Glory Road - An Exceptional Movie
Posted By Paul on January 6, 2006
Wednesday night I had the opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new movie GLORY ROAD for the purpose of reviewing it, courtesy of Grace Hill Media. Due to various circumstances, about the only time I actually get to “go to the movies” is when I have one of these review opportunities, which I have done a few times now.
Without doubt, this was far and away the best of any of the movies I’ve seen in this manner. GLORY ROAD tells the inspiring true story of the underdog Texas Western basketball team, with history’s first all African American starting lineup of players, who took the country by storm, surprisingly winning the 1966 NCAA tournament title. Josh Lucas stars as Hall of Famer Don Haskins, the passionately dedicated college basketball coach that changed the history of basketball with his team’s victory in this time of innocence.
Now I’m one of the few people, apparently, who has never seen Remember the Titans, so I can’t compare this movie to that one, as my viewing partner did, but I most certainly enjoyed this movie, enough so that I would go see it again if I had the chance.
Of course, as anyone who visits here regularly is quite well aware of, I happen to like sports. What many of you may not know is that I also have a certain passion for history. SO….when SPORTS is combined with HISTORY, it already is close to a winner in my book.
Now, this movie is ‘based on’ the reality of the 1966 Texas Western team, so obviously, certain liberties were taken with the story. I mean, come on, this IS from Disney, after all, AND Jerry Bruckheimer, the master of cliche.
One of the major ‘liberties’ was how they portray Coach Haskins as coming in fresh from coaching girl’s high school basketball and in his first year taking the Miners to the NCAA Championship. Actually, the fact is Haskins started at Texas Western in 1961. It was also wrongly implied that there were no black players on the team until Haskins arrived and recruited them. The truth is that Texas Western had black players in the 1950’s, and when Haskins arrived in El Paso, he inherited a team that had 3 black players already on it, including the great Nolan Richardson. Now Haskins did indeed greatly increase the recruitment and playing time of black players, but he wasn’t the ‘first’ as the movie would imply.
Another area that did seem to be a bit over-drawn was the style of basketball that the Miners palyed. They were a VERY defense-minded team, and yet, in the movie the team is playing what looks curiously like 1990’s style showboat, ‘in-your-face’ basketball. I mean, really, a reverse slam dunk in 1966? I don’t think so.
OK, so that is some of the liberties taken, now for some of the ‘good stuff’….
It’s always good to see a team of ‘mis-fits’ pull together and start believing in themselves. The incredible winning streak that the team ran for almost the entire regular season (they didn’t lose until the final game of regular season). The basketball action, while it may have been ‘out-of-time’, was very ‘real’; no fake athletes here. The action and the intensity that makes college basketball so great was just oozing throughout this movie.
Also worthy was the sad-but-true portrayal of some of the horrible racist degradation that the black players had to endure. The scenes of the vandalism and the beating were heartbreaking. Those sort of events could have easily destroyed the team, and apparently it almost did. There was a big rift at the end of the year between the black players and the white players. That cost them their lone defeat.
But, as good teams (and good movies) do, the team overcame that. They came together as a united team, of one mind, to win, and to overcome the ignorant racism of others. Even in Coach Haskins historic decision to only play his 7 black players in the NCAA Championship game, this was a team in solidarity.
And of course the Miners won that historic game, the perception of black athletes in general, and in basketball in particular, shifted massively as a result of this historic game, and the rest, as they say, is history.
In the scene after the final game was over, there was a shot of Coach Haskins trying to find, and then get to, his wife, who was likewise trying to get to him. I couldn’t help but expect to hear, “Yo Adrian!” “Rocky!” I’d wager that this scene has Bruckheimer’s thumbprint all over it.
If you go to see this movie, and I would surely recommend that you do, watch for the scene when Coach Haskins pulls into a gas station. The gas pump attendant is actually the real life Coach Haskins!
The name of the movie comes from Coach Haskins autobiography, but it is never actually explained. I can only guess that at some point, a scene was cut from the final release that would have had Haskins making a speech to his team about starting down the road to glory, but again, that is just a guess.
The movie is “safe” for the whole family, and would be an excellent family outing. No major profanities, no ’sex scenes’, not even any locker room showers, this is a true family movie.
GLORY ROAD has a nation-wide ’sneak peak’ this Saturday, before it’s full-scale release next Friday, January 13th.
This gets 5 Cars Wide Open
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