Popcorn, sodapop, and a whole lotta balls

'Herald' Sports goes to the movies and serves up the lowdown on the finest sports flicks ever made

What do sports fans do when they're not arguing about sports? They watch sports movies, of course. And then they argue about them. There have been some pretty heinous sports movies made—who can forget Baseketball or Varsity Blues? But when sports and cinema combine just right, magic is made. Three hardcore sports fans take a look at some of the best sports movies of all time and promote their favorites as hard as Don King ever could.

Hoosier heaven

COURTESY FAMILY HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Whenever I leave an empty gym, I still have to resist the temptation to yell "Hickory" and listen to it echo off of the hardwood. The movie Hoosiers is, by 10,000 ears of corn, the finest sports film of all time. It's about unlikely heroes, it's about love, it's about America. It's not Eerie, Indiana. It's not Robert Indiana. It's Hickory, Indiana.

Gene Hackman is at his down-to-earth finest as Norman Dale, a former big-time college coach who lost his job after assaulting a player. Following a stint in the Marines, Dale returns to the helm of the Hickory Huskers in Mellencamp-esque, basketball-worshipping Indiana. After appeasing the locals, Dale proceeds to run his squad through Draconian drills and institute a strict offensive system. After a few early losses, the town calls a meeting and votes to fire Dale. At the last possible second, however, elusive star Jimmy Chitwood, who had quit the team a year earlier, appears and saves Dale's job, and the Huskers go on a run that doesn't end until they have won the Indiana state championship.

Dennis Hopper turns in a moving performance as the town drunk, Shooter, who is also the father of one of the players, Ray. In keeping with the theme of the movie, Dale gives Shooter the opportunity to become an assistant coach. Shooter eventually wins a game for the team following Dale's ejection by calling the "picket fence" play for his son. Barbara Hershey, who plays the Hickory High principal, is also excellent. Her romantic scenes with Hackman are subdued, yet passionate—kind of like Hickory basketball.

The real stars of Hoosiers, however, are the team members, played by Brad Doyle, Steve Hollar, Brad Long, David Neidorf, Kent Poole, Wade Schenck, Scott Summers, and Maris Valainis. Though the game action scenes are a bit contrived, all of them are passable as players. And although I love Allan Iverson, I could always identify more with these short, gangly Midwestern kids that look like they just walked out of the John Stockton tanning salon. Like Hackman, they are the unlikeliest of heroes.

No matter what I do in life, a quote from Hoosiers seems to guide me. Every time my high school coach had us run sprints or do hours of defensive slides, Dale's quote, "I know you guys can shoot, but there's more to the game than shooting. There's fundamentals and defense," kept me going. Whenever I enter a new situation, I remember the squad measuring the height of the basket to prove that it was the same as at home in Hickory. And, of course, the giddy, "No school this small has ever been to the state finals!" said by a strait-jacketed Hopper to the nurse after his son, the mature, stoic Ray, comes to visit him before the final game.

I still can't watch the final scene of the movie without sweating a bit. I've seen the final slow motion action sequence 18 times now, and I still get nervous that he will somehow miss the final 20-footer. But without fail, the ball always splashes through, and the entire town of Hickory celebrates with me as the South Bend Central players lie in sorrow on the court of Butler Field House. Everyone I've ever watched it with gets caught up in the moment, temporarily becoming a citizen of Hickory. It's tough for a kid today to dream about winning the big one when the guys on TV who win championships are 6'10", 320-pounders with 4.4 speed. But in Hoosiers, led by the quintessential American icon—the symbolic common man—a group of common farm boys do something extraordinary.

—Aaron Lichtig

`He hit the bull!'

COURTESTY ORION PICTURES

Some people say that everything they ever needed to know in life, they learned in kindergarten. I disagree; I think that everything I've needed to know in life, I've learned from baseball and, hence, baseball movies. What can I say? I am a member of the TV generation. For insights into life and some of the most memorable baseball scenes ever to grace the silver screen, a true baseball fanatic need look no further than Bull Durham.

Somewhere, I'm sure that a study has proven that Kevin Costner is not good in any movie in which he is not playing a baseball player. Dances With Wolves? Too long and way overrated. The Postman? One of the worst movies of all time. But Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game, and Bull Durham make up for the most heinous things Costner could ever star in, even that water flick that shall remain nameless.

