Reflect back on the movie Hoop Dreams, the documentary that followed the lives of two inner-city Chicago boys who struggle to become college basketball players. Combine with that the Hollywood portrayals of African American male athletes in movies such as The Blind Side, Above the Rim, Ali, Any Given Sunday, Coach Carter, Remember the Titans, Glory Road, For Love and Basketball, Jerry McGuire, White Men Can't Jump, and any other sport film which has largely features African American athletes.
Sport in the African American culture is a key factor besides family. This a a way fro many young children to stay out of trouble and make it out of their neighborhoods. Many African American children look to sports to better their families and get them out of the "hood". I know for me, I used sports as a way to stay off the streets and as a distraction to leave little room for error or time to misbehave. Sports was a let out for my anger from my family life, and just everyday issues that would cross my path.
As we seen and see in many films that portray African American young men, we see them all having the same fight, trying to get out of the ghetto. They all talk about the struggle financially, or drug problems. In some movies, like Coach Carter we see a strong African American figure that believes in these boys to better themselves and not let the streets take them. In other movies, like Hoop Dreams and The Blind Side, we see a white man and woman coming in to help these young men. In The Blind Side, we see Sandra Bullock pushing this young man to better himself and loves him. She puts him into football to keep him away from the streets and to allow him more opportunities. She saw something in him that he could not see in himself, and once again we see he came from a troubled background in the ghetto. In this picture we see Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) talking to Michael Oher and convincing him to come stay with her and her family. This woman opened her home to this young man and helped turn his life around. In many movies we see sports as the way to motivate young African American children to push themselves to be better.
Today sport can be very damaging if coaches stack their athletes. Some African American boys and men do not follow the stereotypical African American male. This can put a lot of stress on the player and cause a lot of self-esteem problems. This can lead many men and women to push themselves harder to please the coaches just to keep their positions from the next player looking for their positions. Coaches want coach able players, that means they want players they can mold to be the player they want them to be. As we seen in Hoop Dreams that was very damaging to Walter. He pushed himself too hard and damaged his knees more than he would have just playing the sport he knows and loves.
