James “Radio” Kennedy, the mentally disabled man whose importance to a South Carolina football team inspired the Hollywood movie “Radio,” died early Sunday at the age of 73, T.L. Kennedy earned the nickname “Radio” in the mid-1960s when he began to show up at Hanna’s football field with a transistor radio, according to Sheila Hilton, the former principal at Hanna. “He became a fixture at football practices, standing passively and watching, until one day when he began to mimic the coaches’ signals and tried his hand at yelling out commands,” Hilton wrote. That article was then adapted into the 2003 movie "Radio" that starred Cuba Gooding Jr. as Radio and Ed Harris as the football coach who took a liking to him. Hilton wrote that Radio's story had a simple message: "love and compassion can change lives."