I recently had the privilege of watching the movie "GLORY ROAD". A Walt Disney Pictures feature film based on a true story, it chronicles the life of the 1966 Texas Western basketball team, who won the NCAA championship.
SO-- there's a NCAA basketball champion every year. What's so special about this team and story ?
Coach Don Haskins' Texas Western Miners were the first NCAA college basketball team to play with a predominantly black roster. And so this movie goes beyond the surface to show not only a great basketball team, but the struggles of teammates and coaches facing and dealing with racial prejudice in the deep South and the U.S. of the 1960's.
Stories and mores abound here, as when the team returned to their hotel after a game in Seattle and found two black players' room ransacked and racial epithets sprawled in red paint all over the walls. "GLORY ROAD" follows the season-long path of athletes coming to believe in themselves and one another, no matter what the odds or challenges along the way.
After chasing Kentucky and Kansas, two white-dominated teams, in the poll standings for the #1 ranking all season, Texas Western met both of them in the NCAA Tournament, beating the Jayhawks in Overtime in the Regional Finals, and then Kentucky in the National Final, starting and playing five black players against the Wildcats' all-white team. Their 72-65 win gave them the National Championship and achieved their ultimate dream at the end of the "GLORY ROAD".
The movie's final credits spell out the significance of this event : "Texas Western's victory over Kentucky has been called one of the greatest sports upsets of all time, and the most important game in the history of college basketball."
"GLORY ROAD" is an excellent film, in the same calibre of legendary sports stories as Hoosiers, Miracle, and Remember the Titans. CHECK IT OUT !
RATING : 4 {out of 5} Melons