Bull Durham, for the unenlightened among us, is the story of Crash Davis (Costner), a career minor-league catcher brought back to A-ball to tame a wild rookie pitcher, Nuke, played to bumbling perfection by Tim Robbins. Thrown into the mix is a seductive Durham Bulls groupie (Susan Sarandon), whose purpose in life is to teach young players about the world. "What I give them lasts a lifetime," she advises. "What they give me lasts 142 games. At times it seems like a bad trade, but bad trades are part of baseball."

Therein lies the value of the movie: everything is, on some level, part of baseball. And frankly, truer words have never been spoken. Simple words spoken about baseball become applicable to life in general. "This is a simple game," the Bulls' manager intones. "You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball." That seems to me like the key to success in anything, not just baseball. Of course, it can't hurt in baseball either.

For those people who don't believe Kevin Costner is capable of having deep thoughts, let alone of imparting them to others in a believable manner, let this movie prove them wrong. Costner has never been more sincere or more trustworthy than he is as Crash. He goes beyond merely being a catcher to being Robbins' tutor in life after the minor leagues. Whenever I see a ballplayer giving an interview, I automatically expect him to say, "We've got to play them one day at a time. I'm just happy to be here, and I hope I can help the ballclub...and the good Lord willing, things will work out."

Minor league baseball has always been, in my opinion, the purest form of sport in existence. Players give it their all in pursuit of a dream that, chances are, will never come true. When Crash sermonizes about his magical 21 days in the Show, you really get a different view of the major leagues. The fact that they hit white balls in batting practice in ballparks that are like cathedrals takes on new meaning—this is the Garden of Eden for these ballplayers, the pinnacle of their lives. It is their aspiration, it is their religion—the church of baseball, as Sarandon describes it.

The joy I see on the faces of the players in Bull Durham is the same that I see each time I go to a minor league ballgame. And for me, that's the brilliance of the movie. It represents reality, as any good movie should, but it adds something. It's what made me love baseball even more than I already did—especially the minor leagues. And yes, Crash, I now know never to punch a drunk with my pitching hand. Thanks.

—Laurie Randell

Runnin' into the sunset

COURTESTY WARNER

After a grueling two-week journey, with Wally World finally in sight, Clark Griswald and his family take off across an empty parking lot, fists pumping, chests heaving towards the amusement park of their dreams. As they sprint across the pavement, it no longer matters that their dog was dragged to death or that they had to strap their dead great aunt to the roof of their car. Rather, as "Chariots of Fire" plays in the background, all that matters is achieving their goal and making it to the finish line.

That said, any movie starring Chevy Chase is inherently suspect. But Chariots of Fire, the movie behind the song, delivers essentially the same message: within a race, getting to the finish line is all that matters, regardless of the problems posed by the outside world. The film follows Harold Abrahams, a Jewish college student in Cambridge, England as he prepares for the 1924 Olympic Games. In addition to having to fight off Charley Paddock, an American sprinter who was thought to be "the world's fastest human," Abrahams is forced to deal with the anti-Semitism present in wartime Europe. As he says, "England is Christian and Anglo-Saxon and so are her corridors of power, and those who stalk them guard them with jealousy and venom."

But Abrahams' true passion is his running. Upon arriving at his new college, he immediately takes on the school's oldest challenge, attempting to sprint around the courtyard in the time it takes the clock to strike 12. He runs against a Christian, and when he wins, the college Master says, "perhaps they truly are the chosen people." The movie makes its point, by proving the Master wrong—within a race, hard work and determination, not ethnicity or religion, determine the winner.

Chariots of Fire is a throwback to a time when the Olympics were about the world's best athletes competing in events they spent their lives preparing for. As Abrahams trains for the 1924 Olympics, he is willing to give up anything and everything to win a race that is his life. As the Olympic finals draw near, the race itself becomes "10 lonely seconds to justify my existence." Winning the race depends solely on hard work and determination. When he crosses the finish line first, it is not because he is part of "the chosen people," but rather because he is the fastest runner in the world.

I must confess that, irrespective of the sports aspect of the film, Abrahams' story is very satisfying: it shows how with enough hard work and drive, anyone can accomplish his or her goals. But more than that, Abrahams pursues his goal with reckless abandon. As one friend comments, "Harold goes after anyone who stands in his way." The song inspired by the film has become omnipresent at major sporting events, but also at events such as political conventions—for good reason. Abrahams' story, and the music to which it is set is inspiring, whether it is for Olympic athletes, or even the Griswalds trying to finally get to their family vacation.

—Ted Diskant

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