Glory Road

[JeeberD]

I finally got to go see the movie last night (most of the other DFW UTEP alumni got to see a sneak preview last Saturday, but I had to work then) and really enjoyed the movie. They DID take a TON of historical liberties (I don't have the time to go over them all right now, but you better believe I will when I get the chance) the movie was still very enjoyable and exciting. I couldn't tell you the last time I went to a move in which the audience broke out in spontaneous applause/cheering FIVE TIMES!

Go check it out, FOFC. JeeberD gives it two thumbs up!

Go UTEP!
Go Texas Western!
Go Miners!

[stevew]

Texas Western=UTEP?

[terpkristin]

...the audience broke out in spontaneous applause/cheering FIVE TIMES!As for the movie itself, I probably won't see it, as I'm sick and tired of these damn "based on a true story" "bootstraps" stories being made into movies. It's not that I have anything against them per se, but there are way too damn many and they're all the same (probably in part because so damn many of them are done by Jerry Bruckheimer...), and they wouldn't be a movie that would sell if they weren't all so predictable and (even for a true story) formulaic. Just more proof that Hollywood is too damn cheap to do something original anymore. I'm glad you enjoyed it, Jeebs, and I'm sure it will have a nice following, but I'm tired of the genre.

But that note you put in about the audience breaking out in applause/cheering. WTF is up with that. This is a new phenomenon over the last few years that people feel a need to clap at movies. There is most often nobody there who was a part of the movie (especially in say, Columbia, MD, unless Edward Norton happens to be home and he's at a theater watching his own flick) there, nobody who really "deserves" applause. Are people applauding the film projector person for not screwing up the playback of the film? Of course not. That is seriously a pet peeve of mine, people clapping at movies. It's not a play. It's not a live performance. There is NO NEED for that kind of crap.

And with that, I think this post reveals how much I need my coffee.

/tk

[JeeberD]

Texas Western=UTEP?

Yup. That's one of the things that I'm disappointed in...the movie never made that connection.

[JeeberD]

Dola-

And I forgot to mention...if you do go to see the movie make sure you stick around for the credits. About halfway through them they show interviews with Don Haskins, a number of the TW players, and Pat Riley (who was on the Kentucky team). They also show a couple of clips from the actual championship game as well. Very cool stuff.

And speaking of the real Don Haskins, he makes a quick cameo as a gas station attendant fairly early on when Lucas' Haskins and Moe Iba are on the recruiting trail and talking on a pay phone... :)

[LloydLungs]

I'm really looking forward to this one myself. Bruckheimer movies and "inspiring" Disney sports movies are not generally my thing, but as a UNO basketball fan there's tons in this thing for me. Many of our former players are in the movie as opponents (and one is one of the film's stars, James Olivard)... former UNO coach and Haskins protege Tim Floyd consulted... scenes of Lakefront Arena and Chalmette High gym, which have since been badly damaged by Katrina... and my uncle's the New Mexico Lobos coach. Can't wait, even though what I've heard about those historical liberties makes me kind of angry.

[sovereignstar]

This couldn't be any better than Blue Chips, could it? :)

[Radii]

They DID take a TON of historical liberties


http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=merron/060112

I am very much looking forward to the movie. That espn article on the differences is very interesting, there's some neat stories in there.

[JeeberD]

Thanks for the article, radii. It doesn't have everything right, but it lists a lot of the inaccuracies from the flick...

[JeeberD]

This couldn't be any better than Blue Chips, could it? :)

Hah! I'm guessing that you remember that one of the teams in Blue Chips was named Texas Western, right?

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Mrn9V0jujNMJ:www.imdb.com/title/tt0109305/fullcredits+%22blue+chips%22+%22texas+western%22&hl=en&start=1&client=firefox-a

[stevew]

This movie would be so much better if they had cast Affleck in it.

[korme]

Saw it today. Very good!

