For many years, sports movies have been a popular Hollywood staple. The 2013 film about baseball’s iconic Jackie Robinson, titled 42 for his uniform number, was the third chronicling his struggles with the game’s racism in the 1940s and ’50s. Preceding it was The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990).
Chadwick Boseman was fine as Robinson in 42, as was Andre Braugher in the 1990 film, with the late Ruby Dee as his mother. Robinson played himself in the more authentic 1950 version and his byplay with the talented Dee, as his wife, added greatly to its appeal.
In recent years, Don King: Only in America (1997) and Phantom Punch (2009) featured the versatile Ving Rhames as King in the former and as Charles “Sonny” Liston in the latter. Both put a hard edge on major, controversial sports figures.
Other popular bio-pics include Knute Rockne, All-American (1940) with Pat O’Brien; Gentleman Jim with Errol Flynn and Pride of the Yankees with Gary Cooper (1942); The Babe Ruth Story (1948) with William Bendix; Jim Thorpe: All-American with Burt Lancaster and The Harlem Globetrotters with Thomas Gomez (1951); The Great White Hope (1970) with James Earl Jones; Chariots of Fire with Ian Holm and Don ’t Look Back with Cleavon Little (1981); Rebound (1996) with Don Cheadle; and Cinderella Man (2005) with Russell Crowe.
But most sports films are fiction. Three of my favorites are Champion (1949) with Kirk Douglas; Number One (1969) with Charlton Heston; and The Natural (1984) with Robert Redford. Others include The Set-Up (1949) with Robert Ryan; The Games (1970) with Ryan O’Neal; The Longest Yard (1974) with Burt Reynolds; Slap Shot (1977) with Paul Newman; North Dallas Forty (1979) with Nick Nolte; Bull Durham (1988) with Kevin Costner; A League of Their Own (1992) with Tom Hanks; and He Got Game (1998) with Denzel Washington.
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But in my view, the very best of the sports-film genre was Hoosiers (1986), the memorable tale of a rural high school basketball team that miraculously wins the Indiana state championship in 1952. As an enthusiastic, undistinguished high school hoopster in Milwaukee many years ago, this one hits me where I live. It is one for the ages.
Based on the true story of the undermanned Milan High School team that became Indiana state champions in 1954, Hoosiers lovingly captures the passion for the sport so prevalent in countless small towns statewide.
Gene Hackman, as middle-aged Norman Dale (once fired as a college coach for hitting a player) is given a chance to coach the Hickory High Huskers by an old friend, Cletus Summers (Sheb Wooley), the school’s principal. His hiring is met with resistance at an impromptu barbershop meeting led by acting-coach George (Chelcie Ross).
They are frustrated due to the school’s small enrollment (only 64 boys) and the team has only seven players. Their best, Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis), will not play due to his devotion to the late, former coach. Dale then infuriates everyone by leaving the meeting before several people have a chance to voice their opinions.
Adding fuel to the fire, Dale fires the arrogant George and kicks one player off the team for talking and failing to pay attention as he is speaking. He upsets the remaining five players by stressing fundamentals and conditioning but no scrimmages or shooting.
Once the season begins, Dale employs a losing, four-passes-before-shooting style, which the remaining players don’t buy, and is hated by the town’s rabid adult fans. Yet the father of the player Dale dismissed makes his son apologize and he rejoins the team.
Now desperate, Dale hires long-ago Huskers’ star Shooter Flatch (Dennis Hopper), the alcoholic father of another player, as an assistant coach. But the team continues to struggle and a vote is taken at a formal town meeting to force Dale out as coach.
Chitwood appears and tells the meeting he will return, but only if Dale is retained. The Huskers begin to win and advance to the state title game versus a much taller team with black players—South Bend Central—at Butler University field house in Indianapolis, Ind.
In the exciting climax, Chitwood hits the game-winning shot with time running out to give Hickory an inexplicable 42-40 victory. His shot was taken from the exact same spot as the game-winner by real-life Bobby Plump in Milan High’s 1954 state title game.
Hoosiers copped Academy Award nominations for Jerry Goldsmith’s haunting musical score and Hopper’s moving turn as Shooter (Best Supporting Actor). Its first-rate cast also included Barbara Hershey as a teacher, Fern Persons as her mother and Wade Schenck (Ollie McLellan)—the team’s shortest and worst player—whose last-second free throws won a crucial late-season game.
Out of all the sports films over the years, Hoosiers remains the most discussed, and most loved, by countless movie and sports fans.
