Documentary spotlights the football team, Lindemann legacy
It’s the classic small-town America story: community, legacy and football. From Friday Night Lights to All American, the impactful stories from high school football are ingrained in culture.
For the City of Bartlett, it’s even more so.
Voice of the Bulldogs is an independently-produced documentary highlighting the legacy of Marcus Lindemann and his 55-year tenure as Bartlett’s stadium announcer from 1949-2004.
“To think that somebody had done it that long and meant so many things [for people],” Director Ray Seggern said.“That’s crazy.”
Mr. Seggern’s roots in Williamson County run deep. He graduated from Georgetown High School in 1985, and his parents are from Taylor. When his mother moved to Bartlett, he met Mr. Lindemann in 1999 – the same year the Bartlett Bulldogs football team won the State championship.
“It was [during the] holidays in 1999 that I said, ‘I’m coming back next season, and we’re going to shoot some footage,’ ” Mr. Seggern said.
Now, 25 years later, the story caught on film follows the Lindemann family, with interviews from his son, Matthew, the newly elected Sheriff of Williamson County, and area cattle baron Jim Schwertner, who discusses Marcus’s impact on Williamson County.
Mr. Seggern has a Radio/TV/Film degree from the University of Texas in Austin. He currently is Executive Producing Bloody and Bruised: The Untold Story of the Back Room and Leads a narrative feature directed by celebrated Austin filmmaker Bryan Poyser. Voice of the Bulldogs is Mr. Seggern’s feature-length directorial debut.
“I think the thing that surprised me was just the, either absolute coincidence or evidence, that the universe is conspiring for good on my behalf, and dropped my story in my lap right when it did,” he said. “The thing that gave me goosebumps was hearing his voice coming through the loudspeaker at Bartlett stadium, circa year 2000.”
For Producer Roxane Davis, an Austin native, the story and Mr. Seggern’s passion hooked her in.
“He discussed what he wanted and how he wanted it done,” Ms. Davis recalled. “I didn’t expect to find what we found. I mean, the fact that he had the footage from 2000 is insane. I always say it’s a God thing: somehow he knew to trigger at a certain point, and that’s genius.”
Ms. Davis has a long career working in TV with reality television or Docu series productions aired on A&E, Bravo!, LMN, MTV and FOX.
She explained reality television projects last six to eight weeks. Then, a producer can take off or negotiate another show with another network. She told the Sun she never envisioned working on documentary filming.
“I hated it,” she said. “I said, I would never go over to film. I’ve been offered to work on feature films, but I never wanted to do it because it was so long.”
But that changed when she began working with Mr. Seggern.
“It was strictly Ray offering me [to come along] and diving [into the story],” she said. “In the first four weeks, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is great!’ And I’ve stayed on.”
Besides Marcus Lindamann’s story, another person the filmmakers are highlighting is sophomore Bartlett High School football player Frankie Gonzales, who this fall suffered a major accident on the field that left him unconscious for 30 to 50 minutes.
After he came to, Ms. Davis said she interviewed him in the hospital. She said Frankie told her he wanted to be like his coaches, who were also pastors.
“What [we] find is that this [community and team] is a family, they’re like family units,” she said. “The players have a second family unit, which you don’t have in Austin or LA [where I’ve worked]. You wonder, is this how everywhere should be?”
Voice of the Bulldogs will also touch on the struggle between old and new, as the fabric of East Williamson County undergoes rapid change. Between the construction of the new Taylor Samsung Plant to Bartlett ISD’s longtime revitalization efforts, the fate of the community hangs in a delicate balance.
When it comes to creating the story as a producer, Ms. Davis said she thinks about her audience and what they will enjoy.
“You have a passion for it, but you know the passion comes from finding what is an audience going to love. What is the audience going to see?” she said. “People buy into that sensationalism, so old versus new, the passion for people and the growth, with intertwining relationships inside the community I think is extremely compelling.”
A short film is scheduled to premiere this spring. Mr. Seggern said he plans on submitting the short film to the Film Festival circuit, like the Georgetown Film Festival, where his previous work Bloody and Bruised won Best Documentary.
For the bigger stories that Mr. Seggern and his team have unearthed, he feels like there’s a feature film that could see the light of day as early as 2026.
“I think, the more things change in a lot of ways, the more they remain the same,” he said. “What the Bulldogs mean to Bartlett has not changed. What I was surprised by was the grit and the determination and heart of [Bartlett Superintendent] Dr. Theodore Clevenger and Coach Ty Opperman, to show the resilience of that small town.”
For updates on the documentary, residents can visit www.voiceofthebulldogsfilm.com.