| Director | Taylor Hackford |
|---|---|
| Budget | $22 million |
| Box office | $12.6 million |
Gavin Grey is a 1950s star athlete known by the moniker "The Grey Ghost," who plays football at Louisiana State University. His campus girlfriend Babs Rogers, nephew Donnie "Cake" McCaslin, and teammate Ed Lawrence adore his personality and charm. During the Sugar Bowl game, Gavin's play, defining his competitiveness throughout his career, causes a player from the opposing team to fumble the ball, which he returns to score a game-winning touchdown.
As his college days come to an end, Gavin ends up marrying Babs, starts a family, and gets drafted by the Washington Redskins. Lawrence opens a popular sports bar in Baton Rouge. Everyone is pleased for Gavin, including his friendly rival Narvel Blue, who might have achieved professional stardom had he chosen an athletic career path. Reality quickly sets in for Gavin as life in the NFL is difficult, the competition is fierce, and the schedule is grueling. Gavin is a respectable running back for the Redskins, but hardly the idol worshipped by everyone back home during his school years. Concurrently, Lawrence has accrued a number of gambling debts. He is later murdered by unidentified attackers, creating more debts for Gavin and Babs, who had invested in Lawrence's business.
Babs does her best to keep up with Gavin's career and mood swings, and in doing so inherits the role of the wage earner in their household after he briefly retires. A sympathetic Donnie finds her frustrated and lonely, as his lifetime attraction to her brings them together for a brief extramarital affair. Gavin's financial setbacks encourage Babs to seek a job from Narvel to manage his restaurant.
During his retirement, money issues convince Gavin to accept a comeback offer from the Denver Broncos. The new NFL has passed him by, though, and Gavin is forced to accept that his playing days are over. He enters a failed business relationship with entrepreneur Bolling Kiely, whom he despises, spending countless hours telling old college football stories to clients. Donnie moves on with his life, becoming an author and getting engaged to a sophisticated woman named Leslie Stone, while supporting Gavin and Babs through a marital breakdown. A lost and pathetic figure, in the end, Gavin mends his relationship with Babs as he spends his withdrawal from professional sports reminiscing about his famed athletic youth.