Hoop Dreams

Basketball is a highly competetive sport, popular across the globe. Almost every player however, starts off at the grass roots level, playing high school ball. For many of them, the goal is to be good enough to make a college team, a goal which is highly conpetetive as rach school only holds so many spots each year. Today's subject follows two young men on their journey through their senior year as they aim for playing a college. It also follows two college basketball recruiters looking to sign them, highlighting the fact that the competition off the court can be just as ruthless as it is on the court.

So if you're like me and you enjoy film and the impact and emotions they convey, then grab a glass if your preferred liquid and join me for the next little while. For me, that's a mug of coffee. So sit back, relax, and let's talk about the love of film. Welcome to Glazed Cinema.

It's mid-March and for all of the college basketball fans out there, it's that time of year again. March Madness is the annual college basketball tournament, pitting sixty-four universities against one another with only one emerging victorious. It's a time for fans to watch the sport they love, celebrate the victories, and cope with the losses. After all, it's a competition and whether you watch every game, route for your alma matar, or just fill out the bracket for bragging rights or for fun, there's something there for everyone.

When you boil it all down though, it's the athletes competing on the court game after game that make things interesting. Each member of each team leaving it all on there to bring glory to their school and recognition to their name. There is some competition we haven't touched on though, that might be most competetive aspect overall and one that happens way before the tournament. I'm talking of course about the recruitment process and our subject today shows us all sides of that process from high school to college.

It's through recruitment in fact where our subject today begins. One of the earliest points in the movie is meeting a high school receuiter, named Earl Smith. The film crew is following him to film how basketball is played in inner-city Chicago. At one point, he begins commenting about a young man and how well he plays. Talking to the crew, he says, "I will buy you a steak dinner that in about four years, I don't even know anything about him." Soon after we see him taking Arthur and his family to a high school tryout and our journey with Arthur and William begins to unfurl before us.

Hoop Dreams is a documentary, directed by Steve James. In it, we follow two boys, Arthur Agee and William Gates, who have aspirations of playing college and hopefully professional basketball. The film follows them over the course of several years from eighth grade, through high school, and into college.

When we first meet Arthur and William, they are two inner-city kids who play ball and have big freams of going pro. While others recognize and support their talents and dreams, the road toward that goal is a bit foggy. That is until a high school talent scout arrives and sees the two play. Seeing their potential, he recruits them to the school he represents...St. Joseph High School in Illinois. I word it that way because, while both boys live in Chicago, Illinois, the high school they play for is an hour and half journey...in one direction. They travel that distance because the program at St. Joseph is exceptional. One of the school's notable alumni, which we hear often, is Isiah Thomas, who made the NBA's list of top 50 and top 75 players of all time.

The legend had a very real positive effect on Artbu in particular. In an interview with Sports Talk Live, Arthur Agee put this in his own words, stating. "We looked at Isiah Thomas and Mark Aguire, the ones who came before us and you know...rap hadn't come on the scene that big yet. It was still kinda dormant, but you know through sports, football, basketball, baseball. Those was the things we looked at, you know to get ourselves a scholarship at a university and hopefully get ourselves to play professionally somewhere in whatever sport it may be...but you know Isiah Thomas was a real big reason you know for me staying away from certain elements that was in my neighborhood. I was like, if Isiah Thomas can do it, I know I can do it."

One remarkable aspect of Hoop Dreams is its universality for anyone with a dream, not just to play professional sports, but anyone with a dream period. I could see myself in Arthur and William to a point. As a kid I wanted to be a professional hockey player and looked up to those playing as icons, something to strive for.

Hoop Dreams does a great job in showing what life is like for an athlete who is on the cusp of going somewhere. We not only see their on-court growth, but also the pressures met outside of the court, both internally and externally. We see the pressure from family, who not only wants them to succeed, but also want the rub of success. We see the pressure of doing well in school, not just to satisfy graduation, but also any college looking at them. We see the pressure they put on themselves to realize their goals and the goals communicated by those around them. We see the pressure of recruiters visiting them and watching their games, adding pressure to almost every facet. Now I was never good enough at the sport I live of ice hockey to have been recruited by anybody. That's partly what attracted me to this film. I wanted to get a glimpse of what that process looked like for a young athlete.

There's a moment in the film when we get a glimpse of exactly that. William is visited by a the Marquette University Coach, Kevin O'Neill. He's there to try and recruit William to play ball next year at Marquette. William's mother sits next to him on the couch as his older brother stands behind him. His high school coach is in a chair adjacent to them as well, showing William support as they listen to the man speak. He says. "If you tear your knee out again this year and you can't play ever again, you're gonna have your education paid for by Marquette University...any school worth its salt is gonna give you four years. The bottom line is this...we wanna win the National Title and number two is this. I wanna make you the best player I can and give you an opportunity to maybe someday be one of those guys who goes out and makes some money in Europe of the GBA. You're one if seven guys we're recruting right now. Seven guys for three spots. As soon as William tells me he's not looking at any other schools, then I'm not looking at any other players...if I tell you that "hey, you're our guy" and this and that and I lose you to Kansas, Indiana, North Carolina State or something, I'm out of luck. President's saying to me, "Kevin, I thought you were recruiting a guard." It's a tough situation, but it's something that has to be done."

