Coach of the Year

I received this movie in a pack called "50 all-star Movies" for $18 (45 cents each). Many are good. This one was terrible. It was a hackneyed retread done 1000 times before and each time better. A crippled ex-jock is dared to coach a team made up of juvenile delinquents. They learn from him that they can make it if they play by the rules. I'm sure the kids and the locals were thrilled to be included in a "real TV movie", but I can't imagine what the folks that launched and produced this project figured they could bring to this already over beaten subject. I kept waiting to see that 'new twist' or 'new angle' but, honest, it doesn't come. Avoid this movie. Forget about the 45 cents, I want the 96 minutes of my life back.

I was going through the $1 DVD bin and saw a football movie so I bought it! This 1980 made for TV movie is about a former Chicago Bears player named Jim Branden (played by Robert Conrad) who was paralyzed in the Vietnam War and now wants to coach. The Bears won't give him a coaching job so he ends up coaching a team at a juvenile correctional school, where his nephew resides. The kids there have horrible attitudes at first and lose their first game, which is against an exquisite private school. But Branden eventually wins the respect of his players, who unify around him and work hard to win the rematch. I find the movie to be a little too predictable down the stretch but it's a decent light drama and worth the dollar. As a nice bonus, Mike Post contributes some good music. 6/10.

I don't know if this type of movie was as cliché then as it seems to be now.

Considering how many "Bad News Bears" films had already been released by 1980, however, I think that this sort of movie was already a tired idea.

A former football player is partially paralyzed in Vietnam and is confined to a wheelchair. The Chicago Bears offer him a PR job but he wants to coach. At the same time, his underage nephew is picked up for armed robbery. We are told that he has already been arrested over a dozen times before and he must now serve some hard time...which turns out to be less than a year!

Of course, the kid is actually a good kid who only needs a tough male role model in his life. The same goes for all of the kids in the detention facility. Yes...even the one locked up for attempted murder! I'm sure you already know what happens so I'll try and keep the rest of this brief.

Our protagonist becomes the coach of the kids' football team. He overcomes the delinquents' cynicism and earns their respect. His team faces off against a local high school team (yeah right!) and they get their butts kicked. Now determined more than ever to prove himself a worthy coach, he demands a rematch. Will these underprivileged, scrappy kids with hearts of gold be able to improve enough to win the rematch? Awful execution of the football sequences ruins any possibility of excitement in this film. "Coach Of The Year" should get penalized for roughing my brain. 1/10

"Coach of the Year" is one of many films about returning Vietnam War veterans adjusting in life. A number of others also had handicapped veterans, such as Jim Brandon in this film. Robert Conrad plays the paraplegic veteran who gets a job as football coach for the juvenile boys prison in Illinois. The film is about his struggles to make a life for himself and to be accepted and lead these kids in something meaningful.

This is such a familiar plot that many may find it way over-used. If the story and screenplay were anything special, and/or the acting was superb, it might be a noteworthy film in this genre. But neither of those situations apply here. So, this is a so-so film that most people may find tolerable at best.

Take away the paraplegic component of the story and what you have is an Eighties version of The Rock's Gridiron Gang from last year.

Paralyzed Vietnam veteran, Robert Conrad, left behind a career with the Chicago Bears to serve his country in Vietnam where he got the spinal wounds that left him in the wheelchair. He can't get any kind of coaching job due to his injuries. When his juvenile nephew gets himself arrested however for armed robbery and sentenced to a juvenile facility, Conrad takes on the job of athletic director of the place.

Just like in the big screen Gridiron Gang, football proves to be therapeutic for both the kids and the coach who's pretty down on himself. Conrad is fine in the part and he gets nice support from an old friend Red West who plays the warden at the juvenile center. West was a regular on Conrad's Black Sheep Squadron series. Erin Gray is Conrad's sister and Ricky Paul Goldin is the nephew.

Nothing outstanding here, but it's a decent enough made for TV film.