MOVIE REVIEW: Coach Carter
By: Rose Lauren Mariano

Since the highly anticipated finals of our favorite collegiate leagues is awaited more than ever in the next few months, I feel a movie like Coach Carter is best suited to provide a picture that our athletes and coaches could emulate.

That is sports should not only nourish our physical state, but the mind and emotions as well. Anyone who knows me can attest that I am a huge basketball fan, which was the reason partly why I enjoyed the movie. But more importantly, I love the lesson that the story brings, and it being a true to life story made me appreciate it more. Coach Carter showed racial diversity, conflict of interest and priorities, violence and all of these are portrayed realistically by the characters comprised as The Richmond Oilers.

Ken Carter was a star on his prime, when there is respect for the game and its players, and this is what he wants to instill to his players. Coach Carter wants to bring his boys back to basics, in a society where there are a lot of issues that may derail the lives of the youth, he wants the boys to be responsible for their actions and how it may affect their colleagues and their future.

For example, he forbids the use of the "n" word and wants his players to call him "sir" as a sign of respect. Torturous practice sessions where the team does suicides (suicides or homicide!) is meant for them to appreciate that it is privilege to be able to play and they should work hard for it. Education was placed as an important role in the movie, which is truly an ideal scenario, having the team maintain their GPA at a certain level or they would not be allowed to play.

I particularly loved the gym lock down, a drastic move to show how education was placed in a pedestal, and the study sessions of the Richmond Oilers with particular emphasis on Timo Cruz reciting a poem to explain his greatest fear. This movie is definitely one of the greatest sports movies for me, worth repeating over and over again.