Yeah, I researched and found out Texas Western changed to UTEP in 1967, the first season after the historical championship year.

And yes, at the end of the movie I witnessed the rare applause.

[Chas in Cinti]

As for the movie itself, I probably won't see it, as I'm sick and tired of these damn "based on a true story" "bootstraps" stories being made into movies. It's not that I have anything against them per se, but there are way too damn many and they're all the same (probably in part because so damn many of them are done by Jerry Bruckheimer...), and they wouldn't be a movie that would sell if they weren't all so predictable and (even for a true story) formulaic. Just more proof that Hollywood is too damn cheap to do something original anymore. I'm glad you enjoyed it, Jeebs, and I'm sure it will have a nice following, but I'm tired of the genre.

But that note you put in about the audience breaking out in applause/cheering. WTF is up with that. This is a new phenomenon over the last few years that people feel a need to clap at movies. There is most often nobody there who was a part of the movie (especially in say, Columbia, MD, unless Edward Norton happens to be home and he's at a theater watching his own flick) there, nobody who really "deserves" applause. Are people applauding the film projector person for not screwing up the playback of the film? Of course not. That is seriously a pet peeve of mine, people clapping at movies. It's not a play. It's not a live performance. There is NO NEED for that kind of crap.

And with that, I think this post reveals how much I need my coffee.

/tk

Not new phenomena at all... I remember seeing Rocky IV back in 6th grade and everyone in the theater was standing up and yelling and cheering when Rock finally won in the end. Still the best in-theater experience ever... :)

-Chas

[Bonegavel]

For some reason I read the thread title as Glory Hole.

**gracefully exits**

[Karlifornia]

Not new phenomena at all... I remember seeing Rocky IV back in 6th grade and everyone in the theater was standing up and yelling and cheering when Rock finally won in the end. Still the best in-theater experience ever... :)

-Chas


I can't believe people applauded at the end of Rocky IV.

[Young Drachma]

We saw it tonight and it was good. Mainly because it kept us watching from start to finish, even though we knew what was going to happen.

Good stuff. Made me want to create another movie.

[JeeberD]

Yeah, I researched and found out Texas Western changed to UTEP in 1967, the first season after the historical championship year.


Yup, the UT system didn't want anything to do with us until we won the championship. After that they couldn't make us a UT school fast enough...

[Young Drachma]

Yup, the UT system didn't want anything to do with us until we won the championship. After that they couldn't make us a UT school fast enough...

Wow, that's crazy that they did that after that season. Did the school benefit financially long-term because of the change to a UT?

[Chief Rum]

I can't believe people applauded at the end of Rocky IV.

Too young to remember the cold war, eh?

[Dr. Sak]

I can't believe people applauded at the end of Rocky IV.

If you can change, I can change.....EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE!!!!

[Karlifornia]

Too young to remember the cold war, eh?


Too old to remember the FIRST THREE ROCKY MOVIES?

[Tigercat]

Its not like Hulk Hogan and Mr. T make for good Cinema. I always find it hard to believe that some can hold Rocky 3 that far above Rocky 4, regardless of some sentimental moments in 3.

[JeeberD]

Glory Road missed out on the top spot by a measly $100k. Freakin' Hoodwinked.. :-/

[bryce]

Sadly, I read recently that the reason for the name change after the championship year was that the national perception held that the school was a predominantly-black school, and they wanted to divert from that perception. Not sure how accurate that is, though.

Ok, found the link:

http://www.dallasobserver.com/Issues/2006-01-12/film/film2.html

"The next year, Texas Western changed its name to the University of Texas, El Paso--largely because people around the country had gotten the mistaken idea that Texas Western was a predominantly black school."

[JeeberD]

I've NEVER heard that before...

[JW]

Are the basketball action scenes good, i.e., do they look like college basketball players from that era?

