The personal waterworks flowed from crimson eyes as Quinn Early typed, first about a struggling son, then about Alzheimer’s disease slowly robbing a family of its most precious and irreplaceable connections.
When he closed the laptop an hour later, the seeds of a screenplay tested his emotional reserve.
Early, a 1988 draft pick of the Chargers who played 12 NFL seasons as a wide receiver with four teams, has a son, Cameron, who needed help navigating childhood’s sometimes treacherous road. He had a beloved mother, Ann, supportive granite chipped away by merciless dementia.
“Though it’s fictional,” Early said of the screenplay, “it’s pretty much our story.