Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced this movie, also was behind Remember the Titans. Both are fast-paced and adrenaline-pumping sports dramas that also deal with the sharp and painful edges of racism. Here the spotlight is on Don Haskins who in 1966 moves from coaching a girl's high-school basketball team to the position of head basketball coach at Texas Western University (now the University of Texas at El Paso). This small school has a very limited budget and most of it goes into the football program. But Haskins (Josh Lucas) is a driven man with a huge desire to win. To coach an NCAA team, he accepts the humiliation of moving with his wife (Emily Deschanel) and small children into several rooms in the sport's dormitory where he is also supposed to watch over unruly students.

Haskins dream of building a team that is fast, disciplined, and able to handle any challenge. When it soon becomes clear to him that the best white athletes in the area have no interest in playing for Texas Western's Miners, he decides to recruit African Americans players from New York, Michigan, and Indiana.

The best recruit is guard Bobby Joe Hill (Derek Luke), a cocky young man who has great speed and talent but lacks focus. He also resists the off-the-court rules Haskins establishes. Other new members of the team are Schin A. S. Kerr as center David Lattin; Damaine Radcliff as Willie "Scoops" Cager, whose heart problem almost takes him out of the game; Sam Jones III as a fiery independent guy who admires the Black Panthers; and Mehcad Brooks as Harry Flournoy whose mother pushes him to excel academically. The most prominent white player on the team is Jerry Armstrong (Austin Nichols), a farm boy who has to deal with the competition and change his attitudes towards black athletes.

James Gartner, in his debut as a film director, does a fine job in keeping the proceedings as dramatic as possible. The screenplay by Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois accentuates the racism that torments the black players, including on incident where one of them is beaten up in a bathroom of a public restaurant, another where epithets are scrawled in blood in a motel room, and the overall opinion of basketball announcers and other boosters of the sport that black athletes are not intelligent enough or able to handle the pressures of the game. Haskins and his dream team prove them all wrong with a stunning winning season which leads them into a climactic game against the formidable Kentucky team coached by Adolph Rupp (Jon Voight), who had a low regard for African Americans as basketball players. To make a point and with full confidence in their talent Haskins decides to use only his black players in the championship. The finale is a real corker!

In one of his pep talks to the team, Coach Haskins says: "It's not about talent, it's about heart. It's about who can go out there and play the hardest. They're not going to give us anything, so you've got to go out there and you've got to take it." Although there is a definite edge to the competitive counsel here, what is unusual is the emphasis on acting from the heart. This is a spiritual move. The Texas Miners display a lot of heart on the basketball court and they show even more in their relationships with each other. It's no wonder this team changed the face of its sport.


Special DVD Features include Legacy of The Bear, highlights of Coach Haskins' illustrious career; Surviving Practice, an inside look into Coach Haskins' training regimen; In Their Own Words - Remember 1966, extended interviews with players and colleagues of Coach Haskins; Alicia Keys music video "Sweet Music"; deleted scenes; and two audio commentaries with Director James Gartner and Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and with writers Chris Cleveland and Bettina Gilois.