Hoosiers: A Tale of Inspiration and Second Chances

Gene Hackman as Coach Norman.

Second chances, the popularity of small town sports, and teamwork are the themes that underlie Hoosiers, a surprise 1986 boxoffice hit.

Gene Hackman stars as Dale Norman, a formerly disgraced college basketball coach hired at Hickory High School. The team has only seven players...and that includes the equipment manager who plays in practice only. Jimmy Chitwood, the town's best player, left the team following the death of the former coach, a father figure to the lad.

Coach Norman clashes with the townsfolk almost immediately, starting with a teacher (Barbara Hershey) who questions his education qualifications. The players' parents don't condone his pass-first basketball approach (four passes before a shot!) and his closed practices. It's not long with there's a petition to remove Norman from his job--although there are those who come to admire his emphasis on teamwork and discipline.

Barbara Hershey.

Hoosiers is a sports movie and a very good one. Set in the 1950s, it captures the importance of basketball in a small town devoid of other forms of entertainment. Heck, the school is too small to field a football or a baseball team, so basketball is everything. As Hershey's teacher says: "You know, a basketball hero around here is treated like a god...I've seen them, the real sad ones. They sit around the rest of their lives talking about the glory days when they were seventeen years old."

Dale Norman loves the game of basketball and recognizes a great player when he sees one. But for him, there are no individual heroes, only teams where the players work together to achieve the victory. I think this is what make Hoosiers a favorite among many real-life basketball players. When the 2002 Indiana University Hoosiers made an unlikely run to the NCAA championship game (ultimately losing to Maryland), the players watched Hoosiers before each tournament game.

Dennis Hopper as Shooter.

Yet, Hoosiers is also a movie about giving second chances and making the most of those opportunities. Coach Norman gets his chance to coach again because the high school principal, an old friend, believes in him. Norman pays it forward by taking on Shooter (Dennis Hopper), an alcoholic former high school star who happens to be the father of one of Norman's players. In one of the film's most amusing scenes, Norman gets intentionally thrown out of a game so that Shooter has to step up and coach the team. Hopper isn't in much of Hoosiers, but he brings out his character's love of the game and his desire to fight the demons that separated him from his family. It's a performance that earned Hopper a Best Supporting Actor nomination (though his best performance of 1986 was in David Lynch's riveting Blue Velvet).

During the filming of Hoosiers, Gene Hackman clashed almost daily with rookie director David Anspaugh and was convinced the film would flop. But after seeing the rough cut, Hackman knew that Hoosiers was special. The story is inspirational and the acting good, but it's the little touches that make it memorable: the autumn colors, the wind blowing through the fields, Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar-nominated score.

The plot of Hoosiers was inspired by the 1954 Milan high school basketball team. Milan, Indiana, boasted a population of just over a 1,000 residents. And yet its high school basketball team played toe-to-toe with the biggest and best Indiana schools for two years. They almost won the state championship in 1953 and then accomplished the feat in 1954 in what has been dubbed The Milan Miracle.

The Five Best Inspirational Sports Movies

As you peruse our list, note that these are our picks for the five best inspirational sports movies. There are many other fine movies about sports (A League of Their Own), sports figures (Brian's Song, The Pride of the Yankees), and sports-related stories (Field of Dreams). The aim of the movies below are to leave you in a feel-good, uplifting mood!

Sylvester Stallone.

1. Rocky (1976) - Sylvester Stallone's quintessential underdog tale has a simple plot: a journeyman boxer gets a shot at the world heavyweight title as part of a publicity stunt. The film's "secret sauce" is how it traces the transformation of its protagonist and the people around him. Rocky comes to believe in himself--as do his grizzled trainer, his shy girlfriend, and most of the residents of Philadelphia. It's not a movie about winning, but rather one about "going the distance" and giving one's all.

2. Rudy (1993) - In the late 1960s, the son of a Pittsburgh steel worker sets off to off to achieve his lifelong dream: playing football for Notre Dame. Unfortunately, Rudy Ruettiger lacks the physique and talent to become an elite football player. He also lacks the grades to get enrolled into Notre Dame. None of that is enough to stop Rudy. As the titular hero, Sean Astin makes it impossible not to root for his underdog character. He attacks every obstacle methodically, so it's impossible for one not to admire his tenacity and cheer for Rudy every step of the way. Based on the true life story of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger.

Dennis Hopper and Gene Hackman.

3. Hoosiers (1986) -  Screenwriter Angelo Pizzo and director David Anspaugh--the same team responsible for Rudy--made this earlier winning film about a small town high school basketball team. Gene Hackman stars as a disgraced college coach who gets one last chance at Hickory High School. Hoosiers is a tale of redemption and the importance of teamwork. However, it works best as an examination of the importance of sports in small town life in the days prior to the explosion of sports on television. The story was based on Milan High School's basketball team, which won the Indiana state championship in 1954.

4. Remember the Titans (2000) - Inspired by real-life coach Herman Boone, Remember the Titans tells the story of a racially-integrated Virginia high school football team in 1971. I was in ninth grade that year and attended a newly integrated high school in North Carolina. While our conflicts weren't as exaggerated as those in Remember the Titans, much of the film still rings true. This is a sports movie about overcoming barriers and coming together as a team. Told in flashback, Remember the Titans also stands as a testament to how positive, powerful experiences can change our lives forever and shape who we become.

Stallone and Michael Caine.

5. Victory (aka Escape to Victory) - The least known film on this list is actually a remake of a 1961 Hungarian film called Two Half-Times in Hell. During World War II, a British officer agrees to coach a team of fellow prisoners in a soccer match against a German team. Concurrently, an American prisoner plots to escape from the POW camp. Victory is a solid, engrossing movie that doesn't really gel until the ending. But it's the climax that makes this film and puts Victory at No. 5 in our list.

Honorable Mentions:  Breaking Away, The Longest Yard, Miracle, and We Are Marshall.