This is a truly story about basketball team from a provincial secondary school of Indiana state. Those guys made their way to top ranking and went down in history of Indiana.

This basketball movie is directed by David Anspaugh. In 1987 it was nominated for 2 Oscars.

This basketball movie is directed by David Anspaugh. In 1987 it was nominated for 2 Oscars. The movie won Special Achievement Award and LAFCA Award.

Gene Hackman stared there as Norman Dale.

Dale came in the team as a new coach with disrepute. His friend Cletus offered him this job knowing it was the last chance for Norman. And it turned to be the right decision because Dale became exactly that person who brought the glory to the team.

Hickory’s community like much of the state was crazy about basketball. It was a pity that Jimmy Chitwood – the best player in town – couldn’t take part in championship. So everybody tried to make him change his mind.

Because of Dale being the bad coach many players refused to participate in training. His style of coaching was too slow and too defensive. That’s why enrollment seemed to be so small that Dale had very few players on his squad.

Norman needed a new assistant and invited for this job a well-known basketball fan named shooter. He was an alcoholic father of one of the team players. It confused the citizens and especially Shooter’s son. For “Hoosiers” there were no chances to win but at the last second Jimmy took a speech and said he was ready to play in the game but only under condition that Dale remained as a coach. From that moment Hickory became an unstoppable team. Coach Dale’s team advanced through tournament play.

Everybody was shocked getting known that the team reached the state championship. And in 1954 they won the championship cup.

So that team really came to success and could strike down any Goliath it faces.

I watched a lot of basketball movies and there are many good movies. But this one impressed me so much that I watched it again and again. The depth of psychological types and really interesting story make excellent integral movie. 

If you love basketball like I do then you know that March is a word soaked in memories both enjoyable and gut wrenching.  As a fan of Converse this time of year has been bitter sweet for a while.  It was only last year that Converse finally returned to the NCAA after a 8 year absence from the stage in which it used to dominate.  Of the 347 division 1 NCAA basketball teams there are only a handful that wear anything besides Nike or Adidas.  Let me say this another way, 98% percent of the 347 D1 teams wear Nike or Adidas.  Marquette wears Converse, Boston College wears Reebok, and I think there are 3 or 4 schools that wear New Balance. Needless to say, there is room for Converse to grow beyond Marquette and I truly hope that they will.  All of this to say that there is hope, they’ve done it before and they can do it again.

So what does John Wooden have to do with any of this.  Everyone associates UCLA with Adidas and rightly so, but that was not always the case.  In fact John Wooden used to be a Converse guy.  For proof check out this fantastic t-shirt below.

I must say that the John Wooden Basketball Encounter is one of the coolest names for a camp I’ve ever heard.  Converse fans don’t give up hope, cheer on Marquette and enjoy March.  Thanks for checking out the blog!