[JeeberD]

I would have to say that the basketball scenes are pretty good. Tim Floyd (former UTEP assistant and current USC head coach) coached the actors and they came across as pretty authentic. There were a few scenes during the championship game that made the roll my eyes, but all in all it was pretty good...

[Tigercat]

The Final Four games were filmed at LSU's Cow Palace, once home to LSU basketball and the place where Pete Marivich lit the college basketball world on fire before LSU built the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in his honor. Just a little FYI. They probably had to do some good work to get it back into basketball arena shape, because as the name implies its used for Ag shows today.

[OldGiants]

I was in high school in New Jersey back in 1966 and I can remember watching the game on TV. We knew that Kentucky and other southern schools didn't have black players and we rooted against them for that. In northern NJ, HS teams with five black starters weren't all that rare. We were also aware of a Power Memorial kid named Lew Alcindor. College teams in the NE also had plenty of black players. In the NBA, the Celtics had lots of black players and had already started five. So the notion of a ground breaking use of five black starters wasn't there for us.

What was there was sticking it to Rupp, Kentucky, the SEC and the South in general. We wanted to see the Southern team get its ass kicked. And if TW using black players rubbed Rupp's nose in it, so much the better.

I've seen a lot of ESPN interviews say "so-and-so would never have gone to college if it weren't for TW." That's simply not true. There were dozens of schools in the northeast and midwest and west coast that would have taken any black kid with talent. Yes, it opened doors in the South, but the doors were open everywhere else.

TW was a good story, but old news in that the tiny, out-of-nowhere school winning it all story had recently happened when Loyola Chicago had won it all in 1963 (and had a few blacks, if I'm not mistaken). TW was simply the second data point of the idea that any team could win.

Lew Alcindor reneging on his verbal commitment to Holy Cross and going to UCLA was a much bigger story in the NYC area, too. That happened the year before, but it was still a hotter topic. He was definitely a traitor to the northeast and the Catholic Church for every Irish kid in the area.

[ahbrady]

I've seen a lot of ESPN interviews say "so-and-so would never have gone to college if it weren't for TW." That's simply not true. There were dozens of schools in the northeast and midwest and west coast that would have taken any black kid with talent. Yes, it opened doors in the South, but the doors were open everywhere else.

I don't know which specific people you are referring to with the "so-and-so", but I would imagine that there were many black basketball players in Texas that would not have been able to go to college without TW.

[brimick123]

TW was a good story, but old news in that the tiny, out-of-nowhere school winning it all story had recently happened when Loyola Chicago had won it all in 1963 (and had a few blacks, if I'm not mistaken). TW was simply the second data point of the idea that any team could win.

Don't forget about CCNY back in I believe it was 1951. NCAA Tourney history is ripe with great underdog stories.

[Chief Rum]

Too old to remember the FIRST THREE ROCKY MOVIES?

I remember them quite well. Irrelevant. What is relevant is that sometimes people cheer for reasons other than the quality of a movie, such as nationalism (even if as ridiculously filmed as in Rocky IV).

[Karlifornia]

Ok. I admit it. I applauded Police Academy: Mission To Moscow

[OldGiants]

I don't know which specific people you are referring to with the "so-and-so", but I would imagine that there were many black basketball players in Texas that would not have been able to go to college without TW.They were referring to star players whose names most easily recognize. Tiny Archibald was one. There was no talk about ordinary players, most of whom would have gone to the Gramblings and Morgan States of the world just like they did. I hope you understand that back then black kids could (and did) have gone to college, simply not to the big state schools to play basketball.

And small historically black schools produced their share of NBA stars like Sam JOnes and Earl Monroe, for two. So going to the black schools was not a detriment to future pro hopes, either.

I'm not familiar with Texas, but here in Virginia, Virginia Union and Virginia State have been around for a long time and I know many blacks who went there in the 1960's. So don't say college was not an option, it was. They could not have gone to UVA or Tech, but neither could women until 1968 for Tech and 1971 for UVA.