One/Eleven, a documentary made by kicker/punter Parker Benningfield ’26, gives a look into the weeks-long fall intensive training camp of Bates Football. With its “hard-knocks” approach, this film offers more than just highlights; it provides intimate interviews and the behind-the-scenes of team meetings. Curious for more information, I invited Parker to an interview over Commons and dug for more information about the filming process, team morale and how he became interested in filmmaking.
Q: Where did the title One/Eleven stem from?
Benningfield: One/Eleven stemmed from Coach Coyne, he always talks about doing your job, doing your one out of eleven, making sure you do your individual job to help the team win. And that was a big thing, you get to meet the people behind each position.
Q: How did you begin filmmaking?
Benningfield: I started taking film class when I was in high school, and one of the first projects I made was actually documented by the high school football team I played on. It was two different high schools and we had to make a co-op because we didn’t have enough players in each school to build an individual team. And so the question really was, how do we get all these guys to kind of buy in and play together when we’re historically rivals?
Q: How was the morale of the team after the win against Wesleyan University?
Benningfield: We were excited for the first 24 hours, but now we’re ready. We’re ready for the next week, and then that’s gonna be for us, the season, no matter what the outcome is of the game before it’s about the next. You know what happens after that? 24 hours, it’s, it’s on to the next.
This sentiment relates closely to a section of the documentary where Head Coach Matt Coyne motivates the team in a meeting telling the players, “The challenge is, how do we do it again tomorrow? Let’s just keep getting better, focusing on ourselves.”
Q: What is the purpose and importance of Fall Camp
Benningfield: Camp is so special in a way. The work that goes into it. The people you meet, just how life goes around in camp. You’re playing football, 24/7, for how many weeks and so I’ve always been a fan of capturing it and trying to show it for what it is.
Q: What was the goal of the film?
Benningfield: The whole goal when I made the doc was, it was for the guys on the team, it was for us to look back how many years later, and really remember the days, what we went through, how much work we put in and remember. So I made sure to ask after it was done, so I showed it to the team.
One aspect that set this documentary apart from other athletic films, was that Benningfield is on the football team, and filmed and edited while going through fall camp himself. This aspect shifted the documentary from being that of an outsider’s point of view, to a heartfelt keepsake for his teammates.
The Bates football team is on a mission to shift the culture around the sport, and Benningfield’s film might just be the spark they need. “People are just buying in. People are finding the love of football again.”
