"Glory Road" Discussion Thread

Josh.C · 01-13-2006, 10:32 AM

Wow, with 2005 officially come and gone, our movie forum hasn't had too much to talk about. Noticed that "Glory Road" opens tonight, and besides seeing the previews and reading a few reviews, haven't heard much about the movie. I'd like to hear some of your thoughts and comments. Looks like "Remember the Titans" meets Basketball to me. Thinking about going to see it tonight.

JC

Robert Crawford · 01-13-2006, 12:28 PM

Looks like "Remember the Titans" meets Basketball to me. Thinking about going to see it tonight.

Not quite, I was a young boy when I watched that game on television and it's impact on college ball was much greater after that final game. I don't remember much about the specifics of the game itself, but I do remember my father, who played high school basketball being very excited about that game's outcome. Of course, there was a college freshman that year that would impact the game in his own right the next season because freshman weren't allow to play in those days.

Crawdaddy

Quentin · 01-13-2006, 05:39 PM

I swear, Disney has a "true sports stories" division that is cranking out these types of movies. Miracle, Greatest Game Ever Played, Remember the Titans, The Rookie, Glory Road...any others?

Michael Elliott · 01-13-2006, 06:05 PM

Actually this film started a storm of controversy here in KY because of them showing Adolph Rupp as a racist. A newsman here wrote the producer (who lives in KY) and warned him that there would be a huge backlash if the stuff with Rupp ended up in the movie because it simply was legend and not the truth. The producer then decided to do his own research and discovered some new things so he forced cuts to a lot of the Rupp stuff and the racist remarks in the original film. They were on a sport show up here recently and said they are going to turn this into a documentary but they didn't say if it would be on the GLORY ROAD dvd or on a seperate release.

My dad wants to see this so I'll probably go with him but since they altered the Rupp character so much it'll be interesting to see if the film works around the cuts.

David James · 01-13-2006, 06:09 PM

I've only seen the previews, but some of the play seems to be a bit more modern then what I thought was common during that era.

I started watching college basketball in the 70's. Other then Pistol Pete, I don't recall very many players who "showed off".

The previews showed one behind the head back pass and a another pass off the board for a trailer to dunk. Anyone old enough to know if that type of "dazzle" happened on that team?

**HTF Ads**

Josh.C · 01-13-2006, 07:57 PM

Not so concerned about the "behind the head pass" and so forth. I agree that it was not very prevelent back in that time, but if you will remember, "Pistol Pete" learned that style of play from watching Black athletes, before they were allowed to play with white players.

Like "Miracle" and "The Rookie", this kind of movie is more of a feel good movie, and based more on the characters than the fundamentals of the game of basketball in the mid 1900's. Hopefully the story line is good. I'm not going to get to make it tonight. I would appreciate any feedback from those who made it out for opening night.

Patrick Sun · 01-14-2006, 07:18 PM

This was a pretty entertaining film about Texas Western's season of making NCAA history by fielding a prodominantly black roster of players in a time where that just wasn't done, and going on to face the University of Kenucky in the NCAA basketball championship game.

Josh Lucas does a good job as Don Haskins, the newly hired coach for Texas Western and facing a slew of hurdles (mainly a budget for recruiting, and getting good players to want to come to a college known for football than basketball). The new recruits have their own personalities and quirks, and show some heart in the face of constant prejudice-related harrassment.

My audience got really involved in the film, even applauding when pivotal baskets were scored, and by the time the credits were shown, much applause was expressed by the entertained audience, too.

(I have no idea why the make-up folks decided to make Jon Voight, playing Kentucky's Coach Rupp, look like a Ferengi.)

I give it 3.5 stars, or a grade of B+.

Robert Crawford · 01-14-2006, 08:14 PM

I liked this film even with the historical license taken with it, but what do you expect a history lesson from a film.

Just to keep some of the facts right, when Haskins started coaching at Texas Western, they already had some black players on their team. One of those black players was a guy named Nolan Richardson, who graduated a year before that 65-66 season. Furthermore, Haskins became coach about 4-5 years before that 1966 NCAA Finals. He did recruit more blacks for the program and the reason why he started five black players in that final game had little to do with trying to change the landscape of college basketball. That Kentucky team was not a big team with their tallest player being only 6'5". They were a good shooting team that usually was quicker than their opponents. Therefore, Haskins decided to go with a three guard offense and exploit his team's superior quickness against Kentucky. Also, Kentucky never led after being ahead 9-8 in the first ten minutes of the game. Texas Western pretty much controlled the tempo of the game by playing good defense and executing their half court offense. It goes without saying that many of those dunks didn't happened in the game. However, the one against

Spoiler:

was accurate.

