Dennis Quaid says Syracuse football coach Ben Schwartzwalder was more a man of his times than a racist.

LOS ANGELES -- Yes, Dennis Quaid has been in a few sports movies -- Breaking Away, Tough Enough, Everybody's All American, Any Given Sunday, The Rookie. He's been in a lot of movies, period.

"I'm the veteran out there," admits the 54-year-old Quaid, whose latest film is The Express (opens in theatres on Friday), in which he plays the coach of Ernie Davis, the first African-American Heisman Trophy winner. "I've probably done more movies than anybody on the crew."

So what does Quaid -- who is closing in on the 70-film mark -- think makes a great sports movie?

"It's got to transcend the sport and be universal in its appeal. The Express is a football movie, but it's about more than football. It's, to me, about living your life gracefully. God bestows grace upon you to live your life to its full effect, and Ernie Davis embodied that, I think."

The American civil rights movement is the backdrop to the life of Davis (Rob Brown), the tragically short-lived running back who replaced the great Jim Brown at Syracuse University. Brown probably should have won the Heisman first, but he was an angry black hero at the wrong time.

Coach Ben Schwartzwalder brought out the best and worst in Brown, and vice-versa, and the coach was no fan of the civil rights movement -- if for no other reason that it was a distraction to his "Negro" players. (He famously tore down a civil rights booth on campus.)

"My greatest resource to finding (out about) Schwartzwalder was Jim Brown, who was already a friend of mine -- we did Any Given Sunday together. And he told me about his relationship with Schwartzwalder, which was quite contentious, And he told me about Ernie and about his character. So he was invaluable to me.

"(Schwartzwalder) was one of our soldiers in World War II who stormed the beach at Normandy, and he brought that military experience to his coaching technique. Jim Brown turned out to be a major figure in the civil rights movement and that was a major annoyance to him. He didn't want that coming into the field."

Was Schwartzwalder a racist? "Today he might be termed that, but I think he was a man of his times. And like most of white America back then, segregation was the rule of the day and that was the way things were.

"I was a kid during the late '50s and early '60s in Houston, and I remember separate restrooms and drinking fountains and signs that said 'Colored.' Black people sat in the balconies in movie theatres. Ben was a man of his times, but Ernie changed Ben, I think. Not that he turned him into a civil rights activist, but it was a personal relationship that was almost like father and son."

Director Gary Fleder sees The Express as part of Quaid's transition from the hunky leading man of the '80s and '90s into a great character actor.

"I think of him the same as Gene Hackman, who I worked with on Runaway Jury. I told Dennis he's got 20 years of character work ahead of him. I think of The Great Santini, Robert Duvall playing a tough, unfriendly guy to his own child, but you still like him. I said, 'Dennis, you have this great gift you can give to this movie. You are not going to be warm and cuddly or very fair (as Schwartzwalder), but we're still going to like you."

Not that he's giving up first billing entirely. Quaid is effectively the lead as General Hawk in the upcoming summer action flick G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra.

"That's the one everyone wants to talk about," he says of the secrecy-shrouded toy-based movie.

Prodded for details, he says, coyly, "Secrecy is half the battle. That's all I can tell you.

"I've always thought of myself as a character actor," Quaid says.

"But I'm having more fun acting than I ever did, back to my days in college.

"I'm not trying to do that next big movie that'll get 30% of the box office. It's just movies. They're entertainment for people, they speak for their times. I can't get my son (16-year-old Jack from his marriage to Meg Ryan) to watch a Clark Gable film."

Asked if his son likes his dad's films, he laughs and says, "He really liked Jaws 3-D when he was a kid.

"This is a job," he says. "Who knows how long it will last?"

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