
As the movie opens, we watched the hopeless Richmond High School team floundering after finishing an abysmal 4-22 season. Ken Carter, a successful small business owner who was once a record setting basketball star at Richmond High, accepts the grief of a part-time coaching job for the munificent sum of $1,500 for the entire season. He immediately lays down the law to his new team of cut-ups and clowns, he wants them to sign a contract in order to play for him with rules that include: maintaining a 2.3 grade point average, showing up at all classes and sitting in the front row and wearing a coat and tie on game day. If anyone is late or talks back to him, everyone is punished by extra exercises. It's a tough regime that places kids and parents in open rebellion against him. Even the principal (Denise Dowse) thinks he's being too tough since these kids, she reasons, won't go to college or even graduate from high school, so basketball is all they have. However, things were not as easy as he expected. This is because the players team were in shambles, and while the players have talent, they were more interested in themselves than the team. They ignored classes, most of them are in danger of never graduating, and others even sell drugs to make a living. It’s hard to grow up in downtown Los Angeles.
Ken Carter comes in to coach the team and realizes he has his work cut out for him. But, creating a winning basketball team is the least of his worries. He is more interested in creating decent hard-working men who will have chances to go to college someday. He wants his player to success in life and matured.
Coach Carter’s motives are pure, but they are met with hostility from both his players and their families. Sports isn’t everything, that’s the message Coach Carter brings to the table. One man can really actually make a difference. But he has to be strict and brave even when talking to the players parent.
Of course the movie comes down to that deciding game. The last seconds are nail-biting. What’s going to happen? Are they going to win or lose? Well they lost the game against the state champions. It doesn’t matter anyway. The real victory is in what happens to the players and the community after the basketball season is over.
Rich what ? RICHMOND !
