you're gonna eat lightnin' and you're gonna crap thunder!

Man I’m a sucker for the inspirational sports film. Yeah sure every loved Rudy, Rocky, or some other underdog character, but for some reason I can’t ever get enough of them. Hell I even defended Mark Walberg’s acting performance in Invincible, and damn that is tough to do. I blame this entire phenomenon on my father. Not that he was a huge movie fan, but it was quite the opposite, he is not a movie guy at all. Television and movies with my dad generally rotated around the news, Sports Center, and The Wonder Years. So when he made a point of me watching a movie, it was a big deal. Coincidentally one of those movies was Hoosiers. Being an aspiring athlete in rural Montana, I loved the game of basketball and played basically year around. Fortunately or unfortunately, which ever it might be, I was a pretty poor basketball player, and our team, well they were the the shits. Not only did our team suck but our school was historically pathetic in most sports except wrestling. Wrestling wasn’t really for me but those country boys could wrestle. Consider that they wrestled cows, hay bails, and irrigation pipe 14 hours a day, year around. Those city boys didn’t have a chance.

Either way, I loved basketball and under the guidance of my father, the coach, I became a loyal fan of Hoosiers. For those of you who have never watched Hoosiers, it’s a lot like my basketball team in high school, not very good to say the least, but I love it. It was the messages that lie within the movie that we watched it for; don’t give into peer pressure, never give up, always give a guy a chance, and my dad’s favorite, “I’ll take 5 guys with work ethic over 5 superstars any day”. Amazingly corny right? Well yes and no, the movie is cheesy and having a few superstars can go a long way, but I think people in this world that try hard, put in the time, and effort still can reap the rewards of their labor. Anyway this all leads to the final note that I’m going to see Rocky Balboa tonight and I can’t wait. I can't wait for the insurmountable underdog story, the pivotal inspirational moment, the awesome training sequence, and the triumphant victory (I hope). Thanks for reading and I'll let you know how it was...