'Glory Road'
Tells It Like It Was

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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"Last Holiday" Queen Latifah’s latest flick is most notable for the opportunity it gives the queen to spread her wings as an actress. Playing the part of a Louisiana sales clerk named Georgia Byrd who believes she is terminally ill, Latifah is not all comedy here and, again, she is nobody’s mammy—even when the plot tries to make her into one. Byrd decides to blow her hard-earned and saved dollars on a luxury vacation in Europe. In a somewhat formulaic narrative that alludes to Billie Holiday both in images and soundtrack, Byrd is decidedly unglamorous but is transformed iby spa pampering and “international” fashions. She suddenly learns to stand up taller, speak her mind and seek her happiness. This is all enjoyable to watch, especially after a Cosmopolitan (or two). Even the predictable romance with LL Cool J. is all in good fun. –Iverem **1/2 Black lights.

Today’s big money world of sports media—just like the big money world of non-sports media— often does not remind us of the history of overt racism in the United States, including the world of sports and journalism. In our inundation of information, so-called news and entertainment, I’m pleased to report that the film “Glory Road” does not take us further down the road of mindless distraction. Rather, it offers a gripping narrative that is right on time as the U.S. Congress is confirming justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who, during that same recent history, have fought integration and other gains of the Civil Rights Movement. That inundation of information, so-called news and entertainment is as much about competing narratives as it is about distraction.

The film is based on the story of the Texas Western basketball team and coach Don Haskins. Both the team and coach made history in 1966, when Haskins started five Black members of the team in the NCAA championship against the storied (and all White) team from the University of Kentucky. As this narrative reminds us, it was a game, some say the most important college game ever, that shattered racist notions about the abilities of Black basketball players to compete against Whites at the NCAA level and in the pro ranks. After the game, colleges in the South, who either had no Black players at all or restricted their playing time, ended their apartheid.

Josh Lucas delivers a solid performance in the role of Haskins and the players, no big names except Derek Luke, are solid as well. Luke seems to be on a mini sports run. This time last year, he was remarkable as a Texas high school football player in the electrifying “Friday Night Lights.” This year, he is a cocky and risk-taking college point guard. Though there are the exciting but pro forma basketball games, there are also decent portrayals of the off-court tribulations faced by the team as they traveled through hostile and racist communities and attempted to still enjoy themselves as young men in college.

Some of the dialogue from the Black players sounds a bit strained and unrealistic but, when it a tight spot, director James Gartner always falls back on the 60’s soundtrack from Motown to lend the film more Black authenticity. And in a story so centered on race, perhaps we should have gotten a better idea of who Haskins is and what gave him a set of values different from those of so many of his colleagues. Still, despite, such small annoyances, “Glory Road” is a great film.

Esther Iverem’s new book of poems, Living in Babylon, is available at through SeeingBlack.com’s store at Amazon.com.

— February 3, 2006

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