Communications and Media

Whether we think of Barrack Obama, Tiger Woods, Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr., the road to Glory is always a difficult, death-defying, blood-drenched path in America.  And in sports, Blacks, beings minorities in America have always been persecuted by insecure Whites who cannot perform to the sports standards of Blacks.  While Ron Sheltons White Men Cant Jump (1992) illustrates this point in a humorous fashion, Walt Disneys Glory Road (2006) takes it more seriously.  This controversial film is directed by James Gartner, and it is based on the true story of the 1966 NCAA Mens Basketball Championship.  While it has provoked and angered some camps in the United States, especially in Texas, it is still an exciting and uplifting movie about the triumph of good over evil.

It starts with the appointment of Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) as the new mens basketball head coach in El Pasos Texas Western College.  He previously worked as a girls basketball coach and his flexibility would soon change American basketball and sports history.  With limited financial resources, he failed to attract the best White high school athletes to his El Paso team, so he started the unprecedented task of recruiting black street players from New York, Michigan and Indiana.  When people, especially in his own university, started to notice that his team had more blacks than whites, they started to question his judgment and ridiculed him.  Haskins trained his team very strictly, forbidding them from women and liquor, and punishing them fiercely whenever they violated it, which they did occasionally.   And during their initial games, they started with three black and two white players under the game style of Haskins.  But when they were starting to lose against Iowa, Haskins finally agreed to allow the blacks to play the game their way.  And their performance improved quickly.  They slam dunked and used fancy passes, which were rarely seen at that time, so it infuriated the insecure white crowd.  Eventually, one of the black players was attacked by several white men in the rest room, and the hotel room of the black players was marked all over with Nigger in red paint.  Haskin also received letters stating that he was a nigger lover, but it did not stop him.  His team though broke apart and lost their last game of the season, finishing 23-1 at the end of the season and tarnishing their perfect-win record.  They enter the 1966 NCAA tournament ranking third in the nation, and when they enter the finals, they face the top-ranked all-white Kentucky Wildcats.  And the day before the game starts, Haskins announces his decision to start with an all-black line-up and to rotate them with two black players only.  Even if it saddened the white players, they felt it was the right thing to do.  When the final game starts, after only a few minutes of play, team captain Harry Flournoy (Mehcad Brooks) injures his foot and leaves the game.  Their center also accrues numerous fouls that increased their anxiety.  They lead by a small margin at half-time, but at the second half, they steal the ball several times and defend their court well, winning the game and defeating the Wildcats 72-65.  As Black pioneers, they return home to El Paso greeted by a cheering crowd.

Now of course, we know that almost all American sports are dominated by black players.  In fact, when black players go on strike, such as the situation with the NFL several years ago, football fans complain about seeing white gay players substituting for the striking black players.  Even in the case of Tiger Woods temporary departure from the golf world, television golf ratings move down so drastically that even his opponents long to bring him back as soon as possible to recover their monetary loses.

Tigers road to glory was not easy though.  He also faced the same death threats and racial slurs when he started winning numerous golf tournaments against a white-dominated industry.  But through his Buddhist mother, he was able to develop enough discipline to overcome all the obstacles that many black golfers still face today.  As he says in Illuminati Healing and Developing the Mind, Buddhism has been a major role in my life. It has given me an inner peace and calmness that I think I wouldnt have achieved at such an early age. I owe that to my mom. I dont practice Buddhism on a day-to-day basis, just when I feel like it. When Im feeling weak, thats usually when I practice it.

Arthur Ash also experienced the same problems, but his road to glory ended in death.  While he won three grand-slam titles, the fact that he was black in a white-dominated game, angered many insecure whites.  He was even barred and denied a visa by racist apartheid South Africa.  He is the only black player to win at the US Open, Wimbledon and the Australian Open.  But because of his failing heart, he had to receive a blood transfusion and open-heart surgery.  This may have given his enemies a chance because the transfusion was contaminated with HIV.  Whether it was intentional or not is unknown.

This is the kind of struggle that the movie Glory Road portrays.  It is an excellent example of how, through determination and discipline, the persecuted can win.  As Blacks, in the likes of Barack Obama, increase their power and influence, the road to glory for the oppressed in America will grow and widen.  And Glory Road can inspire them to keep on going.