Joe Posnanski has written another of his always entertaining sports books, this one about special moments in sports.

I haven’t read the book but as I glanced at the index I saw Dan Devine and I was curious.

Devine is a hero of mine as a Missouri football diehard,

When the movie “Rudy” came out, I cringed at the depiction of Devine, then head coach at Notre Dame, as not wanting to let Rudy play in his only chance to play.

Posnanski explains it never happened. The movie producers needed a gimmick to heighten the finale and came up with Devine as a villain.

The only problem is Devine liked Rudy, praised Rudy, and always planned to let Rudy to get into his final game.

When the producers told Devine generally what they intended to do Devine said “Fine, anything for Rudy.”

When Devine saw the film with his family he was disheartened at how far they had gone to make up the players turning in their uniforms in protest if Rudy didn’t get to dress out, and his nasty determination to keep Rudy out of the game, none of which happened. He cringed when his grandkids wanted to know why Grandpa was so mean.

He mostly kept quiet about the falsehoods. Rudy and the producers say they felt bad about the image left.

Rudy and Dan remained friends until Dan died, not letting it get in the way of the true relationship they had.

I don’t know what other gimmick would have helped the film’s finale.

But what we got is great cinema but so unfair to a decent guy.