I'm not what you would call a sports fan by nature. I'm athletically inept and was the kid chosen last for everything in PE class growing up. When I was really young, when I saw a football game on television, I assumed that the point of the game was to run and fall down because that's what I saw the players doing. Since my early twenties, I have been enamoured with the game of baseball, but even that I only tend to pay attention to after the all-star break and even then only when the Chicago Cubs or the Cleveland Guardians are doing well. (I must confess, I do still occasionally refer to the Guardians as the Indians. That's what they were most of my life including when I lived in Cleveland. Please don't cancel me. At least I'm classy enough not to wear my hat or t-shirt with "Chief Wahoo" on it anymore.)
That's not to say that I don't like it when certain teams do well, especially if they're based in or near my home state. I will always cheer on the Indiana Pacers, the Indianapolis Colts, and the Chicago Bears (like my allegiance to the Cubs, rooting for the Bears is a hereditary... affliction). I also will root for any college team from Ball State University (my alma mater), Notre Dame (since I currently live near there), and Purdue University (also hereditary). I'll even root for Indiana University, but only if they're in a championship game. But, by and large, I don't care about the game itself--just whether or not my team wins. For the most part, I couldn't care less about basketball, and I think I've made my feelings about football fairly known over the last couple of years (#TeamHeidi).
What's weird to me is that while I'm not a sports fan, I do enjoy sports movies--particularly boxing movies. I don't know why, but you probably couldn't pay me to watch an actual boxing match--yet I'll watch Rocky at the drop of a hat. Most of these films are rousing, inspirational, and uplifting and just make you feel good after watching it, no matter the sport. You want the athlete or the team depicted in the movie to do well. The best ones are the ones that are based on true stories like Miracle--the 2004 Disney film about the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team starring Kurt Russell. Or 2015's McFarland, USA (strangely, also a Disney film) in which Kevin Costner plays a high school football coach who moves to a school in southern California and forms a cross-country team. And how can you not love 1993's Rudy--especially if you're from Indiana and, like me, live in St. Joseph County?
As I said, I don't particularly like basketball, but I grew up in the small rural town of Orleans, Indiana. Like anyone who grew up in a small Indiana town, I attended my fair share of basketball games (GO, BULLDOGS!), because that's what you do on a Friday night in small town Indiana. When I was a senior, we had a section of the bleachers roped off called "The Dawg House" that was next to the pep band. I was one of a group of (mostly) guys who would inhabit that space and cheer as loudly as we could for our basketball team. I often joked that our sole purpose was to get laryngitis during home games. I would often lead the others in improvised dance routines when the band played particularly rousing numbers. Eventually this led to my teaching our cheerleaders how to dance. Perhaps my crowning achievement was during the last game of that year, when I got to dress up as the Bulldog mascot, Peppy Spirit.
This week's film is based to some degree on a true story. I watched it again last night and it brought up a lot of personal memories. Set in 1951, Gene Hackman plays Norman Dale who comes to the small town of Hickory, Indiana, to coach a very small basketball team. His style of coaching is controversial to the people of the town, but after they manage to win a few games, they start to accept this outsider. Eventually, Dale leads the Hickory Huskers to the state championship game against the much larger South Bend Central Bears.
The movie is based in large part on Milan High School (and in Indiana that's pronounced "MY-lun"). In 1954 Milan, a school with only 161 students, became the smallest school to ever win a single-class state basketball championship in Indiana, beating the considerably larger Muncie Central, 32-30. For over 70 years--especially in Indiana--it has remained one of the great underdog stories of all time alongside the "Miracle on Ice" in 1980 and, of course, David and Goliath in the Book of 1 Samuel. In the late 1990s, Indiana went to a "class system" that placed schools in different classes based on size, which would not allow for an event such as what occurred in 1954 to happen again.
I was kind of saddened to hear of Gene Hackman's passing this week at the age of 95. He was one of my favourite actors. In fact, when all of the news outlets were reporting on it and listing some of his movies, I found it hard to pick a favourite. There were so many good ones. As I said, I watched this week's film again last night, primarily as a tribute to Hackman. I wasn't prepared for the small town memories it evoked, which had not happened on previous viewings. I don't know if this is my favourite Hackman film. I don't know if it's my favourite sports movie. But it is a sentimental pick in both categories.
Filmed on location in Indiana, the movie was written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by Decatur, Indiana's own David Anspaugh. (The two later teamed up to write and direct that other based-on-a-true-story-Indiana-sports classic, the aforementioned Rudy). It co-starred Barbara Hershey, the legendary Dennis Hopper in his only Oscar-nominated performance, and the great Sheb Wooley, who is perhaps best known for his 1958 hit "The Purple People Eater" as well as the voice of cinema's oft-used "Wilhelm Scream." Over the last four decades, it has consistently been listed as one of the greatest sports movies of all time. In 2001, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." This week, as one myself, I'm recommending 1986's Hoosiers.
Until next week, stay safe be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
"Peppy Spirit" with my parents, February, 1992
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