Watch “The Jackie Robinson Story” on the Anniversary of His First Major League Game
Posted on April 15, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Today Major League Baseball celebrates the 65th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first game as a Brooklyn Dodger. Continuing a tradition begun in 2007, all uniformed personnel in the league wear Robinson’s number 42. Branch Rickey (soon to be played by Harrison Ford in an upcoming movie) was the Dodgers’ General Manager who broke the color barrier in place since the 1880’s by offering Robinson a place on the team. Robinson was a star player who helped take the team to six World Series and one championship. He won the first Rookie of the Year award and was the first African-American to win MVP. While many of his teammates were supportive, others on the team and in the stands were not, and Robinson was subjected to bigotry and racism. He handled an unimaginably difficult situation with grace and courage and after his baseball career continued to be a pioneer in business.
Bill Courtney, a successful white businessman, coaches an underdog football team at an inner city high school in an Oscar-winning documentary that quickly transcends the risks of sports cliché and racially treacherous noblesse oblige. Like the wonderful “The Heart of the Game” it is a powerful reminder of the difference one person can make — and of the consequences when no one is willing to make that difference.
Manassas High School in North Memphis has never made the play-offs since it was founded in 1899. Neither the school nor its students have the resources of their opposing teams. Courtney sums up his situation to his players: Two have been shot and are no longer in school. Two others were fighting and another was arrested for shooting someone. “For most coaches, that would be a career’s worth of crap,” he says. “I think that sums up the last two weeks for me.”
Courtney volunteers his time and an even more precious gift — he truly gives his heart to his players. He has a lot to teach them about practice and plays and teamwork, but the most important lessons come from his own example of indefatigable dedication to his team. He is fully present for them in a way that is infinitely touching. They can never give less than their best because they see him giving his every day.
The movie focuses on three players. One is returning to the team after some time in juvie for problems caused because he cannot control his rage and seems to have no inclination to try. Another is a strong player who will need to get his grades up if he wants to qualify for a college scholarship. And the third is an honor student who wants a football scholarship but is sidelined with an injury just as he needs to show the scouts he can play. Courtney’s passionate commitment makes the difference, sometimes by just being there, sometimes by bringing in some extra help. When he has some good news for one of his players, there is not a dry eye on the field — or in the audience.
“You think football builds character,” he tells the team. “It does not. It reveals character.” That is true of the players and the coach as well.
Parents should know that this film has some strong language and some sad situations including the loss of a parent and a sports injury, as well as references to substance abuse and violence.
Family discussion: Do you agree with Courtney’s decision at the end of the season? What was the most important lesson his team learned from him and what is the most important lesson he learned from them? What can Courtney’s example inspire you to do?
“Do not just a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes,” we are told, and that is the message of this understated film about a gifted pitcher who is on the autism spectrum and the minor league team coach who learns as much from him as he teaches. Dean Cain plays Murph, badly in need of a new pitcher when he gets into an accident near a farm in a remote area with no cell coverage so has to ask for help to call for a tow. He sees the farmer’s son Mickey (Luke Schroder), a sheltered young man who likes to throw apples for his pig and can throw them very fast and very hard. Mickey is on the autism spectrum and his parents have kept him on the farm all his life.
Murph wants to take Mickey to the team. Mickey’s mother supports the idea but his father does not think Mickey can function away from home. Murph promises he will take care of Mickey, and his parents allow him to try to join the team. There are a number of adjustment problems but most of the teammates are supportive. The other pitcher, though, is jealous, and as Mickey continues to do well, he is determined to stop him.
Director William Dear likes to use baseball as a backdrop for family-friendly stories with a spiritual foundation (“Angels in the Outfield,” “The Perfect Game”). There are no surprises in this one but its humility, sincerity, and decency make it watchable.
Some mild marital tension and disagreements in the workplace, a girl is sad after a break-up
Diversity Issues:
A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:
October 21, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:
B004OBNMMO
Basketball coach Cathy Rush (Carla Gugino) arrived at tiny Immaculata College in 1972, at just the right moment for her, for the team, and for the game. Restrictive rules that had “protected” female players from a full-court game had just been revised. For the first time, there was going to be a national championship for the women’s teams. And while people were still asking back then, “If she is married, why is she working?” that question would soon be considered inappropriate and ultimately almost unfathomable.
That context and an excellent cast gives this more heft than the typical based-on-a-true-story saga of the underdog team that became national champions. The always-excellent Gugino, in a series of wonderful 1970’s outfits, shows us Rush’s sense of purpose, even when she faces challenges like a Mother Superior (Ellen Burstyn) who is horrified to think that her girls might be “athletes” and a husband who cannot understand why she is there. Her devotion to the girls as people as well as players is nicely shown. And is is good to see the nuns treated respectfully, not made into caricatures or made to seem stuffy, quaint, or cute. They are portrayed as people, too. We are reminded of their sense of purpose when Rush asks the Mother Superior for equipment and uniforms. The Mother Superior says she is welcome to anything she has and then shows the coach her small, spare, room with little more than a cot and a rosary.
