After months of scouring the internet for news and quotes that could hint to the end of the NBA lockout and debating every NBA 2K12 video game commercial that gets posted to Youtube with “view seeking” opinions, I have finally had enough. This lockout has brought out the ugly side of the sport and as much as it is true that every sport is a business, we are all slowly placing money before the passion and pride that created the athletes that play these sports and the fans that support them.
So I searched and came across a list on the internet that listed the best basketball related movies out there, and while I wait for the NBA to return, I thought I might check them all out and get my basketball fix that way. Not only am I watching movies I may have missed out on, I am at the same time distracting myself from the constant barrage of lockout information that means nothing until the first game of the season starts or is delayed.
Some of the greatest achievements in sports history have been about players, coaches, families, communities, schools and their commitment to winning; not millions, billions, agents and owners. This is exactly why I enjoyed this movie so much. The Mighty Macs is solely about the love of the game. While most sports films are dominated by male leads and their stories, this film takes the opportunity to shed light on a great moment in not only basketball, but sports history, and does a great job doing it.
The film wastes no time in getting its point across. The opening scene has Cathy Rush driving down a small rural road with the car radio on. After a quick mention of president Kennedy, it relays this message while reporting about a womens rally in Washington, D.C., “Women should learn to become a doctor, not learn to marry one.”
The Mighty Macs is the true story of 2008 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Cathy Rush played by Carla Gugino (Entourage, Sin City, Watchmen) who took the coaching job at Immaculata College. An all girls school run by nuns with less than adequate facilities, and despite that won the first ever Women’s National Title. The movie also stars Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn as Mother St. John, a seemingly cold nun who runs the college and is frustrated with her futile efforts to save the school from closure. Marley Shelton (Grindhouse, Sin City, Scream 4) plays Sister Sunday, a nun who on the brink of losing her faith, gets the sign she was looking for and aids Rush in coaching the team. David Boreanaz (Bones, Angel, Buffy) has a smaller but very important role as Rush’s supportive husband Ed Rush, an NBA referee.
The movie takes place in 1971 Pennsylvania. The Vietnam war was taking place, communist and capitalist debates were a hot topic and more women were entering the work force. However, during this time men were still revered as the bread-winners, and the movie doesn’t shy away from the topic in the scenes between Cathy and Ed Rush. Although he is supportive, Ed Rush is often frustrated by his wife’s desire to pursue a career and therefore questions her happiness within their marriage.
When Rush accepts the coaching position, she immediately finds out the gym has burned down and only a rec room, now used as a storage space is all she has for holding her team’s practice. There is no shortage of girls that show up for tryouts, and while some dropout, the remaining players have very few conflicts with the coach. While other schools practice and play in standard gym attire, the Immaculata team play in what I can only describe as short cut prairie dresses with numbers ironed on the backs.
The film also does a good job at discussing issues women were facing during that time such as findings ones worth through a good husband, poverty, insecurities about beauty and their futures. As these problems arise in the film, they are resolved by the team coming together to support each other and use basketball as an outlet for their anger. As the movie progresses and the team begins to find success, they earn the support from it’s once doubtful head master, its nuns, the entire student body and finally city of Immaculata.
My only gripe with the film would be that the scenes that focused around the actual playing of basketball were short in length. Whether that was done deliberately to focus on the characters, I don’t know, but it left me feeling like the majority of the film focused on the team practice sequences. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not what most are accustomed to when watching a sport based movie.
There are a lot of great sports films out there, and there are no doubt better ones on the list I intend to review, but this is definitely a film that should the opportunity arise, should be watched. Women in sports have come a long way with the WNBA, Canada’s Womens Hockey and US Womens soccer teams being the proof of that.
I believe that there should be more films showcasing the great accomplishments in womens sports as there are many stories worth telling. Whether done independently or on big budgets, it can do no harm to show positive female role models in the form of athletes and not only the boundaries that society and films places on them.