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''Glory Road'' is an American film directed by James Gartner, released on January 13, 2006. The film is based on a true story dealing with the events leading to the 1966 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, in which the late Don Haskins (Josh Lucas), head coach of the Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) led a team with an all-black starting lineup, a first in NCAA history.

Newly appointed men's basketball head coach Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) from the Texas Western College in El Paso, not having many financial resources to recruit the most coveted high school athletes, decides to find the best players in the country regardless of race to form a team that can compete for a national championship. Some of the young men he and his assistants recruit, from places as far away as Indiana, Michigan and New York, possess a lot of talent, but are very raw when it comes to organized college basketball with its greater focus on defense and ball distribution. In the end, his Texas Western Miners team comprised seven black and five white athletes, a balance that raised eyebrows even at his own university. Haskins puts his players through a very tough training program, threatening to cut anyone who doesn't work as hard as he demands, while trying to integrate his white and black players into a single team with a common goal.

Hakins starts games with three black and two white players and, after initial victories against mediocre local teams, quickly discovers that he has to give his black players more free roam on the court. Yet the more victories his team achieves with its flamboyant style, including slam dunks and creative passes until this time rarely seen in college basketball, the more the racial hatred mounts. This culminates in threats to his own family, the beating of a player while on the road and ultimately the ravage of his team's motel rooms by racists while they are at an away game. Increasingly frightened and feeling the burden on their shoulders, the team loses its last shown game of the regular season after the black players stop playing with passion. Thus the Texas Western Miners finish the 1965-66 regular season with a 23-1 record, entering the 1966 NCAA tournament ranked third in the nation.

Going on to the NCAA finals played at College Park, Maryland, they face the top-ranked University of Kentucky under legendary coach Adolph Rupp (Jon Voight). Rupp, with a well-organized and better experienced all-white Wildcats squad firmly believes that his opponent stands no chance. On the eve of the decisive game, Haskins calls his whole team into the empty arena, telling them that he intends to start an all-black lineup in the game, and also only using the two other black players in the rotation. The team reacts surprised, but even the best white players accept his decision as the right thing to do.

In the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Texas Western faces mounting problems with forward and team captain Harry Flournoy (Mehcad Brooks) leaving the game with a foot injury after just a few minutes of play, and their center in foul trouble. In a close game, the Miners narrowly lead at half time, but finally manage to beat Kentucky 72-65 with some impressive steals, defensive stops and a fast-paced game in the second half. The film ends with the players exiting the plane that brought them back to El Paso to the greeting of a raucous crowd.

In real life

Later asked about his decision to start five black players, Haskins downplayed the significance of his decision. ''I really didn't think about starting five black guys. I just wanted to put my five best guys on the court. I just wanted to win the game.'' Though credited with setting in motion the desegregation of college basketball teams in the South, he wrote in his book ''I certainly did not expect to be some racial pioneer or change the world.''

Dunking was banned in the NCAA from 1967 to 1976, not least due to the success of the Texas Western team and a player named Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor (better known later as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) then entering the league.

Next to the closing credits, scenes from interviews with some of the real-life players from the team are shown, including one player from the opposing University of Kentucky team beaten by Texas Western in the NCAA finals, NBA head coach Pat Riley. The real life Don Haskins was cast as an extra in the film as a gas station attendant, and David Lattin was cast as an extra as a military bartender.

The players on the 1966 team were David Lattin, Bobby Joe Hill, Willie Cager, Willie Worsley, Jerry Armstrong, Orsten Artis, Nevil Shed, Harry Flournoy, Togo Railey, Louis Baudoin, Dick Myers,and David Palacio.

The team was nominated in its entirety for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and was inducted on September 7th, 2007, ten years after coach Don Haskins had already been enshrined.

Controversy

In the game between East Texas State University and Texas Western, East Texas State fans are shown throwing popcorn and drinks, and yelling racial epithets. In a later scene, racial slurs are shown painted onto the hotel rooms of the black Texas Western players. After verification that the events never took place, Texas A&M University–Commerce (formerly East Texas State University) asked for an apology from Disney and the makers of the film. Disney did not directly apologize for the portrayal. Rather, it explained that the movie was not a documentary and that it had been necessary to consolidate events given the time limitations of the movie, and that Disney did not intentionally set out to misrepresent any group and was sorry for any misunderstanding. The President of Texas A&M-Commerce said that, given the way the school was shown in the film, it was hard to believe that Disney could plausibly argue that the portrayal of the school was unintentional. The scene even prompted the Texas state senate to consider a bill which would allow financial assistance from the state to be withheld for films that portray the state negatively.

Featured cast

Reception

The film became a box office number-one in the US grossing $17 million on its opening weekend, yet was only released straight to DVD or just shown on TV in some countries that have no connection to college basketball. As of February 12, 2006, the film grossed a total of $42,647,449 million in the US.

The film won an ESPY Award for Best Sports Movie in 2006. It was nominated at the 2007 Black Reel Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Song (''People Get Ready'' by Alicia Keys and Lyfe Jennings) and for a 2006 Humanitas Prize in the Feature Film category.

Filming locations

Several scenes in this movie were filmed at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), which was formerly Texas Western College, and El Paso High School in El Paso, Texas. Others were filmed at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, Jesuit High School in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Chalmette High School in Chalmette, Louisiana. The school shown for the girls basketball game in Ft. Worth, Texas at the beginning of the film is actually the front of El Paso High School in El Paso, Texas as shown by the engraving on the top of the columns. The lunchroom basketball trashcan scene was filmed at Booker T. Washington High School, the first high school built in New Orleans for African-Americans. In the beginning of the film in the shot of Texas Western College, The Wells Fargo Plaza and the Chase Bank Building in Downtown El Paso can be seen in the top left corner. The Wells Fargo Plaza was not completed until 1971 and the Chase Bank Building was still the Texas Commerce Bank building until the early 90's.

Production notes

Bibliography