You know how media always likes to portray the current outrage -- in this case Big Money corrupting college football - as just having been hatched recently?
Yah, well, feast your eyes on Saturday's Hero. Within the first five minutes we meet the local sportswriter acting as a player agent (illegal), alumni/boosters paying to attract players (illegal) and a high school star who insists he's gonna study as if he's pursuing a legitimate degree (extremely unlikely outside the Ivy League) and the recruiter who pretty much laughs in his face.
Kid heads off to Jackson A&M Polytech, where he goes to orientation (full of Polyanna rules), meets his jaded faculty advisor (English prof who hates the fraud of ''student/athlete"), gets assigned a ''no show'' job, meets his new teammates and gets one brief speech from the hard-bitten head coach who basically tells them they're all nobodies. Next time we coach he's telling the team doc to shoot up John Derek the star player with novocaine so he goes back in the game despite obviously having a broken clavicle or dislocated shoulder. We learn later he was hit by an opposition player who admitted they put a bounty on Derek (take him out by injuring him) which is something that came to light under Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints. Then we get Mr. Bigtime Booster who pretty much controls the coach and pressures Derek to playing despite being seriously hurt. And then he loses his scholarship, just like Nick Saban pulls the scholarships of players he promised full rides to at Alabama.
The sportswriter-cum-player agent actually lobbies for players to be paid out of the obscene profits the college rakes in on football. In 1951! It only took another 71 seasons for the NCAA to fold under Congressional pressure to allow players to benefit from their Names, Images and Likeness. Progress!!
Despite the hard-hitting subject matter, it comes across as A Very Special After School Special. Certainly doesn't help that John Derek is a total stiff and Donna Reed (who I adore) simply does not excite me here. And the players come across as amateur actors (to be charitable).
The key quote is from the cynical player who suffered the career-ending injury: ''Look kid, do they let people in to see the games for free? It's a racket." That guy knew the score.
One question: Why do these sports movies about guys who come out of Palookaville, NJ, always feature immigrant families who talk pidgen-English? Just once I want pops to be a high school math teacher fourth-generation Quaker.
Yah, well, feast your eyes on Saturday's Hero. Within the first five minutes we meet the local sportswriter acting as a player agent (illegal), alumni/boosters paying to attract players (illegal) and a high school star who insists he's gonna study as if he's pursuing a legitimate degree (extremely unlikely outside the Ivy League) and the recruiter who pretty much laughs in his face.
Kid heads off to Jackson A&M Polytech, where he goes to orientation (full of Polyanna rules), meets his jaded faculty advisor (English prof who hates the fraud of ''student/athlete"), gets assigned a ''no show'' job, meets his new teammates and gets one brief speech from the hard-bitten head coach who basically tells them they're all nobodies. Next time we coach he's telling the team doc to shoot up John Derek the star player with novocaine so he goes back in the game despite obviously having a broken clavicle or dislocated shoulder. We learn later he was hit by an opposition player who admitted they put a bounty on Derek (take him out by injuring him) which is something that came to light under Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints. Then we get Mr. Bigtime Booster who pretty much controls the coach and pressures Derek to playing despite being seriously hurt. And then he loses his scholarship, just like Nick Saban pulls the scholarships of players he promised full rides to at Alabama.
The sportswriter-cum-player agent actually lobbies for players to be paid out of the obscene profits the college rakes in on football. In 1951! It only took another 71 seasons for the NCAA to fold under Congressional pressure to allow players to benefit from their Names, Images and Likeness. Progress!!
Despite the hard-hitting subject matter, it comes across as A Very Special After School Special. Certainly doesn't help that John Derek is a total stiff and Donna Reed (who I adore) simply does not excite me here. And the players come across as amateur actors (to be charitable).
The key quote is from the cynical player who suffered the career-ending injury: ''Look kid, do they let people in to see the games for free? It's a racket." That guy knew the score.
One question: Why do these sports movies about guys who come out of Palookaville, NJ, always feature immigrant families who talk pidgen-English? Just once I want pops to be a high school math teacher fourth-generation Quaker.