| In the pantheon of hero schoolteacher in the ghetto movies, Coach Carter isn’t all that bad. It’s far from great, but in many ways it exceeds expectation.
Preachy and predictable as it is, Coach Carter works off a true story that is more palatable and interesting than many of its predecessors. Unlike Dangerous Minds, which delivered the preposterous idea that inner-city kids could overcome violence, poverty and indifference with the help of a sexy white woman who taught them the joys of reading, Coach Carter spins its tale of redemption around a more believable centre: basketball. The outcome is far too simplistic, but the ride is more fun.
Like Stand and Deliver by way of Miracle, this rousing story is based on a California high school basketball coach who made headlines in 1999 when he benched his entire team for poor academic performance. Demanding his players maintain a 2.3 grade point average, Carter upset the community when he shut down the popular basketball program. In the film, Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) is a successful local businessman and graduate of the troubled school, who takes on the low-paying, time-consuming side job out of a sense of obligation. Hoping to turn a losing team into winners and discipline a group of wayward boys without much hope for their futures, Carter hits the court with little chance of earning the respect of his players.
The first victory takes place on the court. Carter begins by simply exhausting his players. If they cross him, interrupt him or show up late, they’re forced to run endless suicides and do push-ups. The intense workouts brings the team closer, but more importantly, it allows them to outlast more skilled opponents on the court.
The second half of the film focuses on the action that brought Carter notoriety: his decision to lock up the gym and send his players to the library. The message that Carter articulates, repeatedly (and suffers for – local hooligans throw a brick through his sporting goods store’s front window), is of course a provocative one: letting high school kids play basketball without caring if they graduate is, on so many levels, wrong. Repeatedly touting the term "student athlete" as a lost phrase – an idea articulated in a news clip where Bob Costas talks about the benched high school players on TV – Carter brings to light a problem infecting sports at all levels. And, while the bad behaviour of professional athletes is one thing, the difficulties become more complex at the high school and college level.
In many ways Coach Carter crudely says what the documentary Hoop Dreams so heartbreakingly revealed. Young, poor, black kids from the inner city are too often betrayed by the very thing that is touted as their salvation. In the world of Coach Carter, the important thing is simply getting to college. Carter fights a school system that assumes the majority of its students, basketball players or not, won’t graduate and that even fewer will go on to college. But while the film ends on a high note, the real tragedy is often the story that continues. The two central characters in Hoop Dreams, both of whom went on to college, became lost in a world where they weren’t quite as fast, or as good, as the competition. With no hope of making the NBA, what does a kid with no academic background do next? |
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