Havertown’s Mike Tollin screens his new documentary profiling Villanova hero George Raveling

Mike Tollin received an ovation for his documentary film about the life of George Raveling after a Wednesday night showing on Villanova’s campus. But the best part of the Havertown native’s night may have been meeting and snapping a photo with former guard Fran O’Hanlon, one of his “Villanova heroes.”

Tollin’s love for Villanova hoops is one of the main reasons he chose to direct Unraveling George, a 90-minute documentary that profiles Raveling. He was a player and assistant coach at Villanova before he rose to prominence as a head coach at Washington State, Iowa, and Southern California. After his coaching career, Raveling joined Nike as a marketing executive.

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Nike and Villanova staged a screening of Tollin’s film before Wednesday night’s game between the Wildcats and Georgetown at the Finneran Pavilion.

The screening was preceded by a panel conversation with Tollin, a longtime television and film executive who served as the executive producer on the 10-part Michael Jordan docuseries, The Last Dance. Former Villanova coach Jay Wright and Larry Miller, the president of Jordan Brand at Nike, joined Tollin on stage.

Villanova also honored Raveling during its game against the Hoyas, which the Wildcats won, 66-51. Raveling graduated from Villanova in 1960 and served as an assistant coach under Jack Kraft from 1963 to 1969. He died at age 88 on Sept. 2. Fans held up newspaper fliers distributed by Nike that read “Thank You, Coach” during the game’s first timeout.

“This team, I’m sure [Villanova coach Kevin Willard] has talked to them about coach Rav, but they would not have gotten to know him,” Wright said during the panel. “All the other teams, coach Rav would come here, spend time with us, talk to the team. It’s great for them, because these guys are smart guys on this team. They’ll Google him, they’ll read about him and they’ll get to know how important coach Raveling was to Villanova and to the world.”

The idea for Tollin to work on a documentary about Raveling came after the release of Ben Affleck’s AIR in 2023. That film is a fictionalized account of Nike’s pursuit of an endorsement deal with Jordan before his rookie season with the Chicago Bulls in 1984.

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Marlon Wayans plays George Raveling in AIR, but the film’s plot suggests that Sonny Vaccaro, played by Matt Damon, was the primary reason Jordan signed with the company. Jordan disputes this in Unraveling George, saying that Raveling, who coached Jordan at the 1984 Olympics, was the first person to pitch Nike to him.

Tollin said a conversation about AIR with William Wesley, the executive vice president of the New York Knicks, gave him the inspiration to work on the project.

“He said, ‘Did you see AIR?’” Tollin said. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I enjoyed it.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but we’ve got to tell the real story, and we’ve got to honor George.’”

Wesley introduced Tollin to Raveling at a Los Angeles Clippers game, where Tollin’s childhood admiration for Villanova basketball showed. Tollin, who graduated from Haverford High School in 1973, grew up watching the players Raveling recruited for the Wildcats.

“I sat there and I just gushed,” Tollin said. “I said, ‘You recruited all my first basketball heroes.’ I started naming names like Johnny Jones, like Howard Porter.”

Raveling agreed to be the subject of the documentary, and Tollin got to work on raising funds for the project. The film was completed before Raveling died, and the coach got a chance to see it. Tollin said Wednesday night’s screening at Villanova was “bittersweet.”

“I wish he was here,” Tollin said. “But obviously, I feel his presence. I know how he felt about the film. He loved it. He was grateful. He was just so generous with me.”

The film follows Raveling’s life, from his youth in segregated Washington, D.C., to his playing career at Villanova, where he was the school’s second Black basketball player, and his coaching career. It details the events that led to Raveling obtaining the original typewritten copy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington in August 1963.

The film also shares Raveling’s time as an assistant coach on Bob Knight’s staff for the 1984 Olympic basketball team, when Raveling formed a relationship with Jordan. It also follows Raveling’s recovery from a 1994 car accident that kept him in intensive care for two weeks and led to his retirement from coaching.

The documentary goes into Raveling’s second career as an executive for Nike. In addition to being responsible for Jordan’s decision to sign with Nike in 1984, Raveling was also instrumental in helping to bring international players like Dirk Nowitzki and Yao Ming to the NBA.

The film features interviews with many significant figures in basketball, including Jordan, Nowitzki, Driesell, Wright, and Nike founder Phil Knight, among others. Wayans provides voice-over narration and sits down for a conversation with Raveling during the film’s credits.

“It was incredible to keep turning over rocks and find more and more layers, and more and more people who love George and wanted to be a part of the storytelling,” Tollin said.

Nike made promotional materials for Wednesday night’s screening at Villanova. Those included embroidered canvas tote bags that read “RAV,” and fliers, inspired by Raveling’s love for reading the newspaper, were given out to fans at the Finneran Pavilion, which they held up.

Tollin said that when Nike’s team approached him about supporting the film, he wanted them to help bring it back to Villanova.

“I just knew this would feel like family,” Tollin said. “And it did. This is sort of like the womb, you know? This is like a really warm bath of support and love. … It was critical that we bring the film here, partly because I’m from here and partly because this is [Raveling]’s origin story.”

Unraveling George is not available to stream, though Tollin expects to have more details on where to watch it soon.