MOOSEHEART, IL, April 23, 2007 - Little by little this past weekend and early this week, Mooseheart's football stadium has been moving from northern Illinois in 2007, to New Haven, CT, circa 1956-57.

Of course it's not really being moved across the country, nor back in time. That's the magic of Hollywood, which is in town this week in the form of a production crew from Universal Pictures, preparing for on-location filming of the "The Express", the on-screen telling of the story of Ernie Davis, the first African-American Heisman Trophy winner.

Changes have been made to the stadium, turning it into "Bowen Field" in New Haven, a stadium that will host Davis' Elmira (NY) Free Academy team in the film.

Filming on the "The Express" is expected to begin on Wednesday, April 25, weather permitting. Trucks carrying the equipment for the shooting are expected to arrive on Tuesday.

The football stadium is one of three sites on the 1,000-acre Child City campus to be used for filming. A gravel road that surrounds Mooseheart Lake in the northwest portion of the campus will be used for a scene in which Davis waits for a bus. Pennsylvania Home, which in real life is home to Mooseheart high school boys, is also to be used as a third shooting site.

"The Express", currently scheduled for a 2009 release, stars Rob Brown as Davis, who succumbed to leukemia before he was able to play in the National Football League. Brown is best-known for his role alongside Sean Connery in Finding Forrester (2000).

Dennis Quaid also stars as legendary Syracuse University football coach Ben Schwartzwalder - Davis's college coach. Quaid's 30-year Hollywood career has seen sports-related roles in "Breaking Away" (1979), Everybody's All-American (1988), Any Given Sunday (1999), and The Rookie (2002).

Quaid is not expected at Mooseheart for the filming of scenes here.

"The Express" will also hearken to an earlier time. Davis was born in 1939 and moved to Elmira, NY when he was 12. Davis' nickname, Elmira Express, came from his days at Elmira Free Academy, which is now Ernie Davis Middle School.

Davis played football at Syracuse University and won the Heisman Trophy in 1961.

Davis had to deal with the institutionalized racism of his era. In 1960, he was the Most Valuable Player in the Cotton Bowl--but was told he could attend the Dallas banquet only long enough to accept his award, then had to leave. As a result, the entire Syracuse team boycotted the banquet.

Davis was drafted in early 1962 by the Washington Redskins and then traded to the Cleveland Browns, who intended to pair him with a fellow Syracuse grad, NFL Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown.

But Davis never played professionally. He was diagnosed with leukemia in 1962 and died May 18, 1963, at the age of just 23.

The Browns still retired Davis' uniform, No. 45.

Mooseheart twice before has been the setting for a motion picture. The first was "Coach of the Year," a 1980 ABC made-for-TV production which starred Robert Conrad as a wheelchair-bound fictional former Chicago Bear who ended up coaching a football team at the Illinois Youth Center in St. Charles.

Mooseheart again hosted Hollywood in 1989, when it represented a military base in scenes of "The Package," which starred Gene Hackman in a crime thriller set mostly in Germany and the Soviet Union.

Mooseheart Child City & School is a 1,000-acre community and school for children and teens in need of a secure home, located just south of Batavia, IL, between Illinois Route 31 and Randall Road.

Founded in 1913, Mooseheart is supported completely through private donations - the great majority of which come from the 1.1 million men and women of the Moose fraternal organization, in more than 1,900 Lodges and 1,600 Chapters located throughout the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Bermuda. Moose International headquarters is located on the Mooseheart campus.

Since its founding, Mooseheart has operated a complete, accredited kindergarten-through-high-school academic program, plus art, music, vocational training and interscholastic sports. It is an extremely nurturing and student-tailored program, with an average student-teacher ratio of 12-1.

Mooseheart students who complete their studies with a 3.0 GPA or better (4.0=A) are eligible for up to five years of annually renewable scholarship funding, covering tuition, room and board in an amount comparable to that required for an in-state student at an Illinois public university.

Mooseheart is currently home to nearly 250 students, ranging in age from preschoolers to high school seniors. Applications for admission to Mooseheart are considered from any family whose children are, for whatever reason, lacking a stable home environment. Mooseheart boasts its own U.S. Post Office and a fully functioning branch of Fifth Third Bank. In addition to Mooseheart, Moose International also supports Moosehaven, a 70-acre retirement community near Jacksonville, FL founded in 1922; and conducts more than $90 million worth of community service programs annually. Founded in 1888, the Moose organization has long offered its members an opportunity to do good for others while celebrating life, with family, social, and sporting activities. For more information on the Moose organization, visit the websites at www.Mooseintl.org and www.Mooseheart.org or call 630-966-2229.