Woo, boy that is some pressure to put on a high school kid. Now I don't know about you, but when you're in high school you think you know everything...you don't know jack. When I heard that, I thought, holy cow, what a hand to play. All I have to do is tell this guy I'm mot looking at any other schools and college is paid for and I get to play more ball. If I hold out for someone else though, I might not get that same opportunity.

As eye opening the recruitment process was, what I found in the rest of the film was so much more layered and complex than I could have imagined. There are so many layers here, that when unpeeled, reveals a commentary on some heavy topics like sport, ambition, systems, race, and class. During its near three hour duration we see so many facets of daily life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We also get to see the work, trials, tribulations, hopes, dreams, sweat, cheers, and tears in reaching for a goal that means so much.

What I find so affecting and impactful about this movie though are the things that happen off the court. The day to day life that exists not just for the two boys, but for the families supporting them as well. All the sacrifices made in time, money, resources to help someone you love to strive for more. The mothers in this movie specifically are incredible...the lengths they go to help their sons is truly amazing. They assist in any way they can and often come across strong and able. There are moments where we see the reality of the situation come into play however, and it's these moments that can be quite sobering.

When the reality of their living situation irks into our mindset, it was so foreign to my experience. For instance, when Arthur turns eighteen, we see his mom making his favorite food and dressing a chocolate cake in the kitchen when she says, "Some kids don't live long enough to see their eighteenth birthday, so it's worth celebrating. He's here and he made it." A little later on we get a sense of her financial struggles when Arthur is removed from public aid at high school. We hear her say, "...they feel like when they get eighteen most the black kids, they dropout. So that mean that the child is just thrown out there. I was gettin' $368, now I'm gettin' $268 and that's it...and that's to take care of me from one month to the next. Now can you imagine someone livin' off of that? Do you all wonder sometime, how am I livin'? Or how do my children survive and how they livin'?"

That's really what makes this movie so powerful is the humanity and reality of everyday life that it depicts. This movie if pretty unbelievable in so many ways...you could say that it grew along with its subjects. When Steve James began this project, his goal was to make a thirty-minute short film about how basketball is played in the inner city. Then it became a full-length feature to be aired on PBS. Eventually, by its own merit, it was picked up by to be released in theaters commercially. By the time the crew was done, they had two-hundred fifty hours of footage, which they somehow edited into the one-hundred seventy minute duration.

When it was ultimately released, it was nominated and won several awards. The biggest headscratcher to me is how this wasn't even nominated for best documentary film at the Academy Awards in '95. Of course, it isn't just me who feels this way. The Academy all but acknowledged this as well when they changed the rules of how documentary films were judged shortly after. Roger Ebert famously revealed how nominating films used to be done and it is quite sad in all honesty...it had to do with flashlights, it's worth a read. Another party who wasn't happy upon its release to theaters was St. Joseph's High School. In fact, they filed a defamation lawsuit against the film for what they felt was unjust, which was settled out of court.

Hoop Dreams is a masterpiece of documentary filmmaking. It is always at the top of the best documentary film list ever and with good reason. When I first saw this movie I was blown away by the honesty and reality of a life foreign to mine. It's a film we all can see ourselves in because it is universal. It's a human story and one that has amazed and inspired audiences for years and will continue to do so. Hoop Dreams is a must see that I highly recommend watching, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

If you'd like to watch Hoop Dreams for yourself I'm pleased to say that you can find it on a large variety of streaming services. At the time of this recording I'm very pleased to say that you can find it on a large variety of services like The Criterion Channel. The Criterion Channel is a streaming service of tremendous value from our friends at the Criterion Collection. The Criterion Channel offers a rich catalog with pricing options of $10.99 per month or $99 per year, which is what I chose to do.

Apart from The Criterion Channel, you can also find it on Kanopy. I recently discovered Kanopy and I'm excited to plug it as I think it's a really awesome concept. Kanopy is a service funded completely by the public library system and is free for any public library members or students. There are also no ads and their catalog is very impressive. I highly recommend checking it out.

You can also watch Hoop Dreams on services including Peacock, YouTube, Vudu, Crackle, Tubi, Pluto TV, Prime Video, Plex, and Freevee if you subscribe to those services.

Lastly, you can also find it on Google Play and Apple TV for $2.99 to rent.

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