with Rick Kelm, Ripon HS (WI) Head Football Coach; 2005 & 2003 Wisconsin Class 4 State Champions, 2003 Wisconsin High School Coach of the Year
Special teams play has been a key to Ripon High Schools 38-2 record over the past three seasons. Coach Kelm believes that special teams must receive as much emphasis in practice and planning as offense and defense. Being aggressive and calculated make this special teams' package effective. Ten unique situations make up this special teams package. These areas include kick off, onside kick, kick off return, hands team, punt, punt fake, punt block, punt return, extra point/field goal and fake extra point/field goal. The punt game, onside package, punt block systems make it difficult for the opponent to prepare for Ripon. In all, 20% of all plays in a high school game are special team situations. This DVD is a complete presentation on special teams at the high school level and has been a crucial part of the consistent success at Ripon High School.
Suburban Virginia schools have been segregated for generations in sight of the Washington Monument over the river in the nation's capital. One Black and one White high school are closed and the students sent to T.C. Williams High School under federal mandate to integrate. The year is seen through the eyes of the football team where the man hired to coach the Black school is made head coach over the highly successful white coach. Based on the actual events of 1971 the team becomes the unifying symbol for the community as the boys and the adults learn to depend on and trust each other.System Requirements:Running Time 114 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG
There seems to be no end to beating-the-odds football movies these days, and if they all peak with a breathless moment of anticipation during a clutch play, then We Are Marshall, based on a true story, has plenty of (mostly good) company. Matthew McConaughey plays Jack Lengyel, who becomes head coach--more or less by default--of Marshall University's rebuilding varsity football team in Huntington, W. Va., after the school's 37-member team and coaches (and a number of others) die in a plane crash in the Appalachian Mountains on Nov. 14, 1970. Facing an indifferent college president (David Strathairn) ready to shut the football program down, a morose assistant coach (Matthew Fox), and a charged-up player (Anthony Mackie) who missed the doomed flight due to an injury, Lengyel is faced with fielding a new team and putting the players through their paces. There are the usual, perhaps too-familiar, training montages and field action, but screenwriter Jamie Linden and director McG (Charlie's Angels) also draw some very good performances from the likes of Kate Mara and Ian McShane, contributing to an emotional tapestry conveying a powerful sense of how such a sizable loss affects a small community.
When the coach of Vince Papale's beloved hometown football team hosted an unprecedented open tryout, the public consensus was that it was a waste of time--no one good enough to play professional football was going to be found this way. Certainly no one like Papale--a down-on-his-luck, 30 year-old, substitute teacher and part-time bartender who never even played college football. But against these odds, Papale made the team and soon found himself living every fan's fantasy--moving from his cheap seats in the upper deck to standing on the field as a professional football player.
In six years of coaching Grant Taylor has never led his Shiloh Eagles to a winning season. After learning that he and his wife Brooke face infertility Grant discovers that a group of fathers are secretly organizing to have him dismissed as head coach. Devastated by his circumstances he cries out to God in desperation. When Grant receives a message from an unexpected visitor he searches for a stronger purpose for his football team. He dares to challenge his players to believe God for the impossible on and off the field. When faced with unbelievable odds the Eagles must step up to their greatest test of strength and courage.System Requirements:Run Time: 112 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MISCELLANEOUS/SPECIAL INTEREST Rating: PG
Starring: Scott Bakula, Hector Elizondo Rating: PG-13 4/5 stars
This is an old favorite of mine, when it comes to sports comedies. There is something about the way it all came together for this movie that keeps it from getting "tired" over time.
We've all seen the story of the underdog team of misfit athletes that band together to overcome the odds... but it works in this movie, with this cast, and it works very well. The team doesn't "win it all" this time around. They simply prove themselves to be legitimate against seemingly insurmountable odds, which lends credibility to the film, rather than having it play out like so many other sports movies.
A washed-up quarter back (Reeves) leads a team of misfit football players assembled by a coach (Hackman) to replace striking pro players. One of the funniest sports movies ever made! Genre: Feature Film-Drama Rating: PG13 Release Date: 8-FEB-2005 Media Type: DVD PREVIEW
"First and Goal: The Making of Any Given Sunday" was originally broadcast as an HBO "First Look" featurette. It tries, with mixed results, to match the frenetic, multiformat aesthetic of Oliver Stone's film, but the interviews are worth a look. Unfortunately, Al Pacino is conspicuously absent. As for Stone's director's cut, the previously unseen footage--consisting of extraneous gridiron violence and gratuitous nudity in a post-victory party scene--adds little to the film.