Marley Shelton plays Sister Sunday, a young nun struggling with her calling who becomes the assistant coach. Her sweetness and sincerity are a good complement to the coach’s flinty determination. In a scene where they go to a bar in civilian clothes, Shelton shows us how the sister’s faith supports her strength and integrity.
Rush had no coaching experience. The team had just one ball and the gym had burned down. She was the only one who applied for the job and she was paid $450 for the entire season. She might have thought of it at first as “something to keep me busy” while her husband was on the road as an NBA referee, or “a perfect place for someone who was not ready to assume her role in society,” but she learned that her role in society was exactly where she was. Her most important contribution is shown by the updates at the end. She did not just coach a team of champions. She created a new generation of coaches who took what she taught them to the first women athletes to have the opportunities created by Title IX.
Coach Cathy Rush arrived at tiny Immaculata College at a moment when there were big changes in women’s basketball. The rules were changed to allow women for the first time to play the all-out game by the same rules as the men. And for the first time there was a national championship. Coach Rush took her team to the national title for three of the first four years. And this week, a movie based on her story is opening. It is called “The Mighty Macs.”
I was delighted to get a chance to speak to Coach Rush about her experiences at Immaculata and what she is doing now.
You must be very excited about the movie!
The excitement is really building as we approach the premiere. I’ve been traveling around doing pre-release screenings and we’ve had standing ovations. We showed it in New York and they were ecstatic.
What was the rule change that was so important in the early 70’s?
This goes back to the 1930’s when my mother was playing basketball. They didn’t think women could run up and down the court more than once or twice so there were three players on one side and three on the other and you never went full court. You were not allowed to cross half-court. One group of three would shoot and the other side was just defense.
Because women were too frail?
Absolutely! The Olympics didn’t have a marathon for women until the 90’s. And then people realized women were capable of more. In the 60’s it had morphed into a huge scoring game where it was too easy to score. One player in Iowa was averaging 58 points a game. It was too easy to score when you were playing three on three?
Did you have a nun as an assistant coach as happens in the movie?
That is actually not true but part of the Immaculata story could never be repeated because of the community that was there and was so important. The Mother Superior was not really with us in the beginning so the assistant coach character was the embodiment of all the nuns who loved us and prayed for us and did extraordinary things to support us. Even after we started winning there was some controversy about whether Immaculata should be known as a jock school. Everyone had to wear skirts to class and the dining hall — it was a different era.
Wasn’t it a challenge that you did not have a chance to recruit talented high school players?
Whoever showed up on your college campus was who you used. Coincidentally — we’ve often thrown around the idea of Divine Intervention — Theresa Shank Grentz was intending to go to Mount St. Mary’s. Her family home burned down and the family basically got out with what they had on. She didn’t have money or clothes. So she ended up commuting to Immaculata and was one of our strongest players. Because there were no scholarships we had nothing to offer players except the chance to be a part of the program. I did start recruiting later on and found Mary Ann Crawford Stanley who was fabulous. So we decided not to leave in fate’s hand and recruit some players but all we could offer them was a good education and a good program.
I think it is a testament to your vision and leadership that so many of your players became coaches — even more than that they became champions. What inspired them to follow in your footsteps that way?
Their experience at Immaculata, certainly, but also Title IX had just come in and major universities realized they had to find coaches and provide a little equality, well, not a whole lot but a little. So these people went right into Division 1 jobs. Part of it was the opportunity that they had. Teresa was a biology-chem major and I asked how that prepared her to coach and she said she should have been a Psych major. We’ve also had a bunch of doctors and other amazing women. They came to Immaculata for an education first.
You had some unusual drills in the movie — were those things you really did?
We did a lot of stuff. I did bring in boys to compete against. We had 11 kids on the team and when we went from the first five to the second five the competition was not at good, so we brought in the boys. I was blessed to be in the Philadelphia area where there were great men’s coaches who knew the 5-member game and they were kind enough to let me see all of that and put it into our own system so I was very, very lucky.
What is important for a coach to know?
Coaching is really teaching. We’re all teachers of some kind — parents are teachers, too. The players who became coaches do not coach like me; they are all smart enough to coach within the framework of their personality. I was not a screamer. I didn’t have to yell to get across what we needed to do. Being so young, I had kind who were two and three years younger than me but there was no question of my authority. I was Mrs. Rush or Coach. People need to lead by example.
The movie makes it clear how much some things have changed since the 1970’s.
I was a 60’s woman and not the Berkeley 60’s. I was from a small town and went to a conservative college and then coached at an even more conservative college. It was a different time. My life plan at that time was to get married, teach for three years, and have a family and never work again. When I say that to kids today, they do not understand it. But in those days people had different expectations for their sons than their daughters.
What are you doing these days?
I have a girls’ basketball camp. This is our 41st year, our biggest year ever, over 9000 kids in camp. My youngest son runs the business and every now and then I come in and tell him what he’s doing wrong .
