Kyle Huang

Mr. Turton

Literature

December 30, 2020.

Glory Road: The Pressure Of Success

James Cartner’s ​Glory Road ​is a movie based on a true story surrounding the events in

the 1966 NCAA University Division Basketball Tournament. The movie has a great example of

how sports can be sometimes helpful and harmful to others. During that time racism still existed.

The harmful part in the movie shows when Taxes Western players and the coach experience the

violence of discrimination, verbal abuse, death threats, and even more. The helpful part shows

when players came out from the pressure and won the championship in the end. With the help of

the coach, the conflict between teammates, society, and racism, which all lead to the pressure

that drives success.

The helpful part shows when the coach gave the players the energy to fight through

discrimination, verbal abuse, and death threats. The coach ​Don Haskin had an essential role in

this movie. Don Haskin was once the coach of the girl’s basketball team. So when he took the

job of being the coach in a poor university of Texas Western, this changed every player’s

perspective in the team and saw him as a joke and also not even care about him. However, the

players in the team were shocked when Don Haskin found seven black players to add to the five

white players the team already had. The quotes that Don Haskin used to convince the black

players to join the basketball team were “I do not see color, I just see the talent and that is what I

put on the court”(McDonald). With this idea, black Players have chances to prove themselves
that they can play. Although sometimes basketball can be helpful in some ways, it can also be

harsh and harmful as well during the time of racism.

The harmful part shows when black players play basketball and cause conflict among

their teammates and society. The white players did not welcome the black players to the team

and some did not even see black people before. Sometimes the white player will discriminate

against the black players and cause many conflicts during training. But after so many weeks of

hard training and an adjustment period, the team finally gained victories and became undefeated.

With many undefeated games, their popularity began to grow. But they also gained more and

more enemies who did not like the black players to take over white people’s sports. For example,

one of the black players has been beaten up and their hotel rooms have words in blood on the

wall written with racist words and death​ threats. This makes the players lose their faith, their

concentration, and lose in their next game. The huge pressure they encounter almost makes them

once want to give up. Fortunately, the coach Don Haskin stepped out and told players that “Your

dignity's inside you. Nobody can take something away from you if you don't give them”(Glory

Road, 1:14:20). With the pressure on the coach and the players, the players then realized that

basketball is the only choice to prove to everyone that black players can play as well as white

players. For instance, racism was the biggest problem in the movie.

The history of racism becomes the main issue in the movie. The whole team “comes

together in the face of racial hate, from trash, food, and spit being thrown on them, to getting

beaten in restrooms, and worse”(Chase). This illustrates how united the Texas Western team

was. When the NCAA championship final had come, the coach Don Haskin decided to play only

7 black players in the game and this had not happened in history ever before. With the decision

he made, the championship final can be seen as against racism. The coach Don Haskin was
trying to prove that black can think, they can play, and also they can do everything that white

players can do. If Taxes Western had lost the game, then we would not know how long the rules

of basketball will change in history. Luckily, they had won the championship of the NCAA

University Division Basketball Tournament and forever changed the basketball rules in the

world. They had not just won the championship, but they had won respect and gave the way for

future generations to use black players instead of mainly white people.

James Cartner’s ​Glory Road ​is a movie that shows the help of the coach, the conflict

between teammates, society, and racism. A team has the passion and desire to fight for difficult

challenges during the period of racism. The huge pressure that the coach and the team have was

unexplainable. In the movie, the Texas Western team had experience discrimination, verbal

abuse, and death threats. The black players play basketball also causes conflict between both

their teammates and society. But with the help of coach Don Haskin, this gave the black players

hope to prove to society that black players had the right to play basketball.
 Work Cited

Chase, Brian. “Film Review ***: ...Glory Road... Worth Traveling.” ​The Tech - Online

Edition,​ Web.<tech.mit.edu/V125/N64/64Glory.html.> Assessed July 5, 2020.

McDonald, Pam.“WFL DP Leadership in Cinema- Glory Road.” ​Leadership in Cinema​,

WildFire Leadership Development Program, Web.<

www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/wfldp/docs/glory-road.pdf.> Assessed July 5, 2020.

“Watch Glory Road Movie Free Online - 9Movies.” ​ww2.9movies.Yt,​

Web. <ww2.9movies.yt/watch/glory-road-9141/?ep=23375.> Assessed July 5, 2020.