athlete’s inspiring life and legacy.

Photo courtesy Livin’ Large Productions

Sal Aunese was truly born to lead

By Jim Gordon and Leeta Liepins

Published 2:14 PDT, Fri October 25, 2024

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Our City Tonight had the opportunity to sit down with an international, award-winning director, producer and writer, Lara Slife. Along with her business partner, George Antonopoulos, together they founded Livin’ Large Productions, LLC, a boutique theatrical and film production company based in New York and Los Angeles. They attribute their success to their unrelenting pursuit of the story. Lara’s latest film is a movie that we really enjoyed and is now streaming worldwide on PBS. The movie is called Born to Lead; the Sal Aunese Story. It chronicles Sal Aunese’s rise to the top as one of his football team’s most valuable players and his valiant battles with the disease that took his life in 1989.

OCT: Thank you for joining us, Lara, and for talking about this great film. We did know about this young man and right off the bat at the beginning of your film you have a quote which we think more than anything else sums up who this man was. It’s from John Quincy Adams and the quote is: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, to learn more, to do more, and to become more, you are a leader.” We think that sums up this young man. Lara, tell our readers more about who Sal Aunese was.

LS: Sal Aunese was one of the first Samoans to take a down-and-out team at the University of Colorado to a national championship. Not necessarily in the way you might think, because he gets stomach cancer and the team rallies around him and it’s his spirit that enables him to lead in every way. He does this in person before he got cancer and then after he got cancer and then, even when he passed away. It is a really inspirational story. In fact, it’s one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard about and that’s why I ended up making this film because it was so amazing.

OCT: It’s literally like you’re creating this young man out of central casting because he comes from a blue collar, loving family and he is a star quarterback, and back then, he’s also acting as a running back which is great to see. But then he gets scholarships offered to him and he chooses to go to Colorado because it’s a struggling school and he wants to build something. He just seemed to have leadership pouring out of his skin at a very young age.

LS: Yes, from the age of 9 or 10 years old he knew exactly where he wanted to go. He had leadership abilities and when the kids were eating Pop-Tarts and playing games outside, he was working out, doing push-ups and sit-ups. So, he absolutely knew that he was going to go somewhere and that he wanted to lead a team. He also really wanted to build a team.

OCT: It’s interesting that many of us aspire to be like that but he lived it, ate it, and breathed it. And when he’s at university, one thing I didn’t know about him, and you can tell us more about this, there’s a turning point when he’s arrested. At this time, he’s an all-star and he’s an all-American kid, but he’s arrested. That seems to be a moment of contemplation where Sal Aunese realizes he has to be a bigger person, even though he is near perfect.

LS: Yes, and the coach also expressed that same thing. He basically said to Sal, you know, you’ve got a team to lead. You have to be better. You have to be bigger than this even though it might be racially motivated, you need to stand apart and do the right thing. So, he definitely learned from this terrible experience of being arrested, even though he really didn’t do anything. He pulled down a poster in a student’s room, but he really shouldn’t have gone to jail for it—I guess it made the team very cohesive.

OCT: The guests and the interviews you have in this film, many were young men at the time who are older men now, but they still show the reverence that they have for Sal. It is so remarkable that he led in so many different ways. We have to say, we love sports movies and inspirational films like this that get made because a lot of other people love them too. This film is no exception and we want to congratulate you on making this film. We would like to mention George Antonopoulos, your partner on this film. You two have put together a superb film.

Thank you Lara for joining us and we remind our readers that this film is streaming worldwide on PBS now. You can get more information on the website BorntoLeadFilm.com and we want to congratulate your company LivingLargeProductions.com