Guest Blogger: Travis 2

One of my favorite movies of all time would have to be Coach Carter. This movie is based off a true story when Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) turned a losing team into winners not just on the court but off it as well. The movie starts out with Coach Carter accepting a job to coach at Richmond high school. After watching a preseason game almost turn into a brawl on the court he realizes that these kids need leadership. When he becomes coach he makes the players sign contracts that say the players will maintain a 2.3 GPA and sit in the front row of all their classes. This doesn't go over too well at the first practice, and Carter loses a few players right away. This doesn’t change how the coach thinks though instead he has the players begin working on their fundamentals and have them running up and down the court. The team started off great going undefeated for the first 16 games, but then Coach Carter receive the progress reports and found most of his players were failing so to fix that problem he locked the gym and made his players study instead of practice. The team even forfeited games because of the players’ grades. But after they realized how important it was to get good grades and go to college they took it upon themselves to get the grades. And even though they didn’t win the state tournament 5 players went to college from that team and they came from a school that only graduated 50% of its students. I agree with critic Mark Dujsik that sports movies inspire us especially ones like this that are actually based off something real. This movie does a great job showing not just game reels but actual life situations but it doesn’t show this for every player only a select few which is a shame. I think that the theme of the movie is that no matter what the odds are you shouldn’t give up cause you always have a chance.