Go Tigers!

I'm a little taken aback by how many of these other reviewers didn't "get it".

"A good documentary, but it left me a little sad." "Great depiction of my town's enthusiastic pride." "Great for sports fans." etc. etc.

Come on, people, this was a vicious, vicious documentary about an inane town with priorities completely out of whack! Or am I too much of a big-city east coast cynic?

Presenting everything as it happened, warts and all, is a strength of the movie. Reviewers who comment that "I could have done without the party seen [sic]" are totally and completely missing the point. These kids are treated like Gods on earth and it's a Bad Thing. GET IT?!?!

I wish the film spent less time showing football games and more time exploring some of the other aspects of the subject - like, what are cheerleader tryouts like? Let's interview 12 year old girls and find out about their aspirations. Let's get some time with Coach Paterno and find out if he's really serious at all about recruiting any of these kids. The interviews with kids not on the football team were far too brief; I wanted to see what they were doing during game time. (Playing Dungeons and Dragons? Reading? Homework?)

Watching with my "elitist snob" hat on, I enjoyed how the movie still made it hard to look down on the entire high school football institution - clearly it's keeping kids on track and out of jail, keeping local economies pumping, etc. Despite what I said above, this is not a vicious one-sided depiction at all. It just feels that way for long passages. At times it feels like a Christopher Guest movie, except the characters are very real.

Highly recommended for elitist snobs and football fans alike.

I found this doc to be a pretty realistic portrayal of life in Massillon, which I'm sure is not unique, as far as small, mid-western towns are concerned. I was one of those kids who was not a football player (though not an Insane Clown Posse type of person, either), and I was amazed at the social and career possibilities that I found to exist in the world beyond Massillon. Those of us who didn't believe that our high school years would be "the best years of our lives" (as our teachers at Washington High told us) left town and found the opposite to be true. I imagine that, for those who never left (and who condemn those who would criticize Massillon, based on the impression left by this documentary), those high school years actually were the best years of their lives.

I remember the steroid-using football players who, when they weren't busy trying to disrupt our classes, were being hand-held and coddled through the most basic of tests by the coach teachers. I also remember these same thugs showing up at parties and drunkenly, severely brutalizing any smaller guys that they could get their hands on (they would often lock a smaller guy in a room and take turns beating him for hours while someone else guarded the door - true story). They were never punished, ever (except by life itself, thank goodness).

Many (but not all) of the teachers at Washington High were primarily coaches who were given teaching jobs by the ex-coach administrators. They were generally terrible at their jobs, paid very little attention to students who were neither athletes nor pretty girls, and had little knowledge and no wisdom or life experiences to impart.

Teaching students core math and science skills was definitely not a priority at Washington High. Despite my interest in learning, I walked away from that place with a pretty terrible public school education. Most kids graduating from Washington High lack the competitive edge needed to make a living outside of a small Ohio town. One major lesson that I learned from attending public schools in Massillon is that if you want your kids to be able to compete with kids from the east or west coasts, you must never let them attend public schools.

I suppose that the best thing that one can say about Massillon is that it is such a soul- crushing, depressing place to spend one's childhood that it virtually drives away anyone with the remotest amount of ambition, as soon as they are old enough to escape.

It is nearly impossible to have any hometown pride for a place whose local culture has such sound disdain for education, knowledge and investing in itself (beyond sports). Unfortunately for Ohio, most (but not all) of the state suffers from this same, backward mindset.

I wonder how many of those kids, and that's what they were at the time, got a minor for drinking and partying after the games---my guess is none. I love how you all come on here to support your town, that's super. You have a multi-million dollar football complex. You have a live tiger as a mascot. You get $5+ a head for admission for games not to mention the profits from concessions. Yet you need to tax your citizens to keep the school out of debt? As one player commented "They wont pass it because we had a losing record" Holding back a CHILD so they can be bigger and stronger for a game is a shame and the parents of those CHILDREN should be publicly humiliated for their complete lack of respect for education. While it may seem harsh of me to be saying these things it's all too true in many small towns across America. I think that was the point this doc was trying get across and it did a wonderful job. PS--I love the shot of the big jock puking up a beer bong then asking for another beer.

I finally got to see this documentary, and have to agree with one of the reviewers below... I too am thinking people are not "getting" this film. It's a great documentary about a horrifying town's obsession with it's school's football team. I didn't come away from this film thinking the director was intending to show school pride, but instead the negative and destructive impact a GAME has on small town folk who have nothing better to do on a Friday night. This film shows how this obsession has breed hatred, greed, and dishonesty, and through their naiveté, how the adults of the town have become the sad role models for the youth. It also shows how, in small towns, it's hard for people to make a distinction between Jesus, America, and Football. I applaud this film for being able to highlight some of the inane pressure that politicians, school administration, and parents are putting on their children in the name of school tradition, but i find it unfortunate that this film doesn't have the ability to show us that there are surely darker themes behind some of these pressures. Again, I have to agree with many of the other posters that more time should have been spent on those students who were not sports centric. Finally, having gone to high school in Lima Ohio (one of the towns that the Tigers play in this film), I have to say that I understand why people are not getting this film. I think when people grow up in these kinds of communities home pride makes it hard for them to stand back and use rational judgement.

Frightening and very consistently tense documentary about a town's cult like obsession of a team and football above everything else where it doesn't matter what kind of kid you are if you aren't a kid who plays football. The town literally breeds kids for football and kids not playing football talk about leaving the town because they haven't been successfully bred to create football. The pressure on these kids is tremendous, which inevitably means the team is inflicted by sexual assault charges and injuries that could break them psychologically. The fusion of religion and sports is a tremendously jarring visual as parents and teams pray and cry if teams fail. Watching kids close their eyes and pray with tremendous apparent intensity before the game reminds one of "Jesus Camp" except Christianity is replaced by football. The visual is equally disturbing as it was in that documentary. Winning the game is so far beyond in importance to the kids. Football replaces not only religion, but many kids talk about finding a new family. Football literally replaces education as star players are held back to remain eligible to be in the team. As the movie progresses it become darker and more apparent that the town needs a sea change in priority. Excellent documentary, although it might have had a stronger impact in its message if the children excluded from the cult of football had more of a say. And an even stronger impact if girls excluded from the cult of football cheer-leading had more of a say.