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It bothers me a bit when people try to figure out how "accurate" the movie was. I don't think it was meant to be accurate, it was not really the story of the small school Milan which won the Indiana High School State Championship in 1954. It certainly drew inspiration from the Milan story, but I don't think it was meant to be an account of that piece of history.
Through the years some great trivia also emerged about the movie, and when I say great, I mean great (Allow me write as if I am speaking to people who, like me, have watched the movie dozens of times):
1) The eight Hickory Huskers were not professional actors (with the exception of Everett) but rather were handpicked for their basketball skills and the fact that they were deemed to look "right" for the parts. Most played organized ball, with one notable and ironic exception - Jimmy Chitwood never made the varsity of his high school! In contrast, Ollie was a very good high school player, with Rade probably the most accomplished, having gone on to play college ball, albeit not Division I.
2) The names of the South Bend Central starting five, which Gene Hackman wrote on the blackboard prior to the championship game, were all real surnames of the members of the Hickory Huskers team. How cool is that?! If you'll remember, coach Dale was heard saying that the opponents' "best player (was) Boyle". Boyle is the actual last name of the guy who played Whit - Brad Boyle.
3. The religious one, Strap, apparently was the most likely to get drunk in real life.
4. A tragic piece of trivia was that Merle committed suicide in 2003. Of all eight members of the team, Merle's character was probably the one I would least expect to be struggling with inner demons. Merle was the boy scout, the slightly corny one, the one who always did the right thing - whether it be listening to Coach Dale from day one and making four passes before a shot, or trying to win the state championship "for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here." But I am confusing Merle Webb the character with Kent Poole the man who portrayed him, though that is a mistake for which I am sure all other fans of this movie will forgive me. Such is the power of this film.
5. Some have made charges that the movie had a subtle racist undertone in that an all-white team beat a powerhouse team with three black starters. Personally, I always found that to be simply a reflection of the realities of that time - it made perfect sense to me that larger schools in larger cities were more integrated than small rural ones. If anything, what I did find strange was that the coaching staff of South Bend Central was almost entirely black. My impression was that this was probably not yet possible during that day and age, but being no expert on American civil rights history I could be wrong.
Those who, like me, have gone over the movie countless times, might have also noticed that the basketball scenes are not exactly flawless. Take the iconic "picket fence" game, a clip of which is shown above: in the wider shot, it is actually Jimmy (15) who closes the passing lane and steals the ball, but in the subsequent tight shot, it is shown to be Buddy (14), more consistent with the instructions Shooter gave during the timeout, which was for Rade to deliberately get "taken out", and for Buddy to "drop down and take his place". This is just one of many discrepancies in the basketball scenes. I think this just shows that in making a movie, scenes are usually not shot in sequential order. The wide shots were probably taken earlier, on a day when extras had been hired to fill the stands. The tight shots were then taken later, as the script was also constantly being fine-tuned, so sometimes the wide shots and the tight shots do not necessarily match.
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| Profile from Wikipedia, Screengrab from Fandango |
Through the years I have also come to learn that the court where the championship game was played is actually Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse. In the screengrab of the playing court I posted on the left, you can see the word "Bulldogs" painted on the far end of the court. This stands for "Butler Bulldogs". For the movie, the shaded lane was changed to the size and shape of the "keyhole" of that era; how they did that I am not sure, as I believe for first class playing surfaces they don't simply paint and repaint over the floor. I actually have dreams of visiting that facility, I love the fact that the pole holding up the goal was made of an iron tube, which I've always imagined would make the ring particularly unforgiving. It's a court made for only the purest of jump shots, and therefore a perfect place for the best Indiana high school hoosiers to play for the state championship.
I have come to believe though, that the scene was meant to show how much of a true team Hickory had become. In a team that has come together to reach its highest and most sublime form, everyone is focused on the singular goal of winning; there are no petty jealousies and none of the passive-aggressive deference so often found in talent-laden but immature teams. The Huskers on the court all felt Jimmy had the best chance at making a basket at that moment, and they collectively let it be known to their coach. The coach was smart enough to recognize how mature his players had grown, and wise enough to adjust and take a step back. This stood in sharp contrast to their first game that season, wherein Coach Dale told them that they each had the weekend to decide if they wanted to play on the team, a team wherein what he says is the law, "absolutely and without discussion." The last timeout was meant to show not that Coach Dale had changed, but that he was good enough to recognize when a team needed discipline, and when it had grown together enough to not require such a heavy hand.
This still leaves the question though, of why Jimmy said "I'll make it" and not "I'll take it". 😊 Well, on that point, I believe it was because great and mature players have moments in games wherein their advantage in skill is so great that they are in total control of what is going to happen. I'll digress a bit here to illustrate: this is exactly what Larry Bird, at his best, was. There are many stories of him telling opposing defenders what he was going to do, and then proceeding to do it exactly as he described. This doesn't mean that Bird was in total control of a game 100% of the time, but that there were moments when he was. Moments when he knew exactly what he was capable of, what his opponents were capable of, and what the other four opponents needed to be focusing on. He would then know what kind of shot he could get, and great enough to almost always make those shots if he could get them in ideal situations. Sadly, entire generations of players, even players who reached the NBA, heard those Larry Bird stories and mistook them to mean, as I once did, that Larry Bird was great because he talked trash. At my current age I have come to realize, or at least believe, that we had the logic in reverse order. What was true, was that Larry Bird could talk trash because he was so great. Braggadocio, in and of itself, doesn't make jump shots with no time left on the clock.
"David put his hand in the bag and got a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on the head... and he fell to the ground.."