Sports films have a special place among audiences.
Stories that really amped us up and taught us the value of teamwork, leadership and honor.
Countless trials, admirable perseverance and words of wisdom are just a few of the reasons
this genre is in a league all its own. But every
great athlete had someone to motivate them behind the scenes. The coaches.
Today, we want to look at some of these coaches... Who did their best
for their athletes and who had an ulterior motive?
But before we begin, if you’re a fan of Sports Movies I want to quickly plug our new
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and we have a lot more planned. So do us a huge solid and subscribe if you’re a fan of sports
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Anyway, I’m Thomas with WickedBinge and this is Movie Coaches: Good to Evil.
For this list, we’ll be covering some of the more notable coaches we felt earned a
spot in the sports filmography. Some will be classics and some will be comedies.
As usual, we'll be starting with the most pure and noble
character and working our way down. These characters are The Good.
Herman Boone, played by the renowned Denzel Washington, gets our Gold Medal for Most Good
Movie Coach. The film Remember the Titans is based on the true story of this man and
how he came to coach in Virginia. We had to rank him first on our list not only because
this is a biographical account, but because the events in this film are hard hitting.
Boone not only had to worry about turning this team into respectable athletes and men,
but he had to do it while being threatened from all sides simply for the color of his skin. He was
a role model for the team because he showed them perseverance and determination both on and off the
field. Making it clear that quitting is never an option and everything worth having is worth
trudging through mud and heartache for. Within his first moments interacting with the team,
Boone makes it crystal clear that he won’t tolerate anyone giving less than one hundred
percent. And he maintains his optimism and great leadership regardless of everything thrown at him.
Micheal “Mickey” Goldmill gets the Silver Medal. The Rocky movies are well known,
having been parodied a number of times since their release and been an inspiration for many
films to follow. Mickey was an exceptionally well written character. He led Rocky through
some of his toughest fights and pushed the fighter to be his best. Even after his passing,
Rocky saw the man as an inspiration and we’re given a few flashbacks that feature the old coach.
He gets the highest spot on our list because Mickey wasn’t just a trainer for Rocky. He saw
the fighter as his son, telling Rocky he wanted to make sure the man could thrive both in the ring
and out. He expressed he felt he was still alive because he wanted to still be there for Rocky.
Miyagi from the original Karate Kid follows with the Bronze Medal
of Good. His methods were a little unusual, but he was a great teacher to Daniel and became very
attached to him. He stepped in to save the young man from being beaten and, though reluctant,
he did accept taking on Daniel as a student so he could defend himself. He intervened again in the
second film when Kreese tried attacking Daniel, leaving the rival sensei to lose his students.
He’s known for his use of everyday tasks being translated for defense and fighting.
There’s been a great deal of wise teachers and coaches that are modeled after him, and his
methods were expanded on in the newer version of the film that featured the legendary Jackie Chan.
We can’t forget about Coach Carter. Can you believe this coach played by Samuel Jackson
doesn’t drop a single F bomb throughout the movie? That shows discipline right out the
gate. But more importantly, Coach Carter helps his team of highschoolers succeed not only on the
basketball court, but also in the classroom. He does everything he can to ensure that his
players get a real chance in life to break out of the cycle of poverty they grew up in.
All through demanding hard work, respect and lots and lots of push-ups and suicides.
Frankie Dunn from Million Dollar Baby is next. When he's approached by Maggie to train her to
box, he initially refuses, saying he has no interest in training a woman.
But he ultimately relents when he witnesses first hand her determination in the ring.
What begins as a harsh relationship between coach and athlete eventually morphs into a
connection between two talented fighters. Dunn goes from being a man cut off from life
to a man that saw Maggie as the daughter he was unable to connect with before.
In what is a heart wrenching performance by Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank,
we see the depth to which a coach can care for his student, and Dunn is faced with the difficult
choice to help Maggie end her life after she becomes bedridden and her health declines.
Burt Vickerman from Stick It earns our next spot. It may surprise a few of our viewers
that we placed him this high on our list, but we see him as a good man with the best of intentions
for his students. He's known among the sport for his never say quit attitude and refused to treat
his students as fragile. He knew the amount of strain and potential risks that came with the
sport and never once tried to gloss over the fact that any unnecessary moves could result
in permanent damage. He gained the respect of the young women he trained and adapted to them
as much as they did to him. He had a tougher time with the main protagonist Hailey due
to her constant need to rebel, but was able to help her channel it in more constructive ways,
even showing subtle support for her and the other girls refusing to hide their bra straps when a
fellow teammate was docked points for it. He's an abrasive man at times, but only because he
genuinely feels that it's the best way to convey his concerns for his students and their safety.
The next coach taught us that it’s all in the hips… Chubbs Peterson is next. He was the man who
taught Happy how to really play golf, helping the man earn enough money to save his grandmother's
home. Chubbs is a nice enough man with a career full of experience under his belt, but we rank him
a little lower due to the fact that while he was generous to help Happy, seeing his potential, he
had no issue disregarding his actual clients. In fact when he first meets Happy, Chubbs is ignoring
a woman that paid him for his instruction. However, we don't feel he earned a lower placement
since he was the only one determined to find a way to get through to Happy and make him not only
successful as an athlete but as a person, helping the golfer channel his rage into something useful.
