I’m not in to sports. My favorite answer to the question “What is your favorite sport?” is usually something like “any one I don’t have to watch or play in.” Yup. I don’t like sports. I don’t follow sports. However, if there is a local team, I will take note of it. And in the final and championship games of baseball and football, I usually pick a team to root for (and because I lived most of my adult life in the Los Angeles area, my team is usually the Dodgers and up here where I now live, for football it has to be the Seahawks and right now I’m thinking Super Bowl Repeat!). I do get excited when my alma mater’s football team (Stanford Cardinal) makes it in the Pac 12 playoffs (I was there when they were the Pac 8) and if they get to the Rose Bowl, wow!.
I grew up with three brothers and a dad that followed sports so I know something about the games, mostly football and baseball but also basketball. I also married a man that followed every single sport there is and then some. Then there is my son who has always followed baseball and football. Through my son, I began following his favorite teams. For baseball it was the Dodgers, then when he went to college in the SF bay area it was the Oakland Athletics. Now he lives in Seattle and it is all about the Mariners.
But I don’t watch sports movies. Why torture myself? If I’m going to watch sports I might as well have it be a live game where I don’t know the outcome.
However, there are some sports movies that I will watch whenever given the opportunity because they say so much, not about sports in particular, but about human nature and perseverance and fairness. In fact, I’m watching one of those favorites right now. I’ll tell you about it in a bit.
Which do I like to watch? For the pure love of the game of baseball, there is no better movie than The Sandlot. It’s about kids who get together to play pickup games of softball. It’s about other things too but the game is the core and I love watching that one. For a wonderful football movie? Remember the Titans is not only about football but about race relations and determination and team spirit. I’m not a Denzel fan but he’s excellent in this one. That brings us to my all time favorite sports movie, this one about basketball. Hoosiers. Like Remember the Titans, Hoosiers is a true story. It’s set in 1954 and brings together a new coach (Gene Hackman) with a questionable past, a team that is missing its star player who refuses to play since the death of his father, Indiana basketball fans who will do anything for the game but not accept the new coach, and a nice little love story on the back burner. This movie has so much going for it. It gets me every time and although I know how each game is going to end, I am on the edge of my seat for every game in the movie. Isn’t that the mark of a classic? It sucks you in and you relive it every time.
There are other good sport movies and sport related movies that I also enjoy (The Mighty Ducks, The Wrestler, The Blind Side, Rudy, Radio, We Are marshall, Rocky, and The Karate Kid come to mind) but these are the favorites, the ones that are all about the sport and how it builds character. If you haven’t seen my three favorites, they’re easy to find to stream online. Next time there is nothing to watch and it’s cold and wet outside, look one of them up and take a look. See if I’m right!
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