Believe in Me

Before PCSing to Japan, my family and I were delighted to serve as extras in the shooting of this movie filmed, in part, in Clovis and Portales, New Mexico.

We were pleasantly surprised and impressed with the professionalism and yet the down to earth manner in which the cast and crew conducted themselves during the entire "shoot" in New Mexico. The character and demeanor of the entire cast and crew, off screen, is reflected in the heartwarming finished product. This is a film that we can highly recommend for all ages, as it is based upon factual events, exciting and at times riveting in its action.

We anxiously await the public release of this film.

I waited until my husband was out of town to watch this, because I didn't think he'd be into it. I wish he'd seen it with me, because this story is a story for everybody.

The main character, Clay Driscoll, is genuine to the core. He exhibits the kind of traits that I want my son to grow up to possess. Despite being given a basketball team that he didn't want to coach, he sticks to his responsibility and gives it his all. It's a story of his discovering his own mettle and strength, and discovering what he really wants.

But the basketball team he coaches...those are girls after your heart! I cried with a sense of triumph during this movie and took a shine to Clay's wife, who encouraged and supported her husband throughout all the trials of the journey with his team. I highly recommend this movie--especially for a family or a youth group or if a teacher wants to show a movie at school. It is well done and powerful. I wish more movies were of this quality.

I just saw this movie at the Jackson Hole Film Festival and I was impressed for the quality of the photography, the story and the acting. The storyline is very simple: in the 60's a young basketball coach moves to small town Oklahoma to coach the male team of the local high school but he's rerouted instead to the female team. He's totally against it but he has no choice, while he gains the respect and support of the girls, the town folks take a dislike for him because of his methods and because in their mind a girls team is not worth of interest. Through a series of victories, for the team and for the girls, he will make his basketball team a well respected one in town and among the competing high schools. I hope they will find a good distributor for this movie; this would be the feel-good movie of the year. Plus I met Robert (the Director) on several occasions during the festival and he's such a nice and heartwarming guy, I wish him much success (Hey Robert, I'm the one who drove you to the Casino Night from the Amangani ;-) ). One thing... I'm surprised that on IMDb men liked this movie more than women, very strange.

When I first heard about this movie what intrigued me most was that it was about a legendary basketball coach from Oklahoma...my home state. At first I thought it might be a Hoosier's formula movie, but after watching it for the first time, I realized that it stood on its own merits as a great story about dedication, trust, and how believing in yourself and having someone else believe in you can transform lives to inspirational levels. It is a moving story where a rag-tag group of small-town girls basketball players begin to believe in themselves because their coach believed in them. It is one of those "stand up and cheer" movies that will leave you feeling inspired...you will find yourself cheering for those girls.

I just saw a screening of this independent film at the Santa Barbara film festival. The screenplay is an adaptation of a novel written for juveniles, Brief Garland, by Harold Keith, which was first published in 1974.

The film focuses on the character of the coach of a girls' basketball team in a small town in western Oklahoma during his first years at the school in 1964-66. He arrives to coach the boys team, but is maneuvered into the coaching job for the girls. Over the course of the film, he learns how to coach the girls, and helps develop a competitive team at a school where girls' basketball had never been supported before.

I watched the film with particular interest because I played high school basketball in 1964-68 in Tennessee, where, as in Oklahoma, we played the six-on-six half-court game that most girls played until after Title IX was passed in 1972. I was disappointed to see that the girls in the film played the full-court five-on-five game, which is slower, messier, and lower-scoring than the half-court game we played. By playing with fewer players, the court was less crowded, and girls had more freedom to drive to the basket. Since defenders made long passes to move the ball upcourt to the offensive team, the speed from end to end was actually faster than the boys' game!!

Had the film's auteur truly appreciated the game that the heroines of the film actually played in the sixties, he may have created an even more exciting film, with less forced editing to simulate speed and grace.

I know, I know, you don't believe me. Oh well . . . .