Coach Carter

Does anybody remember back in 2005 when Samuel L. Jackson made it into the news by refusing to co-star with rapper 50 Cent in a movie based on the rapper’s life? Not only did he refuse, but he refused publicly, even though the film was directed by Jim Sheridan, a six-time Oscar nominee. A clue to what Jackson was thinking could be found in the 2005 Basketball movie, “Coach Carter,” based on the true story of a California high school basketball coach who put grades above sports, and another one of my favorite sports movies. Like Bill Cosby, Jackson is arguing against the anti-intellectual message that young black males are successful in the world of rap and sports and not in school.

However, there is another reason why Jackson refused: He said he thought Sheridan wanted him to “lend legitimacy” to 50 Cent’s acting debut. He might have something there. Jackson has an authority on the screen. He embodies a character with such force, controlling attention and can bring class to a movie. He said that “he might be interested in working with 50 Cent after the rapper makes another five movies or so, and earns his chops” (Ebert).

This reason might not be fair. Look at the work Ice Cube did in his first movie, “Boyz N the Hood,” which was also the beginning of a successful career as an actor for Ice Cube. Or look at what the late Tupac Shakur showed on screen, especially in his last movie, “Gridlock’d,” holding his own with Tim Roth. Maybe 50 Cent has what he needs to be an actor, or maybe he doesn’t. Jackson’s decision may have more to do with the basic values of the rapper’s life. He may not consider 50 Cent’s career to be such a role model, because for those who have been following his career, he’s had a lot of violent moments.

Role models are what “Coach Carter” is all about. Jackson plays Ken Carter, who began as a sports star at Richmond High School in California, setting the records that still stand, and then was successful when he was in the military and as a small businessman. He’s asked to take over as basketball coach, which is an unpaid volunteer position. The former coach, played by Mel Winkler, tells Carter, “I can’t get them to show up for school.” That is going to change now that Coach Ken Carter is taking over the position as Basketball coach.

The movie was directed by Thomas Carter, and no, he’s not related to Ken Carter. Roger Ebert mentions, “It follows long-established genre patterns.” Not only is this a sports movie with the usual big games and important shots, but also a coach movie, with the coach giving inspirational speeches in the locker room and difficult moral decisions. There are certain similarities with “Friday Night Lights,” although there it’s the movie itself, and not the coach, that emphasizes the uselessness of high school stars planning on going forward to professional sports as their future career.

I never saw “Friday Night Lights,” but Ebert said, “Certainly both movies give full weight to public opinion in the communities where they're set -- places where the public's interest in secondary education seems entirely focused on sports, where coaches are more important than teachers, where scores are more important than grades.”

Coach Carter wants to change that. He walks into the gymnasium that is filled with loud, arrogant, disrespectful students, and demands their attention with the fierceness of his attitude. He makes rules. He tells the students to sign a contract that says they agree to maintain a certain grade-point average in order to stay on the team. He deals with the usual personal problems. A star player named Kenyon Stone, played by Ron Brown, has a pregnant girlfriend named Kyra, played by R&B singer Ashanti in her acting debut, and she sees a threat to her future in Carter trying to get his team into college.

Ken Carter’s most dramatic decision, which was on the news back in 1999, was to lock the gymnasium, forfeit games and jeopardize the team’s title chances after some of his players did not follow the rules on the contract. Obviously, the community went ballistic that a coach would place grades higher than winning games. For them, the future for these student athletes is in the NBA, not education.

Given the odds against these students making it into the NBA, this reason, as Ebert put it, “is like considering the lottery a better bet than working for a living.”

Jackson has the usual big speeches that all coaches do in every sports movie, and really does deliver them big time. His passion makes familiar scenes look like we are seeing them for the first time. “I see a system that’s designed for you to fail,” he tells his team, pointing out that young black men are 80 percent more likely to go to prison than college. Before the credits roll, the movie tells the viewers that six of the team members did go on to college, five with scholarships. Lives, not games, were won.

This movie, hands down, deserves a solid 10+. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you are missing out. If you want to make it into the world of professional sports, this movie teaches you that you need to set your priorities. Education always comes first.

I hope you have liked this review. Stay tuned next week for the finale of the “Black History Month Movie Reviews.”