About the Film
New Providence is the story of Jimmy Voss, a super-star, but often controversial sports magazine writer from New York City, who is sent by the magazine's publisher to a small town in Iowa to cover the final season of six-on-six girls’ high school basketball. What he encounters there is the final year (1993) of the iconic six-on-six girls’ basketball tradition, a passion for the sport by the coach, the team, and an undying love for the small town and the girls' game from a community that appears on the outside to be all but dead. But when the reporter allows himself to enter into their world, he discovers that being sent to New Providence, Iowa may have been the best day of his life.
The Backstory
Here’s how New Providence came about. In 1993 writer Jack Smith was shown an article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Paul Dunn, his business partner. The article was about a retired lawyer, who had bought his old high school in Whitten, Iowa (pop. 150). He wanted to give the building to someone who would run their business out of the building, thus preserving the building and bring a few jobs to town. At the time Jack and Paul were the owners of an inline skate mail order business in Morro Bay, California. They contacted the lawyer and were soon on their way to Iowa to visit the school, which they found to be in need of quite a bit of work, having been closed for about five years.
During their visit to the Whitten School Jack and Paul were shown around the school by its caretaker, Dwight Long, who also showed them around town. In the middle of this small town is Denise Long Park, the most prominent feature being a basketball court. The caretaker was asked if he was related. He smiled and said, “Yes, she’s my niece”, and then proceeded to tell them about the legendary Denise Long, perhaps the greatest female basketball player of her time. She averaged over 50 points a game, scoring over 6,000 points during her high school career, breaking the 100 point barrier in a handful of games and leading Union-Whitten High School to the Iowa Girls basketball state championship. Being a lifetime basketball fanatic and history buff, Jack knew he wanted to learn more about Denise and the no longer played game of girl’s “six on six” basketball.
They returned home and contacted the lawyer telling him they were up for the move, who told them he would have the paperwork ready in about ten days.
The story gets even stranger, before the lawyer could get Paul and Jack the paperwork they were contacted by a group of people from the small Iowa town of New Providence, who had heard about Jack and Paul’s interest in the Whitten School. The group from New Providence jokingly said “you don’t want that building”. They went on to tell the partners about the New Providence High School building that was still functioning as a school, but was being closed in June due to school consolidation. Though they couldn’t give Jack and Paul the building, they were willing to lease it to them for $1.00 for five years. They asked the New Providence folks to send them photos of their building; a week later Paul and Jack were once again flying to Iowa.
When they returned to visit the New Providence school, they were taken to the “Roundhouse”, a round brick gymnasium that had been built in the mid 1930’s by the WPA. When Paul and Jack entered the gym, they later said that it was as if they were walking into a church. No one spoke as they turned around and around, marveling at the beauty of this special place. Without a word being said, they knew they wanted to know this place better. Upon returning to California, they let the lawyer know that they would not be accepting his offer for the Whitten school and soon signed the papers to lease the New Providence school. In June of 1993 Jack, his wife and two sons moved to New Providence. Paul followed two months later.
Jack soon learned that in Iowa, girls “six on six” basketball, was what high school football is to Texas and what boy’s high school basketball is to Indiana. A small town’s status was based on how far its girls’ team advanced in the state tournament. The tournament was played each March at the Des Moines Memorial Auditorium, and was surrounded with much pageantry, including the singing of patriotic songs before each game and tuxedo clad young men sweeping the floor at half time.
While doing research about six on six, Jack found this quote from famed sportscaster Heywood Hale Broun about the Iowa Girls High School Basketball Championships.
““I have never felt at any sport event such excitement as being inside this storage battery…the important thing is all the girls the next day, winners and losers alike were winners. They had all had a vivid sporting experience. It was sport at its best; full of joy and zest and excitement and a kind of nobility””
Although Jack only lived in Iowa for three years, the stories he heard about “six on six” stayed with him when he moved back to California in 1996 and he began working on a fictionalized, composite treatment of those stories. Everyone who read the treatment encouraged him to write the script version. Having no experience in script writing, he really didn’t know where to begin. Once again fate stepped in, a co-worker’s boyfriend was an aspiring screenwriter, and also happened to be one of America’s top milers at the time. He was able to understand the athletic side of things, and volunteered to work on the script with Jack. Over the next three years, with many false starts and numerous changes of direction they completed the script, which they titled “Six”.
The script was optioned a few times over the next fifteen years by various producers who for different reasons were unable to bring the film to the screen. In November of 2018, Jack decided to give it one last shot. He posted the first few pages of the script on Facebook which was seen by Teresa Diemer Knudsen who suggested Jack get in touch with Annette Duffy and Thor Moreno of Fearless Cinema, an Iowa based production company. After a number of phone and email conversations between Jack, Thor and Annette they agreed to develop a new version of the script and produce New Providence as an independent film.
Once the new script was finished and financing was secured production began in March of 2019 with the filming of exterior scenes in New Providence, Winterset and Des Moines. Production will resume in early January 2020.
Movie Filming in Iowa on the Last Year of Girls Six-on-Six Basketball