"Our coach doesn't take losses very well." - a parent expressing the understatement of the year
As a window into what went on with this team of 10 and 11-year-olds from Harlem as they traveled down to Florida for the national AAU basketball tournament one year, this 65 minute documentary is pretty good, especially given its level of access. Be forewarned, however, that what you'll see is often disturbing. The coach of the team lacks any semblance of emotional maturity, and his frustration with how the kids play often boils over. We never see him talking about strategy on offense or defense, and only rarely does he offer any kind of encouragement, but we do see him regularly cursing them out and threatening to throw them off the team. It's so bad that a ref calls him out on it, which of course leads to more fireworks.
One of the things hanging over these kids is the feeling of the danger of the streets back at home, that if they don't occupy themselves with productive activities like youth basketball, they may go down the wrong path in life. It's an added pressure that other youths don't face. The little kid named Chris acts out and when the coach says he hangs out with the older kids and there are warning signs, it feels ominous and real, independent of the issues with his coaching.
Meanwhile, there are several parents who travel down with the team, adding another dimension to the documentary. There are some words of wisdom from one of the moms, another is a lot of fun and enjoys cosmos on the bus ride down, and then there's the dad who bawls the stunned kids out in the hotel room at the top of his lungs. Since they haven't been showing enough teamwork on the court, he has them hold hands in a long line, including when one of them needs to go to the bathroom (and good grief, not being allowed to let go when that happens). It's obviously not easy controlling kids this young on a road trip, especially with many of them lacking father figures, and there is some amount of tough love needed to get a team ready to compete, but the trouble here is that it often felt like no love, when that was what was needed the most.
