From basketball to books, Silverton man takes a roundabout route to new passion

When the production of the movie based on David Brautigam’s script fell apart last year, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue writing.

He wondered if it was worth it to continue writing screenplays.

Known in the Willamette Valley as a successful former high school basketball coach, he’s taken a roundabout route to becoming a published author.

His first book, "Revenge is a Must," which he describes as a crime drama in the vein of Goodfellas and The Godfather, will be available for pre-order on Feb. 8 and be released this year.

A basketball life for Brautigam

Brautigam played high school basketball at Tualatin.

In his senior year, the Timberwolves lost to a loaded Jefferson team in the state championship game that included future NBA players Aaron Miles, Michael Lee and Thomas Gardner.

He went to Lane Community College in Eugene, where he set scoring records and played for legendary coach Jim Boutin. Brautigam took a year off from playing and was an assistant for Lane before playing at Western Oregon University.

“The first year I went there it was hard for me because the first six games I came off the bench and I had never done that ever,” Brautigam said. “I ended up starting.”

He intended to play professional basketball in Australia after graduating from Western Oregon where he got a degree in business, tore the meniscus in his knee. He recovered from the injury and a year later was going to give pro ball another try. But he tore the ACL in his knee, and that ended his playing career.

He was talked into taking a coaching job of seventh grade girls in Dallas for $150 for the season while still at Western Oregon. Then in 2006, at 23, he was hired as head coach of Dallas High School’s girls basketball.

Dallas had struggled for years, but in his third year, the team made the state playoffs for the first time in 30 years.

He also was hired as sports coordinator at City of Dallas starting in 2010, overseeing youth sports programs in the city.

He continued coaching at Dallas through 2017 with teams that had become consistent playoff contenders under his guidance.

“I ended up playing that season with nothing but guards,” Brautigam said. "It was just a cool season to see where we were at the end.”

By then, he was married with two daughters and looking elsewhere, so he resigned and the family relocated to Silverton.

He took a marketing job in marketing for Summit Orthotics and Prosthetics in Salem and stepped back from coaching, at least at the high school level.

Becoming a self-taught screenwriter

Though Brautigam liked some writing classes while he was in school, he said he never excelled at subjects like English.

But he and his father had a tradition of going to the movies together.

In 2008, they watched the Mark Wahlberg movie “The Happening,” which is generally considered one of the worst movies of all time.

While walking out of the theater, Brautigam complained about the movie and told his father: “I can create a movie off the top of my head that is better.”

He bought books about how to write a screenplay and wrote "Revenge is a Must" over the next year and a half.

He sent it to a former high school classmate, Bret Harrison, a character actor who has a long list of credits. When Harrison responded that he thought the screenplay had potential, Brautigam decided to continue.

In his free time – like at 3 a.m. – he would write screenplays. He said he loved how he could do whatever he wanted with his characters.

“To me, it’s like the coolest thing in the world,” Brautigam said. “I think that’s where my passion comes from.”

Lost Meaning of Loyalty, the second of the four screenplays he has written, was optioned by a Hollywood production company. He said the producers raised $25 million toward making the movie.

“And so then we were this close,” Brautigam said. "We were going to reach out for casting. The writer’s strike happened.”

The investors pulled their money out of the production and the movie fell apart.

End of movie leads to book career

Not long after the movie collapsed, Brautigam got a call from Amazon's publishing arm, where his agent had submitted his screenplays. He was told Amazon was interested in having some of their writers convert his screenplay “Revenge is a Must” into a book.

A day later, Amazon called back and told him the company wanted to do the same with all four of his screenplays.

And Amazon wants four more. He’s writing them as screenplays because that’s the medium he’s used to.

“I’m set up right now to have eight books on Amazon Kindle over the next 10 years,” Brautigam said.

He’s doing this while still coaching a sixth grade basketball team and going to all of the games his daughter, Ava, plays in on Silverton’s JV basketball team.

Brautigam said couldn’t give up basketball or coaching completely, but he’s cut back to find time for his passion writing screenplays.

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Former basketball coach finds new arena after a passion project ends