This MTV-produced drama only looks like an adaptation of H.G. Bissinger's expert dissertation of the church of high school football, Friday Night Lights. The energetic, breezy movie has none of the seriousness of Bissinger's book except on its basic level: in West Texas, high school football is life. Into this world comes Jonathan "Mox" Moxon (James Van Der Beek), a brainy, uncharacteristic jock who sits on the sideline reading Slaughterhouse Five until the West Caanan High School Coyotes All-Texas QB goes down with an injury. Suddenly the spotlight and the tyrannical ways of coach Bud Kilmer (another ace evil turn by Jon Voight) are on Mox and the light is white-hot. There have been several films that show tough, honest kids doing their best against the worst of small-town coaches (Tom Cruise in All the Right Moves, for one) but Varsity Blues, in its glossy style, takes a more curious turn: studying what happens when celebrity comes to the well-adjusted high schooler. Mox starts seeing the rewards of stardom: a six-pack under the counter, acceptance in school, even easy sex from the girl who goes after the starting quarterback (Ali Larter). Will Mox win the big game? Will he bend to the wills of his coach? Will he stay with his old girlfriend? The questions are easy enough to answer, but the film has an ace up its sleeve: Van Der Beek has the stuff to carry the movie. Fans of TV's Dawson's Creek will see a slightly grittier dreamboat here, and Van Der Beek's care with the role makes the most ludicrous parts--including a trip to a strip club--manage a certain aura.
This highly acclaimed winner of five Emmy Awards is one of the best-loved movies ever made for television. It s the true story of the special relationship between two professional football players Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and Brian Piccolo (James Caan). Both star players for the Chicago Bears Sayers and Piccolo soon become roommates and best friends. When Sayers suffers a knee injury in mid-season it s Piccolo who prods and inspires him to work toward a complete recovery. Then fate deals a cruel blow: Piccolo is stricken with malignant cancer. The constant support and friendship of Sayers plays an important role in Piccolo s heroic fight against the disease. Also starring Shelly Fabares (TV s Coach) as Piccolo s loving wife Brian s Song is a moving and unforgettable film.System Requirements:Starring: Billy Dee Williams James Caan and Shelly Fabares. Directed By: Buzz Kulik. Running Time: 74 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Standard" format. Copyright 2000 Columbia TriStar Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: G
All his life people have told Rudy he s not good enough not smart enough not big enough. But nothing can stop his impossible dream of playing football for Notre Dame.From the time he s a young boy Rudy (Sean Astin) is determined to join the Fighting Irish. But his blue-collar family only laughs at his ambitions -- they know Rudy will follow his father and brother to the local steel mill. And for four long years after high school he does just that. But some dreams won t die as Rudy proves when he goes to heroic occasionally hilarious lengths to win admission to Notre Dame. Once there he becomes a walk-on player serving as little more than a human tackling dummy against the startling players. Bloodied but unbeaten Rudy wins the respect of legendary coach Ara Parseghian and the other Irish players who give him one shot at gridiron glory. An incredible true story from the creators of Hoosiers Rudy is an unforgettable testament to the power of dreams and the triumph of the common man.System Requirements:Starring: Sean Astin Ned Beatty Charles S. Dutton Robert Prosky and Lili Taylor. Directed By: David Anspaugh. Running Time: 114 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2000 Columbia TriStar Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG
The story of pro quarterback Paul Crewe (Sandler) and former college champion and coach Nate Scarboro (Reynolds) who are doing time in the same prison. Asked to put together a team of inmates to take on the guards Crewe enlists the help of Scarboro to coach the inmates to victory in a football game fixed to turn out quite another way.System Requirements:Starring: Adam Sandler Chris Rock Burt Reynolds William Fichtner James Cromwell Directed By: Peter Segal Running Time: 113 Min. Copyright Paramount Pictures 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13
America's favorite wild and zany funnyman, Adam Sandler (50 FIRST DATES, MR. DEEDS, PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE), scores big laughs in a smash comedy hit where the laughs never run dry! Just an oddball mama's boy from the back bayous of Louisiana, Bobby Boucher (Sandler) never wanted anything more than to quench the thirst of the dehydrated athletes who treat him like dirt! But when Coach Klein (Henry Winkler -- HOLES, TV's HAPPY DAYS) makes the call that allows Bobby to finally stand up for himself, it unleashes a torrent of bottled-up frustration ... and exposes a talent for tackling that transforms him from a meek "water distribution engineer" into the hardest hitter ever to roam the gridiron! Also featuring award-winning Kathy Bates (ABOUT SCHMIDT, TITANIC, MISERY) and sexy Fairuza Balk (ALMOST FAMOUS, RETURN TO OZ) in a hilarious cast of stars -- here's your chance to join the millions everywhere who've proudly stood and cheered for The Waterboy!
