Silver Screen Pros

Jackie Moon

Imagine a basketball starting lineup of PG Butch McRae, SG Jesus Shuttlesworth, SF Scott Howard, PF Jackie Moon and C Saleh., or a hockey starting lineup with Greg Goldberg in net the five skaters being John Biebe, Happy Gilmore Reggie Dunlop, Dean Youngblood, and Derek Sutton. If these name sound vaguely familiar to you or you know you have come across these names before somewhere then you are probably right. These are the names of characters from some the greatest sports movies all time, one that have cult followings or are award winners. Some of these characters were played by Hollywood greats other by actual professional athletes, but what are the greatest or top five sports movies of all time?

Below is a run down of the move and the actors that I have mentioned before

Teen Wolf

Butch McRae (Anfernee Hardaway)-Blue Chips        

Jesus Shuttlesworth (Ray Allen)-He Got Game

Scott Howard (Mickael J. Fox)-Teen Wolf

Jackie Moon (Will Farrel)-Semi Pro

Saleh (Charles Gitonga Maina) The Air Up There

Greg Goldberg (Shaun Weiss) Mighty Ducks

John Biebe (Russel Crowe) Mystery Alaska

Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) Happy Gilmore

Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) Slap Shot

Dean Youngblood (Rob Lowe) Youngblood

Derek Sutton (Patrick Swayze) Youngblood

            I feel that you can categorize sports movies into three categories, kids movies (Mighty Ducks), movies based on a true story (Miracle) and ones that are based off of a book or a made up story (Blue Chips). There are some great sports movies that were originally targeted for a younger audience, these usually show the purity of the sport that is unaffected by money or steroids. I think that the best sports movie is based on actual events that accord, then something made up, in a made up story you are rooting for the team or the main character to pull through and win the game, match or race in the last second, of course in real life there is a chance that they don’t win and everyone goes home but in real life no one likes a looser. The only movie where they successfully pull off the loss is in Rocky when Rocky goes the distance verses Apollo Creed but Creed gets the win at the end. The footnote in the argument is that Rocky wasn’t even expected to make it to the end and in Rocky II he gets the win over Creed. Since there are so many sports movies that have been made since the birth of the film industry and I have not had the privilege of seeing them I have decided to mention only a couple of movies per sport.

Football

North Dallas Forty- Clearly I did not see this when in came out back in 1979 but I was just surprised at how much the conditions have changed in what pro football teams play in. I did find the partying scenes in the movie awesome.

The Last Boy Scout- I don’t know how much you can consider this a football movie but Bruce Willis and Damon Waynes are great together

Rudy- The only time in my life I have ever rooted for Notre Dame

Little Giants- Annexation of Puerto Rico, need I say more.

Varsity Blues- Showed what Texas high school football was all about before Friday Nights came out, and who doesn’t love a whipped cream?

Any Given Sunday- Probably the best football movie based on the actual play on the field and from what I have heard the off the field aspects are also relatively accurate.

Baseball

The Natural- In the film there is the Hollywood ending with a walk off home run, in the book there is more of a real life ending, he strikes out.

Bull Durham- The viewer gets a real taste of minor league baseball in the south.

Major League- I think its one of the best baseball movies from the actual product on the field to the off field camaraderie and locker room shenanigans, plus Charlie Sheen was on steroids.

Sandlot- You get a nice idea of what it was like to be a kid in the early sixties where all you had to worry about was not losing a baseball and being home in time for supper. Remember kids don’t try chewing tobacco, just stick with Bazooka Joe.

61*- Not that many people know what kind of stress Roger Maris went through during the summer of 1961 as he got closer and closer to breaking Babe Ruth’s homerun record.

Moneyball- One of those few sports movies that looks inside a sport and beyond winning but at actually how everything works. An in depth look behind the curtain of sabermetrics and statistical analysis in baseball.

Bobsledding

Cool Runnings- If you have never seen it then you are missing something, John Candy teaching Jamaicans a winter sport. Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time! COOL RUNNINGS!

Boxing

Rocky- One of the true underdog movies off all time

The Fighter- Just shows that sometimes your family doesn’t always have the best interest for you.

Soccer

Escape to Victory- Any time you have Sylvester Stallone playing and goal and Pele giving the motivational half time speech you know you have a great film.

Ice Hockey

Slap Shot- Paul Newman said that the filming of this movie was the most fun he ever had on a set. This is minor league hockey at its best, goals, fights and a lot of tin foil.

Miracle- The move has a great sound track and the on ice scenes are just as it happened in 1980 at Lake Placid. What was interesting about this movie was that they took hockey players and had then learn how to act as apposed to having actors learn how to skate and back check. The body double of Jimmy Craig was for NHL all star and Conn Smyth winner Bill Ranford.

 As you can notice I did not have a single documentary mentioned, this was because I could go one for 10 pages with all the great films that were made.