Of all the football movies I've seen, When The Game Stands Tall is by far the best one yet. It's about Bob Ladoceur, De La Salle high school football coach in New Orleans who takes his team to unprecedented heights. Under his coaching, his team went on set a record of 151 wins before losing to Long Beach Poly. Anyone who follows sports knows that it's tough to win, let alone put together a win streak. 151 wins is an amazing feat, one that has yet to be broken. What I liked about this movie is that Coach Ladoceur wasn't just a coach, he was a mentor & friend to many of those boys. For some, he was the only father figure they knew. He had those boys eat dinner with him and spend time with him off the field, and I respect that. For a coach to go out of his way to let his players into his personal life is awesome, and how can one not respect that? This wasn't just a regular football movie, the theme was about the coach trying to instill character & brotherhood in his players.
You could see the genuine love those players had for each other. Many of them were friends and grew up playing football together in childhood prior to joining De La Salle's high school football squad. The players even hung together off the field. When one person struggled, the whole team struggled. When one person won, the entire team won. You don't see that kind of bond nowadays. For the most part, people are out for self. There were some tense moments in the movie, such as Ryan's father. Ryan's father was a salesman, and all he was worried about was the streak. Every game he went to, it was streak this, streak that, streak, streak, streak. Ryan's father only cared about his son when he was winning, but when the team lost, all that changed. Ryan was the only one that had sense between him and his father, and to me that's sad. A father is wiser than his son, but sometimes it's the other way around. Ryan's father wasn't saved, but Ryan was.
Moments like Ryan's father putting pressure on Ryan to keep winning are all too common. There are parents who live their sports dreams through their child(ren). The parent sees athletic greatness in their child, so they push their child as hard as possible so they can be the best. Some children respond well to that, others don't. Sadly, some parents of athletic children love their children when they're winning. When the child's team starts losing, here comes the verbal abuse: You suck, what are you doing, get off the field, and so on. At the very end of the movie, when the team was up by 4 touchdowns, and Ryan was 1 TD away from breaking the school record, he came to his senses: He decided to spend the last few minute paying respects to his coach. The whole team, and eventually the crowd followed suit. The premise behind that tribute is that sometimes, winning isn't everything.
In conclusion, it's not about winning, but how you recover from a loss that defines you. That's the point of the movie.
