“Glory Road” is the true story of the Texas Western University basketball team being led by coach Don Haskins to the 1966 NCAA championship. The team featured five African American starters, making it the first such team in history to secure the title with its win over the all-white Kentucky Wildcats.

The film opens with Haskins coaching his high school girl’s basketball team to yet another victory. When offered the chance to coach Division I basketball, even if it is at the less than stellar Texas Western, Haskins jumps at the opportunity.

Haskins makes a trip across the country in order to recruit black players from community courts in the North. When he comes back to El Paso with eight new players, making the number of white players on the team a minority, the boosters are none too happy. That is, until the team starts winning. Heads turn when the unranked Texas Western team defeats the number four team in the nation and go on to the National championship game.

Of course, the path is not an easy one. Racial tensions as well as Haskins’ tough approach to coaching add plenty of drama to the screen.

In many ways this film follows the formula for emotionally charged, underdogs-turned-champions sports movies including the inexperienced coach who leads his team to victory after a series of surprising wins. The pace is fast and the excitement builds to a crescendo just in time for the crucial last minute play during the championship game.

What is interesting about this film, and what makes it different, is that it’s not really about the underdogs winning, it’s about the racial divisions in athletics at that moment in history. Although teams in the South were integrated, there was an unmistakable, if unspoken, rule that teams never played more than one black player at home, two on the road and three if you were behind.

Texas Western’s historic win changed the face of modern basketball at both the college and professional levels.

Unlike movies such as “Remember the Titans,” “Glory Road” doesn’t focus quite as much on individual personalities, but takes the approach of an issue-driven story.

The film isn’t all drama, however. Director James Gartner includes some funny moments including a mother’s unconventional tactics to make sure her son is doing well academically. One particularly fun scene occurs when hotshot Harlem Globetrotter-style player Bobby Joe Hill asks Haskins to allow the black players to “play our way,” which up until this point Haskins shunned. Haskins feels that the loose form of Bobby Joe’s style is risky and that players need to stick with his man-on-man approach to basketball. When Bobby Joe pleads with Haskins once again during the second half of a game when the team is significantly behind, Haskins gives him the o.k., and what follows is a peek at the future of basketball.

A movie well worth your while and appropriate for the whole family.

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