Glory Road - Vincere cambia tutto

The true story of the Texas Western University Miners (now called the University of Texas at El Paso) who defied all odds in 1966 by being the first NCAA basketball team to start five African-American players (led by Derek Luke of "Antwone Fisher" and Mehchad Brooks of "Desperate Housewives" fame) and ultimately winning the national championship. New coach Don Haskins (played superbly by Josh Lucas, one of the most under-rated actors in film right now) has trouble recruiting when he first arrives, but finds players in places like Detroit and Brooklyn. In the civil rights torn south though, getting African-American ball players was highly controversial and even potentially dangerous. It ends up being fitting that the team would meet up with Adolph Rupp (impressive transformation as usual for Jon Voight) and his University of Kentucky Wildcats for the championship that year as UK was one of the last major colleges to integrate its basketball team. Socially important story and highly educational for youngsters who may not be familiar with the importance of this stage in contemporary U.S. and sports history. Great sequences and styles in the tradition of sports classics like "Hoosiers", "Remember the Titans" and "Friday Night Lights". 5 stars out of 5.

I was a Texas Western graduate in 1966 and attended the school all four previous years that Don Haskins ("the Bear") coached the basketball team. Of course, Coach Haskins came to TWC in 1961 and built his team over 5 years, not in one year as the movie tells it. I went to every home game in 1965-66 and remember every one as if it were yesterday. I watched all of the away games that were televised, including all of the games the Miners played in the NCAA tournament. Even though the producers of "Glory Road" took considerable artistic license, the story is mostly true. Here are some facts. The Miners blew away fourth ranked Iowa during a holiday tournament that season. It wasn't even close as the movie depicts it. The great comeback was against New Mexico in the "Pit". When Hispanic guard David Palacio came in to play in the second half, the team seemed to settle down and came from a 20 point deficit to win in overtime. The incredibly close game, and probably best game in America that year between the true best college teams in America was the Regional final between third ranked TWC and fourth ranked Kansas (not #1 Kentucky and #2 Duke in the final four semifinal), when Jo Jo White made that last second basket in overtime with his foot on the base line. The Miners went on to beat Kansas 81-80 in double overtime. Then the Miners beat Utah in the first game of the final four. If white player Jerry Armstrong hadn't defended against Utah's great Jerry Chambers, a black player, the Miners probably wouldn't have made it to the championship game against Kentucky. Chambers was beating every defender badly, including Lattin, Shed, and Flournoy, until Armstrong was put in to cover him. Chambers finished with 38 points, mostly in the first half and was the tournament's MVP.

Coach Haskins is beloved by every El Pasoan, whether living in the city now or not, and is a true American treasure. It's wonderful for the rest of the country and the world to finally learn about "the Bear" and his great 1966 Miner team that El Paso has known and loved for 40 years. It's much more than a basketball story, it's a story about tolerance and what hard work and discipline can do through the leadership and determination of a great coach and human being.

The acting was superb, especially Josh Lucas' performance as "the Bear". His performance was spot on. The young actors playing on the team were outstanding. The early tensions shown between the black and white players in the movie did not exist according to the real players on that team. The book "Glory Road" is a must read, because it tells the true story told by "the Bear", Don Haskins, himself. I also recommend David Lattin's book "Slam Dunk to Glory". The producers should have shown the real life characters, including Coach Haskins, Pat Riley, and some of the actual 1966 players earlier in the credits, because most of the audiences leave the theater without knowing they're going to be interviewed. I thought that was the most interesting part of the movie. The movie and the story deserve a perfect 10. I hope it wins some awards.

In 1966, a coach of a girl's basketball team comes to Texas Western College and recruits seven black players to lead them to the top.

Right from the trailers and the posters, you probably know how "Glory Road" is gonna go: an underdog NCAA basketball team must face great odds to win the championship. It's a sports movie based from true events (read: based) with a Hollywood tag plastered over its forehead that features reluctant heroes overcoming their problems and giving it all for the game. Nonetheless, the movie achieves more than that.

