Grace Ronnebeck

10/1/2019

Reading Reaction #3

On September 23, 2019, we watched the film, ​McFarland USA,​ in class. The film was

inspired by the true story of a high school football coach, Jim White, who moves his family to

McFarland, California to pursue a new teaching and coaching job. White quickly lost his position

as the assistant coach for the football team and is left with only his PE and earth science teaching

job. McFarland is an economically depressed, primarily Latino community that at first look

seems very run down and threatening because of the crime rates and run down town. On the

White family’s first night in the town, they went to a taco restaurant. As they were leaving, a

parade of cars pulled up and many Hispanic guys got out, and the White family felt uneasy and

unsafe because they assumed that it was a gang.

Throughout the film, they demonstrated how hard many of the students that White

worked with had to work because they not only were going to school, but they also had to go

work in their family fields or work full time to help support their families. All of the athletes that

White coached came from families that had no one finish the ninth grade, so for them, it was

normal to not take school seriously. I thought it was so sad to see how little hope there was for

these kids at the beginning of the movie. So many of them had any aspirations of finishing high

school let alone going to college. They had obligations to help keep their ,​​ family above water,

and they had no one expecting them to go anywhere beyond their family business in McFarland.

It was crazy to see how much of a difference White had on his team and the community

of McFarland, as well as how impactful McFarland was for him. He originally took the job at the
high school just so that he could support his family, but then he created something that gave

students hope and a dream of doing bigger things than anyone in their family had ever imagined

for them. He gave his students hope and he gave them something to look forward to in the future.

McFarland gave White and his family home. The small community took the White family in and

really made them one of their own.

Although the film was primarily about how Jim White created an underdog cross-country

team and took them all the way to victory at state in their first year, I found it very moving that

they also included the family lives of the athletes that were on White’s team. We got to see

exactly what each member was going through and how impactful this team really was for the

community. It not only gave the runners something to believe in, but it also brought much of the

community together, even the owner of the local grocery store closed the store down for the first

time in 25 years when the team made it to state.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film and how impactful this story it is. It was really inspiring

to see how much White was able to help turn some of his kids' lives around, and it is something I

can use someday when I am teaching.