A REEL WINNER
I T DOESN’T seem possible, when you look at the listing of movies released in 1986. Here is just a sampling of such films that grossed more at the box office than “Hoosiers”:
“Police Academy 3: Back in Training.” “The Money Pit.” “Gung Ho.” The truth is, “Hoosiers” only spent time in a few theaters in 1986. Most of its business came in ’87, after it was released wide on Feb. 27, and it surely was helped along by the fact that a real-life batch of Hoosiers, the kind based in Bloomington, Ind., wound up winning the NCAA championship the next month — Keith Smart playing the part of Jimmy Chitwood in that one.
Still, the $28,607,524 “Hoosiers” grossed was far less than some of the ’87 stalwarts against which it went head to head: “La Bamba,” “Mannequin,” “Blind Date,” “Summer School.” Which seems remarkable, because who hasn’t seen “Hoosiers?” More to the point, who hasn’t seen “Hoosiers” enough that you can’t start reciting whole passages of it by heart and from memory?
“If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don’t care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we’re gonna be winners.”
“I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.”
“I love you guys.”
To name three. There are few debates that make less sense to me than the ones that try to argue what the best sports movie of all time is. Frankly, if I needed to, I could make an argument for about five different movies, and I would mean every word, even as I was arguing with and contradicting myself. Mostly, it depends upon my mood.
Summer is for “The Natural,” and “Bull Durham,” and “Pride of the Yankees.”
Winter is for “Slap Shot” — though you could make an argument that any day is a damn good day for “Slap Shot.” March? March is for “Hoosiers.” March is when it is dangerous to channel-surf, because no matter what time of day or night, if you click on the guide and see “Hoosiers” is on, then you’re watching “Hoosiers” from where you pick it up to the very end. And it doesn’t matter where you pick it up — the meeting when they try to fire Norman Dale, Shooter stumbling on the court, that eternally awkward kiss between Gene Hackman and Barbara Hershey, anywhere in the state tournament — you’re in it for good.
There are a handful of those movies for me. “Goodfellas” and “Godfather.” “Butch and Sundance” and “Reservoir Dogs” and “Rounders.” “All the President’s Men.”
And “Hoosiers.” Always “Hoosiers.”
Sometimes asking why a movie sticks with you is as mysterious as asking why one song sticks in your head forever and another makes you smash the radio. I think the beauty of “Hoosiers” is that we not only relate to one character, it is easy to relate to so many of them.
Who hasn’t wanted to play the rogue hero, like Dale, or the all-American one, like Chitwood? Who hasn’t had to deal with regret, and we always hope we can handle them better than Shooter did. Who hasn’t felt like Ollie after an opponent (or a boss, or a bully, or some other tormenter, or life in general) has sneered at us, “Didn’t know they grew ’em so small on the farm.”
And yet who hasn’t wanted to look your coach (or your boss, or your spouse, or some other doubter, or life in general) square in the eye after being told you were going to be used as a decoy and said, simply, confidently: “I’ll make it.” And then made it. Yeah. It’s March. It’s time for “Hoosiers,” which for 30 years has reminded us that the month’s magic isn’t contained to the tournament, or even to real life for that matter. Thirty years on, it still makes you want to gather up Coach and the Hickory Huskers, and Shooter and Myra and Preacher Purl, and tell them: “I love you guys.”