Coach Carter Essay

For my folio task I have chosen to study a movie, I believe that this will be easier for me to understand what is happening in the film and I think I will be able to understand the personalities of the characters whilst watching a film rather than reading a novel. I find that they are easier to analyze.
Coach Carter is based on a true story, Samuel L. Jackson portrays Ken Carter who has a legend status at Richmond high. At the beginning of the film Carter was offered a job at the school as head coach of the basketball team. He accepted the job to attempt to bring change into the poor neighborhood and to the student athletes who played for the basketball team.
One theme that the film uses is teamwork, at the beginning of the story the team weren’t playing as one unit but as a group of individuals, this resulted in the team losing most of their games in the previous years. When Coach Carter took over he taught them that teamwork will always beat a team of individuals, he taught them to pass the ball to each other rather than continuously shooting, he also punished the team as a group rather than singling out each individual. This made brought the team closer and taught them some discipline.
Another theme was winning isn’t always everything, this theme is shown when Coach Carter locks up the gym, he does this because the team break their contracts with not all of them achieving a C+ or higher after they promised they would all get their act together and pass their classes. He shows that he cares more about the boys passing their classes than winning which his main goal was to try to ensure a successful future for these students rather than winning championships, proving that he values education and a successful life over winning games. This theme is also shown in the last game where the team comes up short in the final, obviously them team was shattered but after the game they were in the change rooms singing because they were proud of their achievements. The