Glory Road is perfect pre-March Madness movie viewing

Glory Road not only told an important story in basketball history, but also carved out its own place in movie history. Learn how in the latest Deeper Cut.

March Madness has arrived, and when thinking about college basketball, it should be impossible not to think about Glory Road. It stands tall as the most underappreciated sports film in history, as we’ll explore in this week’s Deeper Cut.

When the movie was released in 2006, it didn’t get nearly the fanfare of its predecessors. Walt Disney Pictures had also made Remember the Titans in 2000 and Miracle in 2004, both of which found critical acclaim and commercial success. Here was another feel-good sports movie, telling another story about an underdog team, from the same studio—movie fans could be forgiven, to a point, for assuming they’d seen this one before.

Except they hadn’t. Though both of those movies are among the best sports films ever made, Glory Road is right up there with them and stands on its own as a brilliant and beautiful picture that never got its due.

In 1966 — four years before the events depicted in Remember the Titans — Texas Western College made NCAA history by fielding the first all African-American starting lineup. And it wasn’t just that they shattered college basketball’s color barrier, it was the way they performed, both on and off the court, that opened people’s eyes and continues to have resonance more than 50 years after they became champions.

Don Haskins was a tremendous coach, but he became a legend for the quality of man he was. In his autobiography, Haskins wrote that he never intended nor even considered the ramifications of his lineup, beyond just trying to win a championship game. He didn’t see color or conflict (or even gender; he’d previously been a women’s basketball coach), he saw talent, and that was literally all that mattered to him.

The players he recruited, both black and white, also became remarkable men. Aside from their athletic careers, they became coaches themselves (Willie Worsley), teachers or program directors (Harry Flournoy, Willie Cager, Nevil Shed), and public servants (Orsten Artis). They didn’t just play a sport well, they made the world a little bit better.

Glory Road captured all of that, while also delivering the dramatic, emotional payoff that movie buffs have come to desire from sports films. And like the team it was inspired by, it did so when it wasn’t necessarily expected to.

Josh Lucas was the movie’s star and its best-known name. He had recognition, but he wasn’t a household name like Denzel Washington or a Golden Globe and Emmy nominee like Kurt Russell.

Lucas nailed all the big moments that seem to happen in every sports movie — the galvanizing speech, the arguments with the naysayers who think the coach will fail, the trying to get players on his side. He delivered monologues that made the audience want to run through a wall for him, while also serving up a wonderful dry humor. Everything he needed to be, he was.

But where Lucas truly excelled, and separated himself from other movie coaches before or since, was his touching portrayal of who Don Haskins was as a man. The unfortunate side effect of any sports movie is that it’s about the game, and scenes where we see the coach as a person can be limited. They either exist simply to show the toll on his or her home life, or to break up the game material with something else.

Glory Road, though, allowed Lucas to breathe more life into Haskins. He showed us that Haskins was a great coach because he was a great human being first. He captured that attitude where it was about doing his job well and doing well by his players, and the decision to make history came second to that.

Perhaps his best moment in the entire movie is one where he has absolutely no dialogue, and the gravity of what he’s just accomplished hits him. The camera catches Lucas as Haskins is overwhelmed by shock and emotion, and it’s just so genuine and human that it goes right to the viewer’s heart.

Yet he was also the leader of an overall brilliant ensemble. Every actor who was part of that team was on their A-game, from more established names (Derek Luke’s fiery but also vulnerable portrayal of Bobby Joe Hill) to lesser known ones (Damaine Radcliff’s frustrated Willie Cager or Al Shearer providing comic relief as Nevil Shed).

The actors gave each player their own distinct personality and part of the story. It wasn’t a movie that just focused on one or two names and relegated the rest to filler. The success of the 1966 Texas Western Miners was a team effort, and that same conviction was obvious throughout Glory Road.

That’s where this film truly shines and why it’s still powerful. There hasn’t been a sports film that feels so akin to the team and the story that it represents—not just in terms of accuracy, but how one reflects the other.

There’s the coach who was an unpredictable choice for the job, played by an actor who was a very different choice for the role. (Aside from never having done a similar role, Lucas wasn’t the studio’s first pick either.) There’s the team of underdogs and unknowns, portrayed by actors who were all pretty much unknown. And just like the team came together as a united front, the ensemble is its own squad. Nobody gets left behind; everybody has a chance to excel.

And while Glory Road is obviously about racism, discrimination and changing college basketball, that’s not the only thing it has to say. It accomplishes those ends, but it’s also a depiction of what it means to be a team, of what it takes to be a leader and how striving for greatness often means doing the most basic things right.

There’s a lot that can still be learned from how the Texas Western Miners conducted themselves, and this picture is wonderful at keeping those lessons and their legacy alive.It’s about more than winning a basketball game, and that makes it more than a movie.

The film won the ESPY Award in 2006 for Best Sports Movie, but more importantly, it was also nominated for the Humanitas Prize—the award for TV or film writing that promotes “human dignity, meaning and freedom.” It’s a shame that it didn’t win, because Glory Road is a movie that inspires us to be greater humans, and makes us excited about the journey to get there.

If you haven’t seen Glory Road, do yourself a favor and watch it between NCAA tournament games this weekend. In fact, watch the 1966 NCAA championship game, too. You’ll discover a story that you’ll never forget, and a film that should be much better remembered than it is.

Glory Road is available on Blu-Ray, DVD and streaming on digital platforms including Amazon Video and iTunes. Find the next Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.