Saw "Glory Road" Friday night. It was an account of the first NCAA div. 1 team to start all black players. It was typical Disney fare... good guys won... you knew what was going to happen.. Used the "N" word once in the beginning of the movie to set the scene, but only once.. no other bad words in movie. Anyway, I loved it. It is what it is.. (IMHO) a good family movie with a great message.

2 points for this board:

* The Texas Western Team was subject to nasty incidents of racism as they progressed through their dream season. Rednecks beating up a black player in the bathroom, hoodlums leaving racist messages on hotel walls, racist notes, etc. I was interested in seeing if the movie would portray the black team being victims of racism by officials. I was pleased to see the movie's creators played officials straight up, and never showed anything that hinted at officials were racist in their calls (No idea if racism was a factor in officiating when it happened in the real life back in 1967, I realize this was just a movie)

* In one scene a kid dunks from T.W., gets a Technical for hanging on the rim, 2 shots awarded to the other team. I wondered if the "2 shots for a T" is historically accurate? Did NCAA have 2 shots for T back in the 60's... for some reason I thought it was a single shot back then. (I suspect I am wrong, as I would guess a movie so steeped in historical basketball wouldn't be sloppy and get something like that wrong.)

By the way, there was the one scene when it seemed like ref's may be calling one against the "black team", but that call (with no time on the clock), and the 2 points made on "T" tied the game. However in OT, TW's opponent seemed to win on a last second shot from way outside.. but ref's waived it off and TW won, so (again no idea of that all actually happened in a game, or if it was all made up) so the "game costing" fouls went both ways, in true Disney Fashion!

BTW-- if you go stay, in your seats for credits, as they roll some old black and white footage of the actual championship game, and interviews with players involved. The center on the losing team in the championship game was Pat Riley, and he talks about the game.

Here is what I don't like about this movie. I am from Texas and they make it seem like everybody in Texas is a bunch of backwards rednecks. It is not and was not true for the great majority of people. The movie itself acts like black players had not been accepted at all before the Texas Western team started five black players.

In fact, in 1962 Cincinnati won the NCAA title with four black starters. In 1963 Loyola won with four black starters. The NBA's best players at the time were Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson and Elgin Baylor. The best college player was Cazzie Russell.

Coach Haskins did not recruit black players to prove a point. They didn't come out of nowhere to win the title. They made the NCAA tournament in 63 and in 64. Coach Haskins just wanted to win, and he used the best players that he had who just happened to be black.

The fact is black players were already making huge strides and being accepted by a white audience and it would have only continued to go that way as black players showed their talents on the court with or without the Texas Western win.

I read most of this in a Chicago Sun Times article by Ron Rapoport and it made a lot of sense.

For a feel-good movie, it hit the mark. For total accuracy, it was just Hollywood doing their thing again.

I do not think anyone was saying that every single person was a redneck. Let us not start acting like Black people were not dealing with very serious racism and did not have to deal with things that anyone else in society was dealing with. All my family is from the South. I do not know anyone that was Black that lived at that time did not have to do things differently in order to survive some serious racism. You cannot compare the Cincinnati team that was in the north and did not have legal segregation. I guess you have never listened to Oscar Robinson talk about his upbringing and his experiences when they played in the south while at Cincinnati.

Either you have never listen to players from that area talk (NBA, College, HS), read a book about the issue or never talked to a single Black person that lived in that era. I know that this was just a movie, but you cannot be serious to think the way you do.

Peace

I read Oscar Robertson's biography. It was great. I do know that there were a lot of serious issues being faced by black people then and now. However, I think that things were getting better and still continue to get better every day. Absolutely there were serious incidents of racism at that time, especially in the South, but there were many, many white people, including my parents who thought it was just flat out wrong to not treat everybody equal.

I'm just saying that Hollywood in general seems to go out of their way to make it look like everybody was against a team with all-black starters winning the championship. I guarantee you that there weren't many people from Texas that were rooting against Texas Western in the NCAA tournament. At least that's what my Dad told me and he was there. I was barely alive at the time, so I don't remember it. As much as fans love the underdog, I also believe they had quite a few fans rooting for the upset. Black players were beginning to dominate the NBA and the fans were certainly beginning to show acceptance. It takes time for some people to change their views, and some never do, but I think on the whole Texas Western did help a lot of people to change their views for the better.