Crawdaddy

Patrick Sun · 01-14-2006, 09:09 PM

Josh Lucas said (in a radio interview on a local sports station) that he gained 34 pounds for his role, I barely remember seeing a little pooch on him early in the film, otherwise, I don't think he really needed to pack on those pounds.

Michael Elliott · 01-16-2006, 02:05 AM

I just got back from seeing this with my father. We both enjoyed it as a three star film but I didn't really think it was anything too special or anything we haven't seen before.

As Robert said, I really don't care if films change history to make a more entertaining movie but I do fear the producer Jerry Bruckheimer's (sp?) life. The crowd I saw this film with in Louisville didn't seem to know the outcome so they'll be the types to believe what they saw in the film, which actually led to a fight, which I'll also talk about in a few.

Robert stated some more facts that the film overlooked but I'll mention some more that deals with the "racist" Rupp. In the press conference the film left out when a reporter asked why KY didn't have any black players. Rupp's answer was that he admired Jackie Robinson and he didn't want to bring just "anyone" to KY to be their first black player. He wanted KYs first black player to be someone special like Robinson. The film also didn't mention that Rupp DID try to get a black player this very year but the guy went to a different school instead.

Even in this very state Rupp has the reputation of being a racist but this has been proven untrue and even in recent interviews Haskins has said that Rupp didn't disrespect their team, coaches or black players. No black player crashed into Rupp. Rupp was upset, near tears whenever he lost. Not just when he lost to black players.

Again, I understand the filmmakers wanting a racist movie dealing with black vs white so I don't mind all of these facts being left out. Films aren't history lessons. They're entertainment and these changes made for a more entertaining movie. Let's face it had the film been faithful it probably would have been boring.

However, I am bringing this stuff up because race does play a LARGE part in KY basketball. The film mentions Tubby Smith becoming the first black coach at KY but even to this day he still has to put up with race and fans who still like to throw the "N" word at him. If you want to hear this just head to Rupp Arena where KY is currently in a 3 game loosing streak. I said earlier that Bruckheimer's life could be at risk and I honestly believe that. I'm certainly not trying to paint this state as evil but there are certain parts of the state where it would be smart for the producer, writer and director to never step foot. The same with Tubby or even Rick Pitino for switching from KY to Louisville. These people are that bad so spitting on Rupp is something these people would not put up with.

I mentioned a fight breaking out earlier, which is the first time I've ever seen this in all my years going to the movies. The crowd was really eating up all the "racist Rupp" things in the film and one guy screamed out "F**k Rupp". After the movie a guy came up to this guy and tried to explain how the movie made things up and the guy called Rupp a racist again and a fight broke out. Only a few punches were throw because there was a cop there. Having a cop in the theater was something I had never seen before and when I asked about this apparently theaters around KY are doing this because there have been issues with the people getting upset in the movie.

As I said, I've never faulted a movie for changing history but I know a lot of people do and it was rather interesting seeing all of this go down. I'm sure a lot of folks will come out and defend Rupp but I'm curious to know what Bruckheimer cut out of the film because he still left stuff in that made Rupp look pretty bad. There's always been an ugly clowd hanging over KY basketball from Rupp to how Tubby is treated to recent claims by Rex Chapman who is held as a God just like Rupp.

**The movie didn't mention the guys name but Rupp's dream of a "Jackie Robinson type" player being the first black for KY failed. The guy played one year at KY before going pro where he played one year and was sent to prison for rape. He got out a few years later and raped another person and he remains in prison to this day.

Robert Crawford · 01-16-2006, 05:16 AM

The only thing I know is that the perception of Rupp being a racist is real with a lot of people including many from Kentucky. I went to college in Tennesee not too many years after that 1966 game when Joe B. Hall was coaching Kentucky. Some of my college friends were from Kentucky and like many young men of the time talking sports was how we passed the time between classes and chasing girls. Anyhow, none of those Kentuckians had anything good to say about Rupp when it came to black players unlike some other coaches like Dean Smith at North Carolina.

Was Rupp a racist? Maybe then maybe not, but like I said many times before, the accepted perception of a person or an event is just as real as the honest truth about them.

Crawdaddy