Tracking Papa Don

Coach Don Norford was an invaluable asset to Poly sports for many years, and to fully recognize and appreciate all he has done, Campus Security Officer Rey Porter teamed up with Milo Meaks and Antonio Gilbreath to create a documentary on the legacy of “PapaDon.”
Coach Norford received awards as both top track and field and top football coach in the nation, which no other person has accomplished.
“God just brought it to me,” said Porter about conjuring the idea for the documentary.
Porter was worried Norford would not agree to having a documentary made.
“He’s a private person,” said Porter, “but he embraced it.”
“The goal is to expose the mentorship of Don,” said Porter. Norford is featured in Denzel Washington’s book on mentorship, A Hand to Guide Me.
There will be many famous NFL players in the film who were inspired and mentored by Norford. He helped his players through difficult times, sometimes offering a place to stay and providing a true coach-player companionship.
“We needed a narrator,” said Porter, “and I said, ‘Snoop!’ I called him up and told him what I was doing…he said it would be a privilege.”
“Snoop scheduled an album photo shoot at Poly and…[afterwards] I miked him, began interviewing him, and a crowd circled around us…He did an amazing job.”
Snoop contributed to more than just the narration. “[He] set us up with his people in Hollywood at Paradigm Entertainment,” said Porter.
They ended up meeting to work on the documentary for more than three hours.
The documentary is only a small part of a full-scale project.
“We’re doing three things simultaneously,” said Porter. “We’re doing the movie script, the documentary, and the book.”
Help with the documentary came from various faculty members, a student from the USC film school, and all the people touched by Coach Norford.
The documentary will feature Norford’s exploits as a mentor as well as detail his major national coaching awards and his approximately fifty championship rings.
The rough cut for the documentary has already been previewed at CSULB, and a ten-minute sneak peak can be found on YouTube under “PapaDon Sizzle.mov.”
Currently, Porter, Meaks, and Gilbreath are working to update everything, condense it from ninety to sixty minutes, and convert it to HD.
Porter revealed that the documentary should be finished by January of 2015.
Coach Norford has contributed much to maintaining and building upon Poly’s reputable image.