Coach Carter: The Dynamic Change in the Players

Laying down in here, you hear this consistent knocking. You try to sleep through but it’s consistently knocking seeming as if it will never quit. Curious, you roll out of bed away from the comfort of your wife’s warm body, but you cautiously move closer step by step downstairs into the direction of the sound. Each step you take wondering whether or not your house is being robbed. You finally ease your way downstairs and quickly flipped the light switch only to find no one and your home to have no damage or evidence of a theft of any kind; however, you still hear the sound. You notice it’s coming from your front door, but it’s 3 A.M. on a school night. The hairs on the back of your neck begin to rise and your heart beats faster as you wonder who is knocking ever so violently on your front door. You remember the incident at your store where a brick was thrown through the window and how angry and frustrated the community looked for canceling a game placing a blemish on such a historical start of the season. You pull the shade back on the front door, revealing not a angered parent, but Timo Cruz, once a player on your basketball team that you haven’t seen for weeks, covered in blood. You hastily unlatch the door and invite him. At first sight, he begins muttering the events leading up to him now covered in his cousin’s blood. He tells how he scared off some bullies for the other players on the basketball team with the gun in his waistline, but only to witness his cousin slaughtered from across the street. You talk to him settling him down and offering a secure place to sleep for the night.

This is a scene from the award-winning movie, Coach Carter, and bit of the struggles he faced and overcome while on his way to coaching his team...

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...e no deeper than prison to a young man with such complicated thoughts and the ability to clearly state it to others.

All though most underdog movies have a dynamic who makes a dramatic change and even have a certain message behind the movie however, the message in Coach Carter isn’t the typical message of such movies, which are the cliches of “never to underestimate your opponent” or “hard work pays off.” This messages was telling its audience to always do your best or “shine” to raise the bar for others and to not be afraid or intimidated by others or of the challenges that come to giving your best, rather than degrading or belittling yourself in an attempt to help others. This original, versatile message, I believe, can be applied to almost everyone in whatever they do or what to accomplish in their life, which is what makes this movie such great underdog movie.