While this Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Disney movie plot is typical (remember the Titans?), the underlying socio-political theme effectively presents the ills of racism - a problem with no easy way out of (ask Paul Haggis). The key characters of the game are dealing with discrimination and the only way they can get back is to win. Of course, a little research told me that some of the details about the real events were changed for cinematic purposes. It's completely fine by me as long as the end product justifies the means. And boy it does. The performances are also good. Josh Lucas gives a terrific performance as Don Haskins, the head coach of the team that featured the first all-black starting lineup in US NCAA history.

"Glory Road" is a formulaic yet an enjoyable film. It's a movie that gives itself away as soon as one character says "I want to play, Coach!" Still it has charm and excitement that comes from seeing it for what it is. It's predictable, yeah, but it's not much different from seeing a replay of a game where your favorite team won.

"Glory Road" tells the true story of Don Haskins, the basketball coach for Western Texas College, who in the mid 1960's, broke the color barrier in the NCAA by being the first to feature a majority of black players on his team. The movie chronicles the obstacles he and his players faced, as well as their ultimate triumph when the team won the national championship in 1966.

"Glory Road" worships at the altar of just about every underdog-sports-movie cliché one can imagine, yet the viewer can't help getting caught up in its story anyway. The scenes in the first half of the movie definitely have a familiar ring to them, as we see the coach first alienating his players with his hardnosed tactics, then winning them over by building comradeship and showing them how much they can accomplish when they work together as a team rather than as individuals. However, as with "Remember the Titans," "Glory Road" is more interested in examining the social background of its time period than in merely telling yet another sports-oriented David and Goliath tale. The second half of the film concentrates more on the overt racism the team members face and the surprising courage they and their coach demonstrate in confronting it (could this really be set a mere 40 years ago?). The young actors are uniformly excellent, but it is Josh Lucas as Coach Haskins who delivers the powerhouse performance here. And director James Gartner manages to keep the film moving at a fast clip, never allowing it to get bogged down in message-mongering or overt preachiness.

Almost in spite of itself, "Glory Road" turns into a genuinely inspiring story about courage and determination in the face of societal pressure and incalculable odds. And that's pretty much what sports stories, familiar though they might be, are really all about.

Josh Lucas stars in "Glory Road," a 2006 Disney film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

The film purports to tell the true story of Don Haskins, the basketball coach led the Texas Western Miners to a National Championship victory in 1966.

From what I know, there is a lot of dramatic license taken here, though it remains an inspiring story, and the basketball game played at the championships was very exciting. Also, at the end of the film, there are interviews with the real-life players and with Haskins himself as the credits are rolling.

Haskins recruited players with no regard to color, forming a team with 7 blacks and 5 white players. He wasn't the first person to have black players on a team. I think what made him stand out were the numbers and the fact that at the championship, the starters were black and everyone on the Kentucky team was white.

The film shows Haskins as an extremely tough coach, and his insistence that there be no "showboating" However, during a losing game (and I have no idea if this is true) one of the black players told Haskins that they should be allowed to play "their game" which included some showboating, I guess. Haskins said okay and the team went on to win.

In the championship game, they went up against Kentucky, coached by Ed Rupp (Jon Voight) who is portrayed as a racist. However, he went on to draft black players and is considered one of the greatest coaches in college basketball.

Josh Lucas plays Haskins, and he does a great job as a tough, determined coach. He was the reason I rented this film as I liked him on his ill-fated TV show, The Firm. He really carries this movie. Jon Voight, Emily Deschanel (Haskins' wife) have small roles as the focus is on the team players.

The actors on the team all did a wonderful job. The film shows the hatred and prejudice against them but also the eventual acceptance. In the film, there are problems within the team when the new players first arrived, though I understand that wasn't really the case.

Like all of these underdog films, it's inspiring with exciting, moving, and dramatic moments. Recommended.