Director: Ward Serrill
This is a decent documentary about a girls high school basketball team in Seattle and its wild coach. It follows the team over three or four seasons documenting its struggles to win that covetted state championship. It has got a good focus, but still manages to drag at times. As a general rule the conflicts in it are very real, but on occasion it makes a big deal out of high school girls and their bickering.
Law please:
1. The coach is a tax law professor, and there is even a riveting moment from inside his classroom (its short though . . . I think the director realized that footage like that could suck up his movie real fast).
2. One of the star players is molested by her private coach. In the film she reads out her court testimony. The private coach pled guilty and got 40 months in jail.
3. Another star player misses a year due to pregnancy. When she returns to the team the WIAA (Washington Interscholastic Activities Association) denies her that eligibility. It claims that she must demonstrate a hardship that made her miss a year and that pregnancy was a voluntary decision and not a hardship. So off to court we go.
There is a great scene where the WIAA attorney requests that the film maker not video an injunction hearing, which of course is then filmed from the hip. The WIAA loses at the hearing. It then attempts to appeal this decision and loses. All the while the team is moving on up through the brackets. The WIAA threatens to go to trial. The head of the Association tells the cameras: “I made my decision, and a judge decided he could make a better decision.” (I guess no one ever bothered to tell him that that is what judges are paid to do). The case, though, (as portrayed in the film) seems to be highlighting the double standard applied to males and females, in that if a male has a child he can continue playing, but not so with a female.
The WIAA drops its case after the state championship . . . but I won’t tell you who won.
Posted by PJ Blount 