ceebeegee | Hoosiers and Basketball

I watched the 1986 movie Hoosiers on DVD last night and Sunday. It's pretty good--the cinematography is quite lovely (the opening sequence is Gene Hackman's drive through rural Indiana to the town of Hickory and it's really breathtaking) and a strong cast. It's about a basketball team from a small town--the team has only 8 players--that goes to the state championship finals. I LOVE a good sports movie--I got quite wrapped up in this one. During the final game I was yelling at the screen. "PRESS! Full-court press in their faces!! Get up in their business!" To a player, basketball feels very different from, say, soccer or track--the court and gym are a literal and metaphorical echo chamber, magnifying what you're hearing and experiencing, and the player feels so much more under the glass. It is MUCH more intense. I played girls basketball for several years in middle school and high school--I enjoyed it, but I preferred the looser nature of soccer (and of course, I was much better suited for soccer--I did well in basketball due to one thing--hustle--because even then I was shorter than most of the other girls. Although I was very good on defense, I will say). Basketball is a great game though; I love its rhythms and intensity. It suited my theatrical nature.

Anyway Hoosiers is a pretty solid story--it's based on a true story, the 1951/2 champions. Interestingly, they play the South Bend team in the finals, which boasts at least two black players and two black coaches. And black cheerleaders. Jigga-wha? There are *still* very few black people in Indiana, I believe (compared to other states, that is)--but they seem to have done their research so maybe that's the way it was. They didn't make a point out of the black kids (i.e., no subplot of rural racism surfacing or anything like that), they were just opposing players, so it was interesting. It's a good movie.