When Ismail Al-Amin got the green light from ESPN to direct a documentary about Akron native and former track and field star Butch Reynolds, Al-Amin had one problem: He still needed Reynolds to agree to participate in the film.
Before Reynolds would do so, he told Al-Amin he needed to meet the film’s other producers and “ask them some tough questions,” Al-Amin recalled. (Jonathan Hock, an Emmy award-winning producer and director, and Bradford Young, the first Black person to receive a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination, are producers on the film.)
Al-Amin told Reynolds he’d set up a video call for them to meet, but that wouldn’t work for Reynolds. “I want to look these gentlemen in their faces,” Reynolds told Al-Amin. So the two drove six hours to Baltimore to meet with Hock and Young. Whatever was said in that meeting must have been good, because, after the road trip, Reynolds was on board.
The result of that meeting is “False Positive,” a new documentary that tells the story of Reynolds, from his high school days as a track star to his 1988 400-meter world record and Olympic gold medal to his 1990 drug suspension and the ensuing legal battle.
Much of the film, which will premiere on ESPN in the coming months, deals with Reynolds’ fight to clear his name and the flawed drug testing he underwent. To this day, the International Amateur Athletic Federation has not exonerated Reynolds.
Al-Amin, 53, grew up in Akron. “False Positive” is his directorial debut. Signal Akron’s Brittany Moseley spoke with Al-Amin about his film.
When did you become aware of Butch’s story?
For my generation, Butch was a household name in athletics here in the City of Akron. So Butch was a star. My dad was an athlete. My dad and his friends went to a lot of track meets. So I got a chance to see Butch compete in high school a lot. He was just so good. He would be winning races by landslides. He was a larger-than-life figure to me as an elementary school kid, middle school kid, high school athlete myself. He was somebody that I followed, I looked up to, to a certain extent, athletically. When the allegations became public in 1990, it was something that touched me very deeply, just thinking that somebody that I looked up to was a cheater.
So did you automatically think, ‘Oh, he did it’?
Well, I always left it open to hope that he didn’t, but I think in 1988, after the Ben Johnson scandal and so much information going out to the public about the amount of doping in track and field — and the history of track and field didn’t help. We’re talking about Eastern Bloc countries that we know had state-sponsored doping programs. Then hearing things like other prominent United States track and field athletes being dirty. I didn’t want to believe it, but I believed that he could have been guilty, for sure.
When did you start to think that Butch would be a good subject for a documentary?
I graduated from graduate school in 2002, and I got recruited to work for his foundation, the Butch Reynolds Care for Kids Foundation. I had met Butch before, but I hadn’t really gotten to know him. So working so closely with him every day, I got a chance to get to know the real Butch Reynolds, aspects of him I couldn’t really connect with in other ways. And I’m a very inquisitive person. I wasn’t shy. I started asking questions, like, ‘Hey man, what happened with this?’ At first, he wasn’t sharing a lot of information about it, but over time and in conjunction with me doing my own research on the side, I think that really helped me ask the right questions.
There was a lot of ambiguity around the case, a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of contradictions. That’s when I realized, this has all the makings of a great story. We’re talking about David versus Goliath. Butch versus an authoritarian, international athletic federation with unchecked power. Classic underdog story. Regardless if he’s guilty or not, I was like, ‘Man, this is a hell of a story.’ And I wondered, why hasn’t this story been told? And Butch, he always told me, ‘The time will present itself when the story should be told.’ Of course, I’m not accepting that answer. I’m like, ‘Butch, come on.’ And that was one of the things I really admired about Butch. Knowing all the things he had been through, he always had a very calming demeanor and spirit about him. He never came off bitter or angry. He was very grounded.
What do you want viewers to take from the film?
My goal was just to tell the truth. That was the main reason why I did this film. Butch wanted the story to be told a certain way, but I told him, ‘Butch, we’re not here to tell the story the way you want it to be told. We’re here to tell the story how it’s supposed to be told.’ [He said,] ‘I am not a guilty athlete.’ No one is saying that you are a guilty athlete. But let’s let the story unfold organically and show people that you’re not a guilty athlete.
Butch’s family is a throughline in this documentary. How did his upbringing influence the man he became?
I don’t think it’s just Butch’s story. I think it’s my story as well. We [were] both raised in Akron. We both have Alabama roots. As Black people, our ancestors were part of the Great Migration from the South coming north. For me and Butch’s case, it was the rubber factories here in Akron, Ohio. They came here to build better lives for themselves. Butch’s family reminds me of my family so much. Education was stressed in my household. My grandparents and my parents didn’t want us working these blue-collar jobs. They were like, ‘We’re doing it for you, so you can go to the next level. Go to college.’ If you grew up here in Akron, in Northeast Ohio, you can relate to Butch’s family very closely.
What was Butch’s reaction to the documentary?
He cried the first time he saw it. I remember him telling me, ‘Just to see it in this format, my story being told,’ it made him emotional. Even though we had a lot more editing and cutting to do, I said, ‘Man, we got something here.’ When I say he is a staunch critic, it’s very very hard to impress Butch. You’re talking about an athlete who’s reached the pinnacle of his profession. I know that just from working with him on the foundation. He demands excellence, all the time. And rightfully so, because he had to demand it from himself.
“False Positive” premieres Saturday at 4:55 p.m. at the Cleveland International Film Festival. There will be a second screening of the documentary Thursday at 2:20 p.m. as well. The film will also be available for streaming through CIFF’s website from Sunday, April 14, to Sunday, April 21.