Nice job, Scott! I can totally see this as a Chick flick, comedy romance my wife would love!

Scott - It's a great idea, one I'm intimately familiar with. A teammate of mine on the Iowa State gymnastics team did this very thing back in the late 1970s. His name was Pat Lajko, from Des Moines, IA, and after he was part of an NCAA championship gymnastics team at Iowa State. (He was used as a vaulter, but did the all around.) After graduating, he drifted down into Kansas and Missouri, got bored, and went back to high school.

He was a geeky, wimpy dude, facial hair challenged, a computer whiz, and socially awkward (in college). He hatched the idea after coaching several of the high school gymnasts at a local YMCA. Several of them were in on the charade from the beginning. He hacked the school computer, creating fictional background for himself, changing grades for his cohorts and their girlfriends. He competed for the high school team an entire winter season as a gymnast, then went out for the swim team to compete as a diver. If I'm recalling this right, it was a judge or coach at the state swim meet that finally recognized him.

When he got busted, along with the small posse who were in on it, it made the national news. He drifted out to Hollywood and tried to sell his life rights to the story, but nothing ever quite gelled...at least up to the point where I stopped paying attention. Maybe a TV or straight to VHS movie was made. Don't know.

Anyway, it's a great idea for a story. Some timeless principles at work -- prince and the pauper stuff, the yearning to hang on to our youth, a second chance to get it right. All good framing material for someone wanting to make a relevant take on it.

Cheers,

John

That's a great story, John...stranger than fiction, as they say.

Scott, do you use a voice recorder to remember your ideas?

@Phil: The iPhone has a Voice Memo function which is great because when I sync to my computer, it transfers those files. But when I find ideas online like this news article, I bookmark them in a folder named Story Concepts.

A big part of this part of the process is having one part of your brain pretty much always on and screening information you run across each day as potential story ideas. I basically trained myself to do that and now it's pretty much SOP.

The premise is similar to that of David Arquette's character in 'Never Been Kissed'. Drew Barrymore is a journalist who enrolls in a local High School for research. Her brother (30s), Arquette, tags along and becomes a hit with the kids as well as becoming a star player on the baseball team.

@Alexander: Of course Fast Times at Ridgemont High came about due to Cameron Crowe impersonating a high schooler and writing articles for Rolling Stone.

Similar but different reigns in Hollywood.

Agreed. Just pointing it out for anyone considering this idea -- good to know how it's been told on the big screen previously. But Lord knows anything can be remade in Hollywood.

@Scott, give evernote a shot for online story ideas. Its a great piece of software for organising these things.

http://www.evernote.com/