Film Review
‘Glory Road’: Sports Story
Captures History of Its Times

By Paul Mene (February 8, 2006)

It is described as the game that changed the history of college basketball. The country was focused on the 1966 NCAA basketball championship game. Coach Don Haskins for the Texas Western Miners started five African Americans in the championship game against the heavily favored Kentucky Wildcats. Haskins (Josh Lucas) broke the unspoken color barrier that changed college basketball forever.

Texas Western was a poor school. Coach Haskins took the job as his only way to transition from coaching girls’ high school basketball to Division I NCAA basketball. Coach Haskin arrives at the school realizing that there were not enough talented basketball players, so he goes out on a recruiting mission to some local playgrounds that would later lead to breaking history.

The movie gives insight into the hardships these players had to endure, especially in the southern America. The movie does a great job in joining together the culture of the everyday people back in the 60’s into the sports genre. You get a taste of the society during the Civil Rights movement. Every time these players stepped into a gym, where the majority of spectators were white, the movie highlights the mistreatment of blacks from drinks being thrown at them to numerous epithets. The new recruits give a sense of the typical deception going from the Northeast to Southern Texas and dealing with the extreme difference in cultures. The players do a great job communicating to the audience their vacillating emotions to the negative comments they received. 

For those who enjoy a story that has a happy ending and some significant history, this is a great film. The actors do fine jobs of capturing aspects of each player’s personality that underscore his particular contribution on the court. The movie was based upon coach Haskins breaking the unspoken barrier and it allows viewers to really get a feel for everything the players and people around them at a time when the country was struggling to overcome discrimination. The movie does a great job in remaking the historical basketball story.