Glory Road: From Racism to Recognition

Nurtore Sultan

Glory Road: From Racism to Recognition

Today basketball is considered to the game where African-American people are dominating part of the players. However it had not been the same until the last decades of 20th century. ‘Glory Road” shows how the beginning of equality or even superiority of black skinned people in the basketball sphere. “Glory Road” is a very unique film that is based on a true story of first American college basketball team that consisted of mostly African-American students. Overall, the events of the film happen in the beginning of the second half of 20th century. As it is known, during that time racism was the main ‘illness’ that corrupted American society. Equality was still only on the paper, while in reality black people were treated unjustly in almost every aspect of their life routine. Although impact of main hero of this movie was initially related to the college basketball, the mark that he left on the development of sport in America makes Don Haskins to be claimed to stand on the same line with people who changed American society, like Michael Luther King Jr. This statement can be seemed to be very pretentious but the following work would prove that there are reasonable arguments to make such claim.

        To begin with, the plot of the film is very simple and not unique: the team has a very harsh times, it cannot meet any hopes that were entrusted to it, but after new player/coach comes in management or team, the team overcomes all external as well as internal issues which results into final game that gets them championship or at least recognition by the society. However, the uniqueness of the film is that it is based on the true story, and what is more interesting, the problems that team and management faced were played down so that Americans would not have an image of racist society.

Talking about the plot, Don Haskins was an ordinary coach who played in the college but could not continue his career because of multiple injuries. However, after he won school championship as a coach, he was proposed to coach the team of Western Texas which had one of the lowest ranking basketball team. As a result, he faced conditions that did not let him to attract talented white students play for Western Texas College. Consequently, he started to think about unconventional ways to recruit students, which led him to notice and attract his first black skinned student. This idea was so shocking that later, some African-Americans did not believe him and rejected to play for his college. Nevertheless, the coach ended up with recruiting enough black students to make them key players. At first, the college staff was against this idea, and tried to convince Don to rethink about strategies, but he was unbending in his desire to train black students. “I don’t see color, I see talent, speed, and quick, and that’s what I put on the court.” This quote later changed attitude of whole society towards black people in sports. After harsh training and inner problems, the team started new season with 7 black people in the roster. After winning their first game against one of the best teams, WTC became a sensation in basketball world. The team continued their win streak by showing the abilities of black people and attracting the attention of more and more people. Sometimes this attention did not have good intentions: during games, black students were thrown by food and orally abused; during rest times, some of the players were beaten and their hotel rooms were trashed. All kinds of discrimination were used to them and even the coach was hurt – his wife was receiving a lot threatening messages that were warning to stop “using” black people. Nonetheless, the team overcame all issues and made it to the finals where Don decided to play only with black students during the whole game in order to prove all American society that black students are equally talented and capable to success in sports.

The sport in this film is used as a tool of discrimination. This is luxury that only white men could use. The only time we see the black person playing, apart from Don’s team, was during “trash” time, when the winner is known and permitting black people to play will not affect anything. By doing so, director shows the real situation that followed black people in the society: on the one hand, they are allowed to “play” an equal role in the society, but from the other these roles are not perceived as important as others. From perspective of Constructivism, certain spheres were given only to black people, so they interaction with ‘black’ and ‘white’ people would show the superiority of the latter.

Throughout the film, more examples of racial discrimination are presented. The principle of WTC was pushed to convince Don to fire black students, because letting them play was hurting the image of Western Texas College which at first was lowered and achieved a negative hue, although in the future WTC will gain the prestige of the university that first reject all prejudices against race and ethnicity. Black players were bullied before, during, and after the game. However, the interesting thing was that slightly shown in the film is that how white people in the team were treated by the society – they also were put pressure because they were contacting ‘negros’. As a result, white people became scapegoats of their own community, but they became closer with the “dark side”. A scene in the film shows that the team as a whole went to the ‘black’ party where only African-Americans were presented: at first, guys felt uncomfortable, but through time they ‘joined’ the company and had a great time partying together. Another scene that is related to the connectedness of the ethnical groups is where they are sharing their favorite music – ‘white’ guys loved the music of ‘black’ guys and vice versa also took a place. All these examples showed that these groups share same tastes and interests, and only established traditions of behavior between ethnical groups is the reason why people are treating with discrimination. All these aspects shows that the attitude toward black people were socially created, not biologically inherited, as interests and values of these communities were the same.