The voice of the singer of 'Looking Through The Eyes Of Love' at the tribute party for Charlie is his real life daughter, Carri Wedemeyer, who also has a bit part as a waitress in the film.
First film role for Kyle Chandler, who portrays football team player, Skinner, beginning relatively late in the film.
In actuality, Charlie Wedemeyer lived until June 3, 2010, when he died at age 64, or 34 years after his diagnoses, which is one of the longest survival spans for any man with ALS ever recorded, similar to the survival span of Stephen Hawking, who had an early-onset, rare slow-progressing form of ALS, dying in 2018 at age 76. Charlie Wedemeyer also had an early onset form of the disease, but was never confirmed as specifically having a similarly rare slow-progressing form of ALS.
2nd Film role, Pierre Perea played Charlies young football years, bring the ball into the endzone and working with Pam Dawber. PIERRE PEREA spent many hours with Charlie learning how to communicate and share stories with clicks, sounds, eye and eyebrow movements... a great relationship developed onset.
Charlie's doctor (portrayed by James Handy, who diagnoses Charlie's ALS, gives Charlie 1-3 years to live, at most. However, in the film, Charlie's diagnoses comes just after he is named as head football coach, which is 1976, and Charlie remains as head football coach through 1988, more than 12 years, or approximately four times greater than his own doctor's terminal estimate.