Classic sports flick: underdogs triumph and strike a blow against southern racism

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2006)

Fine feel good docudrama about the Cinderella team that shocked the collegiate sports world in 1966 by coming from obscure underdog to win the NCAA basketball championship against the legendary Adolph Rupp's heavily favored Kentucky team. The important subtext here is that in building his winning team, Texas Western coach Don Haskins was the first coach in the South to recruit black players.
His team came from inner city ghettos in Detroit, South Bronx, and so on. In the championship game, he fielded a starting lineup that was all black, against Rupp's all white players, a first in college basketball history. Of course, in the north, things had been different for years: Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain had dominated college basketball in the 1950s and led the pro sport in the 60s.
But in the deep south, and Haskins and his players had to endure one hate-filled encounter after another. All of this, plus other problems (players' personalities, health and academic woes), are depicted here. Josh Lucas is splendid as Coach Haskins. Lucas appears to have graduated from the Paul Newman School of Acting. His face in profile is like Newman's, especially the bridge of his nose, but, even more, Lucas's head tilts, confrontive stares and manner of touching his face with his hands are about as Newmanesque as you can get.
But that's all right. Lucas makes these gestures his own in a good turn. With a very old looking Jon Voight as Adolph Rupp. Be sure to stay through the end credits to learn the fates of the players and coaches. This film is a purely formulaic sports success movie, but it is very well done indeed. My grade: low B+ 7.5/10