Hoop Dreamz for girlz

The Heart of the Game (2005)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 98 minutes

Stars: Bill Relser, Darnellia Russell, Keasha Beward, Devon “Crazy Horse” Crosby-Helms, Maude Lepley, Malia O’Neil, Hillary Seidel, Joyce Walker, Jade “Street Child” White, Secoy Williams, Lindsey Wilson

Director: Ward Serrill

Plot: Documentary about Seattle’s Roosevelt Roughriders girl’s high school basketball team over a 6-7 year period. Bill Resler is the head coach and likes to pick a “team identity” at the beginning of each season (Magical Journey, Pack of Wolves, Tropical Storm, Pride of Lions...). The team’s star player, Darnellia Russell, is often moody and gets low grades in her classes. The movie focuses on several other players from Roosevelt, some more talented than others: Devon “Crazy Horse” Crosby-Helms, who attended Fresno State University; Hillary Seidel; Jade “Street Child” White; and Lindsey Wilson, who attended Iowa State. The team has a lot of ups and downs over the years, and plays a bunch of meaningful games against rival Garfield high school. During these battles we meet Coach Joyce Walker, a former All-American at LSU and Harlem Globetrotter; Keasha Beward, who is Darnellia’s best friend; and Malia O’Neil, a star guard for the team.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 1 basketball for Maude Lepley, the sweet 95 year old former basketball coach that gets really excited when she holds a basketball.

Tournament seed: 13–15—movie hangs around with higher seed for the 1^st half, but the 2^nd half results in a blowout. Only advances in the tournament if matched up with an overrated team. Pick with caution.

This movie gives an interesting look into the world of girl’s high school basketball, and is a great movie to have in my collection of reviews. There have been a few movies with a female baller (Juwanna Mann, Rebound, Space Jam, Fast Break, and Love & Basketball), but this is the first (and only of the 32 I will review) where the whole team is girls. It was a bit short for a documentary (98 minutes), and this caused it to lack a lot of key elements. There was no music/score, so at times I found it a bit boring. The head coach was a bit goofy; a lot of his tactics were silly and I find it hard to believe they would really work. His philosophy on offense was ... don’t have one, just run like hell. This is probably why the team kept losing close games, and making stupid mistakes on easy plays. The movie tries to tackle a bunch of teen issues (poverty, racial tension, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy) but with the lack of time, they are rushed and feel unimportant. I did like the interviews they did with Maude Lepley, a 95-year-old former women’s basketball coach in the ‘20s. My girlfriend (who was watching the movie with me) loved learning about the early rules of women’s basketball, and said that she would have been more suited for that style of play because they didn’t have to exert much energy. After the main characters are introduced, the movie spends 99% of the time centered on Darnellia and her being pregnant. I found it amusing how the filmmakers tried to make it a huge surprise, but it’s pretty obvious. She is sick to her stomach and her back hurts before/during games (which causes the Roughriders, ranked #2 in the state, to lose in the first round of the tournament), and then she mysteriously quits school six weeks after the season ends ... which leads to the birth of her daughter Trekayla. Darnellia does go back to school, but the Seattle school district begins a long drawn out attempt to keep her off the basketball court. First she can’t play, but then she can, but then she can’t, but then she can! The team works their way through the tournament and ends up in the championship game against Garfield High. Darnellia takes over the game and scores 13 points in the first half to help her team to a 7-point lead. Garfield fights back to take a lead as Coach Resler’s strategy is to get all his players in the game, even the girls that have not played many minutes throughout the season. Which strangely works and Roosevelt leads by 1 with 44 seconds left. Garfield has a chance to tie the game with 9 seconds left, but misses 2 free throws. Darnellia puts Roosevelt up by 3 points with 1.9 seconds left and then the game is over. The 25-3 Roughriders are state champions! Darnellia graduates with honors, but does not receive any scholarship offers. She does end up at a community college though.

Three things I learned about girls from this movie: girls say “FUUUUUCK!”, you “Don’t fuckin’ throw shit!” at them, and if a female athlete gets pregnant in high school she gets punished and not the male who got her pregnant. I also learned that Coach Resler thinks he’s cool, but actually isn’t. The best example is in this exchange between Coach and team late in a game in which they are beating a team by a lot of points:

Coach Resler: “What rhymes with bass-pickin’?”

Team: “Ass-kickin’!”

I can’t wait for the sequel when we find out next year’s team identity is “school of piranhas”...