Taco, nacho, burrito...hot dog-o

Glory Road (2006)

Rated: PG

Runtime: 118 minutes

Stars: Josh Lucas, Jon Voight, Mehcad Brooks, Sam Jones III, Schin A.S. Kerr, Derek Luke, Alphonso McAuley, Damaine Radcliff, Al Shearer

Director: James Gartner

Plot: Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) is a former high school girls’ basketball coach who takes the head coaching position at Texas Western College. He don’t see color, calls everyone son, and preaches fundamental/disciplined/defensive basketball. Adolph Rupp (Jon Voight) is the legendary/racist head coach of the University of Kentucky. Coach Haskins wants to compete with Duke/Kansas/Kentucky, but his all-white team just can’t keep up. So he does the unexpected in the south (for the time): he recruits seven African-American players that can put it in the hole and rebound. Harry Flournoy (Mehcad Brooks), a forward from Indiana; Willie Worsley (Sam Jones III), a guard from New York; David “Big Daddy D” Lattin (Schin A.S. Kerr), a center from Texas; Bobby Joe Hill (Derek Luke), a point Guard from Michigan; Orsten Artis (Alphonso McAuley), a guard from Indiana; Willie “Scoops” Cager (Damaine Radcliff), a forward from New York; and Nevil Shed (Al Shearer), a forward from New York, are the chosen ones that would change college basketball and the world forever.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 4 basketballs. 1 for my recommendation, 1 for the solidness of a Disney sports movie, 1 for teaching the viewer about the importance of this team, and 1 for the first movie I have reviewed that captures the beauty of the NCAA Tournament.

Tournament seed: 2-4—movie is one of the top teams and should be a popular pick to make it to the final 4. As long as nothing unfortunate happens along the way, this team can go very deep into the tournament. Don’t be afraid to choose this as one of your favorites.

This movie is really good. Disney does a great job turning true sports stories into movies (Remember the Titans, The Rookie, Miracle, The Greatest Game Ever Played, Invincible, Secretariat are some examples), and Glory Road definitely delivers. The only thing I didn’t really like about the movie was that it jammed in too many hits from the ‘60s to get you to feel like you were traveling back in time to that era. The basketball action was realistic and there were a lot of sweet dunks. The movie does a great job of balancing racial issues, though some might have an issue with a Disney kids’ movie using the n-word. Coach Haskins has a lot of great one-liners, some funny, some serious: “Decent don’t cut it with me”, “Faster than a twister will take your socks off”, “This pie is so good, it makes me mad at my mama”, “Activity without accomplishment”, “Are you kiddin’ me”, and “Runnin’ in mud”.

Texas Western benefits from schools like Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky overlooking black athletes, but even after getting the players, it still isn’t easy. The white players on the team don’t want to give up their spots, and there are even differences between the black players. In the beginning, there are only about 100 people at the games, but then they start winning. A victory over #4 ranked Iowa (the Miners trailed by 21 points before Coach “let ‘em loose”) starts turning heads, and, when they continue to run teams off the floor, the country starts to really pay attention. The black and white teammates start hanging out, the team is ranked #4 in the country behind (you guessed it) Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas, and all seems great. But then Shed gets beat up in a bathroom by a bunch of white guys, the Haskin family starts receiving hate mail, Scoops is diagnosed with a heart problem, the black players separate from the white players after the attack on Shed, the Miners lose their first game of the season by 11 points to Seattle University, and the white players claim they are victims of reverse racism. Things look shaky as the NCAA tournament begins, but the Miners come up big against the University of Kansas with a 1-point double overtime win after Kansas’ star player Jo Jo White has the game-winning shot called off after he stepped out of bounds. To nobody’s surprise, Texas Western is to face the University of Kentucky in the championship game. It’s black vs. white, David vs. Goliath. Coach Haskins’ makes not only a huge decision for his team, but a groundbreaking one for college basketball as well; he decides to start five black players (the first time in NCAA Championship history) and to play off the bench only his other 2 black players. The white players are ok with the decision, because they just want to win. Coach wants to send a message to begin the game, so he tells Big Daddy D to “stick his armpits in the rim” and he sooooo does! A little bit later in the first half, Flournoy gets hurt, Lattin picks up 3 quick fouls, and  things don’t look good for the Miners; but they are able to hold a 3-point lead at the half. Kentucky and their 2 All-Americans (Louie Dampier and Pat Riley) turn things around to start the second half and take an 8-point lead with 10 minutes left, but then the Miners go up-tempo, do some fancy passin’, and lead by 3 with 2 minutes left. Coach then tells his players in the last 2 minutes of the game that the game is “not about talent, it’s about heart”, and they come out of the timeout with a Cager reverse dunk, a Bobby Joe steal and a Lattin dunk for a 7-point lead. Kentucky misses a shot and Bobby Joe dribbles out the clock. Texas Western wins the championship 72-65 and they cut down the nets.

A lot of important things are learned along the way: taco night brings in a real good crowd, all black people are from Harlem, all white people are from Mayberry, liquor steals a man’s mind, and fans in 1966 think it’s cool to wave confederate flags in the stands during a basketball game. Before the credits roll, we learn that David Lattin was a 1^st-round pick in the NBA draft and played 2 years in the NBA/3 years in the ABA, Willie Worsley played 1 year in the ABA, Nevil Shed was a 4^th-round pick in the NBA draft but never played a game in the NBA, and Don Haskins would lead the Miners to 14 NCAA Tournaments and 719 wins in his coaching career. And during the credits the real players from Texas Western and Kentucky, and coach Haskins talk about what the game was like. If they only knew then what we know now:

“Negroes would be the future of college basketball.”