Coach Carter Films About Coaches

Coach Carter Films about coaches who inspire their teams and who make an impact on individual players run the risk of being cliches. However, Coach Carter manages to transcend its Hollywoodized version of high school sports. The film focuses on the true story of Coach Carter, who empowered the basketball players at Richmond High. Because the film realistically portrays the lives of kids with stunted dreams, Coach Carter makes a vivid impression on the viewer.

By far the most powerful scene in the film occurs towards the end, during the lockdown. The students set up a classroom in the gym, and Cruz answers Carter's question about penetrating his deepest fear. Cruz's soliloquy encapsulates the essence of the movie. There are several other scenes in which quips help to establish the main theme of reaching beyond boundaries and socially-defined barriers. When one of the other characters protests Carter's methods, claiming "basketball is all they've got," the extent of the problem becomes clear.

Parents, teachers, the media, and society at large have all failed an entire generation of American youth. Race and class play into the equation, as Carter tries to show that basketball is most certainly not all these kids have. The students' ability to dream has been stunted by people who have deplorably low expectations for them. Carter utters some claims that on the surface seem preposterous but which are sadly realistic.

For example, when he first takes the job at Richmond, he claims that the students are 80% more likely to go to prison than to college. He states later, "All you have to do is have the dream." That dream may differ from individual to individual but ultimately it transcends the limited life the kids assumed they would live: dealing drugs or entering into parenthood prematurely.

Although is methods seemed outlandish at first, Coach Carter was the only person who could motivate the students to be "student athletes; student comes first." Therapeutic Implications Coach Carter is filled with potent quips and one-liners that coaches are unlikely to have at their disposal in the heat of the moment. However, Coach Carter embodies the essence of strong coaching and leadership. For one, Carter establishes lofty but reachable goals and does not waver from them.

His commitment to the students' personal and intellectual development never wanes, even though it might have been in Carter's best interest from a professional standpoint to carry the team through the season and focus on winning the championship. Carter could have easily given up, accepting the fact that the students did not care about their academic development. He might have accepted the students' minimum amount of effort. Instead, Carter pushed them past their comfort zones until they could formulate dreams they never allowed themselves to have.

Yet Carter remains solid and realistic. When the students ogle the mansion on the hill, one of them exclaims that he wants women cooking for him in thongs and Coach Carter exclaims, "I told you to dream, not hallucinate." In addition to high but realistic goal setting, another possible therapeutic application of the film is directly related to race and class. Carter never allows his students to accept the limitations that have been imposed on them.

A good coach understands that students' self-concepts are shaped by their peers, parents, the media, and their adult mentors. When kids are taught that they are more likely to end up in prison than in college, they become resigned to their fate. When they are told not to bother trying in school because "basketball's all they got," the students are likely to view academic achievement with suspicion.

The empowerment of students like the ones depicted in the film is one of the keys to social, economic, and political betterment of all disenfranchised communities. Coaches can play a more central role in community and personal development than they even knew was possible. Coaching is not just about winning games or reaping financial fortunes; it is about helping others reach their highest potential. Personal/Professional Implications "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." This central quote of the film packs a powerful emotional punch. Clients will often focus on a fear of failure before realizing that it is.