Things might have been getting better, but in 1966 Martin Luther King was alive. He would be killed just two years later. The March on Washington was 3 years earlier where MLK Jr. gave his famous speech. MLK was killed in Memphis, Tennessee (where I have family and the Civil Rights Museum is located at the site MLK was assassinated) fighting for a bunch of Black workers because of some serious discrimination. It was not a cake walk for anyone at that time that was of color.

I do not think the movie tried to portray that everyone in Texas was against them. The movie was showing that many forces were not accepting of Black players. The University of Alabama Football team played an integrated USC team for the first time in 1970. Alabama did not have any Black players on the team in 1970 when this game was played. I agree that some things to the story was portrayed was has a Hollywood feel to it, but the events were basically true, but spliced together to make the story move. But to suggest that these things did not ever happen and there was total acceptance of Black players is absurd. Emmitt Teal was killed for doing something that was not completely unacceptable in Chicago that got him killed in Mississippi. Let us not make it sound like everything was just peachy and the movie was a fabrication of someone's imagination.

Peace

Good points.

When I think back on my life, I had the luck to see some great games. That was one of them. UCLA & Houston in the Astrodome was another. Lew Alcinder vs. Elvin Hayes.

I always wondered what happened to David Latin's Pro Career? He just dominated in college. Can't remember him in the NBA or ABA? I know he was too short to be a Pro Center but the guy was definitely a Power Forward.

I was a Junior in HS when they banned dunking. I never wondered about it then but now I think it was definitely aimed at the "city game" or Alcinder personally.

ESPN has been running a Special on the TW vs. Kentucky game. Great seeing a lot of the old players from that game.

I saw both of those games too. Also saw the first UCLA/Houston game when Alcindor had the scratched eye and Hayes went off on him.

Re: David Lattin: He had 2 years in the NBA and 3 years in the ABA. Just too short for a center and he had no outside game. After that, he played on the Harlem Globetrotters for years iirc.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...lattida01.html

[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Jan 18th, 2006 at 09:13 AM]

I wasn't around at that time, so I can't give you a definitive answer about why they specifically banned dunking. But my guess is that it was already illegal, based on the BI rules. To dunk the ball, your hand is contact with the ball while the ball is in the cylinder. Banning the dunk simply made this application of the BI rule explicit.

Now maybe the rules committee thought it was necessary to make it explicit b/c of the proliferation of the "city game", I don't know. As I said, I'm just guessing.

JR or MTD would have a better perspective than mine, I'm sure.

Jurassic,

I remember that Elvin Hayes opened that game up with about an 18 footer and the Astrodome just exploded!

JC

Chuck, dunking was legal under all rulesets at that time. The NCAA banned it and the FED followed. The official reason given by the NCAA rulesmakers was they were worried about equipment damage- fixed rims in those days. The generally accepted theory was that the rule was specifically aimed at Alcindor and UCLA- similar to widening the key for Mikan and Chamberlain. They were concerned that UCLA and Alcindor would become <b>too</b> dominant, so they were looking for a way to supposedly equalize the playing field. You can't legislate ability out of the game though. Alcindor just came up with the sky hook and nobody really could touch him in his 3 year university career(freshman were ineligible at that time).

That one was noisy from beginning to end. Most people forgot that Alcindor wasn't supposed to play in that game because of a scratched cornea. He played and gutted it out, but he sureasheck wasn't what he normally was. Alcindor got even when they met in the NCAA's at the end of the year. He just dominated Hayes.

Hayes, if he played today, would be a small forward. He had great range on his jumper.

So there were no BI rules? Or they were worded differently?

Before the Alcindor rule change, the BI and GT rules were basically exactly the same then as they are today, and the rule then also said BI didn't count on a "dunk". If I remember right, the BI rule was then re-written to say that you could drop the ball in from the cylinder above, but you couldn't "force" it down. Iow, it was similar to what's still allowed in pre-game warm-ups now. That's to my best memory anyway, Chuck. I've been wrong before.