'Coach Carter' scores

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

COACH CARTER (PG-13) Three Stars (Good) An oft-heard but still important theme of the importance of success off the court as well as on the court for inner-city basketball players. Samuel L. Jackson stars as a charismatic coach who inspires his team through tough love. Thomas Carter directs. Paramount, 137 minutes.

In Coach Carter's book, that makes the youngster a loser, no matter how often he puts the ball in the hoop. And that's why the high school basketball coach decides to play tough.

His team members are cutting classes and getting bad grades — and not holding up their end of the bargain they made with him when he became their coach. They signed a contract that they'd not only attend classes, but sit in the front. And they'd maintain B averages.

When they fail him, he padlocks the gym and threatens to cancel the rest of the team's schedule. Surprisingly, Carter gets little support from the community and even the school's administrators, for whom winning is apparently more important than the youngsters' futures. The high school students aren't the only folks who have important lessons to learn.

Samuel L. Jackson ("Pulp Fiction") brings his trademark fire and passion to the title role in "Coach Carter," which is based on real-life California high school coach Ken Carter, who inspired a team of inner-city underachievers to excel both on and off the court.

"Coach Carter" obviously treads familiar turf. Throw "Stand and Deliver," "Lean on Me," "Hoosiers" and TV's "The White Shadow" into a blender, and "Coach Carter" is the result.

Still, another tough-love lesson in values and in the importance of education is always welcome, especially for sports-obsessed youngsters who too often mistakenly construct their futures on the fragile possibilities of athletics. And Jackson's fiery presence and forceful integrity make the message vital and entertaining.

Capable new performers surround Jackson, including young men who play a believable brand of high-flying basketball. Especially noteworthy is singer Ashanti, who impresses in her acting debut as a player's pregnant girlfriend.

Thomas Carter — no relation to the coach — directs the film with reasonable clarity and a proper emphasis on character, and strikes the proper balance between the well-staged basketball segments and the important off-court drama. The director's pacing, though, is a bit leisurely and he's clearly reluctant to tighten up some of the student subplots.

Hence, "Coach Carter" clocks in at a cumbersome 137 minutes.

Real-life Coach Carter still focus of fierce debate

DETROIT — Journalists who write about movies are not used to being called "Mister" or "Sir" unless they also happen to be knights of the realm. But that's how Ken Carter addresses anyone who isn't a member of his immediate family — while at the same time informing this writer it would be fine if he called Carter "Coach."

"It's pretty much my first name now," says Carter, who was officially a high school basketball coach for only a few years. It was in 1999 that Carter accepted a part-time position coaching the varsity team at his old high school, Richmond, in the San Francisco area, from which he graduated in 1977 as the all-time points leader.

Only a few months after taking the job and having coached the team to a 13-0 record, Carter made national news by padlocking the gym and canceling all practices and competition, a move that affected even his own son, who was on the team. Some of his players had failed to meet a personal contract they had signed with him promising they would attend all their classes and maintain 2.3-grade-point averages.

Five years later, a movie, "Coach Carter" tells the story of how — and why — it all happened.

The "Coach Carter" story started when Carter, who was running a family-owned sporting goods store and a barbershop in Richmond, was invited to take over the varsity team. He accepted only with the assurance that he be given full control of the program.

Carter then drafted a contract that every player had to sign to be on his team.

The contract also required the players to attend all their classes, sitting in the front row. They also had to wear shirts and ties on game days.

Then came the day when, after the Oilers racked up 13 straight wins, he closed down not only the varsity squad but the junior varsity and freshman teams after 15 of 45 players failed to live up to the terms of the contract.

All heck broke loose.

"I guess people didn't think I was serious, but I was," says Carter. "These kids all think basketball is going to be their career when they're that age, but that's not the case. They have to have that education when they finally figure that out. They need to have the grades not just to graduate but to get into college.

"Our campus was located about 60 miles from Silicon Valley, and I would drive the kids out there to talk to people in the computer industry. I'd be saying, 'See that guy? He's a millionaire. That guy's a millionaire.' There are more millionaires there than there are players in the NBA."

The lockout resulted in Carter appearing on television and becoming the subject of dozens of newspaper stories and supportive editorials. It was, however, less popular in Richmond, where parents protested and the school board initially ruled Carter did not have the right to peremptorily suspend the programs. Other teachers accused Carter of grandstanding, of staging the entire thing for publicity. The subject remains raw in Richmond, where the program came close to being shut down again this season — for lack of funds, not scholarship.

The gym was reopened only a week after the incident — Carter felt his point had been made — and then-Gov. Grey Davis attended the varsity team's next game, calling Carter a "hero."

Yet Richmond's current principal refuses to comment on the movie, according to a recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle, and some students and teachers feel that Carter, who left the school in 2002 for a career as a motivational speaker, in which he earns up to $10,000 an appearance, exploited his position for self-interest. Others say that no matter what the intentions, the outcome was positive.