I was watching The Air Up There for the 40th time a couple days ago. I fell in love with this movie as a nine-year-old at summer camp. About once a month I’ll make a reference to this movie with my friends and get zero reaction.
The plot is as follows: ambitious young Coach Jimmy Dolan, unevenly played by Kevin Bacon, sees a tape of one of his Jesuit college’s missionaries in Africa and spies the next Hakeem Olajuwon dunking in the background. Bacon rushes to Africa to recruit the kid, named Saleh, earns the trust of Saleh’s Wanabi tribe by going through their ancient rites of manhood, teaches the tribesmen (and one woman with a nasty handle) to hoop, defeats the wealthy and corrupt city tribesmen, and makes sure the Wanabi have plenty of cattle for the future.
In the end, Saleh comes to America to pursue his higher education and play for the new head coach, you guessed it, Jimmy Dolan.
This is an obviously flawed movie with a white messiah complex larger than Avatar 's, but let’s move past that. What struck me while watching it this time was one of the early scenes, ...
Read Complete Article at Bleacher Report - Sports & Society
Article is property of BleacherReport.com