As someone who considers himself a big sports fan, it never ceases to amaze me the number of stories out there that have somehow went unknown to me.The story of Ernie Davis would certainly qualify as one that I really should know.

"The Express" brings to light the story of Davis, the first black football player to win college football's most prestigious honor, the Heisman Trophy. Although a film about prowess between the lines on the gridiron, it's even more about crossing the lines that cannot be found on the football field — namely racial ones.

"The Express" follows Davis, played by relative newcomer Rob Brown, from his childhood spent running away from young racists to his college days at Syracuse University, where he ran away (and sometimes over) racist defenders lining up opposite the Orangemen. The film also touches on the football star's battle with leukemia, which brought a premature end to his pigskin career.

Dennis Quaid plays Davis' straight-shooting coach, Ben Schwartzwalder, a Woody Hayes type whose tough love approach to racism and football helps Davis adjust to the prejudices he faced on a daily basis, both in and out of the locker room, on and off the closely cropped grass of the football field.

As an actor, Brown — who's played some bit parts in the likes of "Coach Carter," "Take the Lead" and "Finding Forrester" — shows he's got some training camp sessions left to finish. His performance is typical of a made-for-TV ESPN movie in that it feels a bit uptight and forced, like he's seen one too many inspirational sports movies. Fortunately for Brown and "The Express" as a whole, the story being told largely overcomes the shortcomings of the cast and by-the-numbers directing of Gary Fleder ("Runaway Jury" and "Kiss the Girls").

To be sure, all the football film clichés are here — games played in the worst torrential downpour conditions you've ever seen, the most violent tackles this side of Dick Butkus, leaps over would-be tacklers and rousing halftime speeches. But we sports movie fans tend to overlook these things, as evidenced by our love of classic-yet-flawed films such as "Hoosiers," "Field of Dreams" and "Rudy."

Last year, I gave a five-star review of the otherwise poorly reviewed "We Are Marshall" — despite its faults of overacting and perhaps desperate pleas for sentimentality, I thought the film was every bit as inspirational as a "Rudy" or "Hoosiers." Shortly afterward, I wondered if I'd given too much credit where it didn't belong. After watching "The Express," however, I'm more prone to think I was right on the money. The Ernie Davis story is certainly one worth telling and quite a few folks checking this out will find it an inspiring tale of courage in the face of hatred, but I think it could have been told better.

The main fault of "The Express," I suppose, is that it plays out exactly like you'd expect a movie about the first black Heisman Trophy winner to play out. He faces racism from students, teammates and opponents, overcomes them and works hard to achieve his lofty goals. The wrench in the story is the leukemia angle, but "The Express" doesn't spend enough time on this to really make it a moving one. It's skimmed over and neatly wrapped up at the tail end of the film.

It's a treatment that doesn't quite do justice to the Ernie Davis story or the lessons it has to teach us, even in today's society.

Joel Sensenig is news editor of the Review Times. He would never admit to getting choked up at the father-son "catch" scene in "Field of Dreams."