Played For The Dream or By The Dream?
Hoop Dreams (1994)- Two young men from inner city Chicago chase a dream of professional basketball as they play for two different high schools. The different expectations from coaches, family and the players themselves show all the hurdles they face.
Directed by Steve James
Starring Arthur Agee, William Gates.
Why I Liked It – Classic documentary that doesn’t soften the situation it’s documenting.
I want to explain why this movie was a bit of a reach for me. I am NOT a basketball fan. Not high school, college or the pros. A large part of that is growing up outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There’s not a lot of hoops culture there. You won’t find a great college basketball tradition in the city, and the last pro team was in the ABA, the Pittsburgh Condors. Southwestern Pennsylvania was all about football and baseball in the years I grew up. With that as background, I’m not sure what made me start this movie. Once the movie started, I was hooked.
I love a good documentary, and this one is regarded as one of the best ever. When it didn’t get a nomination for an Oscar, despite rave reviews, it resulted in major changes in the nominating process for the category. If you want to be appalled, read about the controversy over “Hoop Dreams”. It literally involved flashlights! Amazing.
In the meantime, this documentary walks through the absurd process of high school basketball and the fairy tales that are sold to player and family. I did a quick look at the number of slots in the NBA for players. In the off-season, teams can carry 20 players on the roster, during the season the maximum is 15. So, somewhere between 450 and 600 jobs at the highest level. If we’re honest, the jobs everyone wants are those 450. In the 2021/22 school year, there were just over 517,000 male high school basketball players. And that total was the lowest in years! Turning again to my calculator, that means there is ONE NBA slot for every 1,150 high school players (approximately). But we sell these kids on the idea that they have the talent level to get them into a new life. It will only be true for a tiny percentage.
The reality shown here is much grimmer. Arthur A gee and William Gates live in some of the toughest neighborhoods in the Windy City. Talented players, St. Joseph High School recruited them, a mostly white, suburban school with a good basketball team. This is where NBA great Isaiah Thomas played as a young man. It seems like a dream come true. But this dream sends each of them in different directions. Gates thrives there, but financial problems at home pushes Agee back into his local public school. Each will face their own challenges. Gates has repeated injuries to his knee, while Agee struggles with a variety of family and school issues. As graduation day approaches, Agee’s grades are an obstacle to getting a scholarship at a large school. Meanwhile, Gates has dozens of offers from big name programs.
While there is some familial pressure on playing the game, they are largely positives in the boy’s lives. It’s all the surrounding people that come off poorly here. Arthur gets booted from St. Joseph’s when his family can’t pay the tuition. The school looks bad for that move, but it gets worse when they hold Arthur’s transcript hostage in his senior year until they make the back payments up. St. Joseph’s coach is all buddy-buddy with both boys, but is a voice mostly of criticism. Even in William’s graduation “exit interview”, Coach Gene Pingatore spends most of his time telling the young man how he could have been better. Then, once William has left, shrugs and predicts he’ll have another recruit through the door at any moment. But, the coach isn’t alone in all this. The college coaches and tournament organizers aren’t any better. It’s a meat market and the “meat” has a four-year life span. You either help them win or there’s another recruit coming through the door. I understand that’s the nature of sports, but for high school kids to be treated that way sickens me.
By the end of the documentary, both young men win in their own ways. Agee sees a level of success in high school that Gates never gets, while Gates gets a good education at Marquette. Today, they co-host a podcast called Hoop Dreams The Podcast.
A gritty, enthralling look at some of the ugly sides of high school sports. “Hoop Dreams” still lives up to its reputation as one of the greatest documentaries of all time.
You can stream “Hoop Dreams” for free on YouTube, Tubi, Sling TV, Vudu, Amazon Prime, Pluto TV, Peacock, The Roku Channel, Plex, and Crackle.
Rating – ***** Highest Recommendation
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