Coach Carter - Personal Response

Coach Carter directed by Thomas Carter has got to be one of my favourite movies. I remember the first time that I watch this movie with my older sister that at the end we wanted to run suicides, because that's all that Coach Carter made his Basketball team, but firstly we were both to lazy to get off the couch and secondly go and run the suicides, but that's not the point of this personal response. There are so many underlying messages throughout the story line. I think that coaches and athletes would relate to these messages more than anyone else.

Below I've listed a couple of messages that have really hit home while watching this film.

"Sir is a term of respect. And you will have my respect until you abuse it."

When the coach first meets his team her refers to one of the players as 'sir' and you could tell by everyone's mannerisms that they were uncomfortable with it because they aren't use to respect, as most of them are from unprivileged families and involved with gangs. Throughout the film its evident that they quickly see the importance of respect. 

I think this is an important message, because you should also respect someone, especially someone who is given up there time to coach and aid in sport. Being a coach myself its hard having to plan out a whole training, going out of my way to come to training's and games and the last thing I would want is to be disrespected. Also no athlete wants to come to training feeling like its unorganized and be disrespected by the coached.

"These boys are student athletes, the student comes first."    

Education is a re-occurring theme in this film. At one stage Coach Carter locked the gym and defaulted one of the games because the boys weren't reaching the educational standards that Coach Carter set for the team at the start of the season. 

Coach Carter understands how important education. Yes some of these boys are outstanding in Basketball, but if something fatal like injury happens they would have nothing to fall back on. Coach Carter encourages them all to put there education first before there sporting careers.

"I'll do push ups for him. You said we're a team. One struggles we all struggle. One player triumph's we all triumph, right?"

"After asking to rejoin the Richmond basketball team, Timo Cruze is given the near impossible task of 1,000 suicides and 2,500 pushups. When he fails to reach required number with the time given, his teammates step in to help him complete them so he can get back on the team."

There are so many similar quotes that are so similar like: "There's no I in team", "You're as strong as your weakest member." Playing team sports these quotes come up a lot, and this quote that one of the team members said really does hit home because, your team is essentially like your family. What you do for your family you would do for your team. You would help your team members get out of their struggles and help them succeed, and knowing that you would get that sort of treatment in return.