Sports & Film - Coach Carter

Essay by cpc114High School, 11th grade April 2010

download word file, 3 pages 0.0

Coach Carter

1. What is the overall theme of the movie?

The movie's theme is, with the combination of education and good decisions, and not the environment or athletics, is the way out of inner city life. Good choices make a man's character.

2. Identify the main character, his/her role and his/her impact and connection to the theme.

The main character is Coach Ken Carter. Carter pushes his student athletes to strive in education rather then solely depending on basketball. By locking up their gymnasium and canceling games, Coach Carter shows how serious education is, rather than numbers on the court, making the students better their grades in order to play.

3. What is the sport issue? How has this issue been seen in the real sporting world?

The sports issue is that there are many student athletes who solely depend on sports, rather than getting a proper education. Some student athletes fail to realize the actual chances of getting sports scholarships or being drafted, and how many of those players drafted actually receive a long-term contract.

Having a proper and good education is a cushion for the not-so-lucky athletes.

This issue has been apparent in the NBA for awhile now, mostly high draft players with high expectations, which ended up as "busts" (careers ending early or just poor statistics overall). Dajuan Wagner, for example, the 6th pick overall in the 2002 draft, only played in 103 games in the course of 3 seasons.

4. Is this a true story? If yes, compare the film to real life events (what happened, what was the aftermath, etc.) If no, then how do we see this issue in today's sporting world?

Coach Carter is based on actual events in the 1998-1999 high-school basketball season in Richmond, California. The real Ken Carter headlined...