Though it was sad to see Chubbs meet his end, he made a lasting impact on his last student.
With that said, we've arrived at the neutral territory. These characters fall in The Grey Area.
Irv Blitzer from Cool Runnings gets the first Grey Area spot. He made it clear in the beginning
he didn’t believe that a Jamacian bobsled team was possible, and so was not a very supportive
man during the beginning of their training. He did, however, know the sport well and was able
to show the newly formed team the ins and outs of bobsledding. He had been disgraced for cheating,
but was once a decorated athlete with two gold medals and several world records under his belt.
He doesn’t sugarcoat how dangerous the sport can be
and how seriously they had to take it or else they could risk major injury or death.
The Longest Yard’s Paul Crewe is next. Any role played by Adam Sandler is almost guaranteed to be
stressful at some point, and this film certainly delivered when we see Crewe disgrace himself
by winding up in jail after already being written off as a respected football player.
When he's given the task to coach the prison football team, he is not excited for it.
In the beginning he complains about the players, the conditions of the yard and how his players are
treated by the guards and other inmates. But in this environment, he starts to see them as more
brothers than pawns. He makes them hopeful about taking out the men determined to keep them down
and leads them from being a bunch of strangers looking to break up the monotony of prison to
a strange family that comes to look out for one another. They join together in the face
of tragedy and refuse to back down. Crewe was not the best man arriving in this cut off world,
but he left it stronger than ever and helped every member of his team do the same.
Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own we’re placing next. Telling a fictionalized version
of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), Jimmy is portrayed as impatient
and borderline negligent most of his time on screen. It was one of Tom Hanks’ more
unapproachable roles, with him even making one of his players burst into tears and then respond with
“there’s no crying in baseball.” Given the time period of the film, it isn’t surprising that this
was new territory for everyone involved. Dugan was a man trying to navigate teaching women how
to be seen as respected athletes, but he loses a lot of points for his inability to be a stable
figure for the team. Upon first meeting them, Dugan stumbles in the locker room, intoxicated
and going to urinate in the open without so much as a hello and then ripping up a baseball card
handed to him to sign. He only really expresses interest in coaching properly when he disagrees
with one of Dottie’s sign-offs, competing on how to run the team. He does get the hang of it,
trying to encourage the women more and trying to reprimand in a way that isn’t demoralizing.
Coach Klien earns our next spot. Another Adam Sandler movie, but this time it was Henry Winkler
holding the playbook. Though for much of the film, that playbook was dysfunctional and useless.
While he is a great character, always entertaining when on screen, he gets a lower spot since he
isn't very reliable as a team leader. Klien is insecure, having been used and left behind by
his former friend and coworker. When he comes across Bobby's ability to channel his rage,
Klien focuses all of his efforts on making Bobby the center of every play. He was so determined,
he lied to get Bobby on the team and said nothing when the lie was exposed. He encouraged Bobby to
disregard his mother's concerns (though we admit she was a horrible smother mother) and he fell
back into a state of depression when Bobby was not on the team, hiding in a locker to avoid the
rest of the game. He does get his confidence back when Bobby returns, the young player helping him
through his struggle of facing the other coach. It was nice he had a somewhat happy ending and
that he did want Bobby and the other players to be successful, but he struggled a lot along the way.
The coach from Blades of Glory, simply called Coach, is next on our list. Now this man seemed
like a nice enough guy. So why are we placing him lower? Because the coach was driven to restore
his reputation more than he was to coach Jimmy and Chazz. He initially refuses to help Jimmy
get back into skating, the young athlete pointing out he was still technically allowed in the pairs
division. He only relents and takes Chazz and Jimmy in when he sees the potential for himself.
He presents the idea of them skating together when the men are arrested and don't have many other
options for moving on. When the training does begin, he's harsh to an almost abusive degree,
working Chazz to the bone to make him lose weight, putting a young Jimmy through wind tunnels and
intense nutrition and workout regulations and forcing the two to share accommodations that
children would be forced into. He doesn't take much interest in their personal lives,
only interested in their careers to further his own. A lot goes on off his radar he is
totally unaware of. And on top of that, he demands they learn a skating technique that has already
resulted in one death, making them practice on a hunch that Chazz and Jimmy would be able
to pull it off with their combined strength. We don't see much of him outside of the ring,
so we can really only base our opinion of him through his work. He doesn't show much
connection with Chazz or Jimmy, which says a lot considering he had trained Jimmy as a young child.
Finally, we've reached the dark side. These characters are The Bad and The Evil.
We’ll keep it short and sweet… The Bronze Medal Evil Coach goes to… Red Beaulieu,
the rival in The Waterboy. We already mentioned Coach Klien, but Red was the one to ultimately
put this chain of events into action. He had spent years stepping on people to get what he wanted:
another victory under his belt and another boost in his reputation. He
saw no issue with stealing Klien's plays and calling them his own,
letting his players abuse others and bask in their feeling of superiority
or abusing Bobby and eventually firing him as he claimed the young man was an idiot and a hazard.
He thankfully fell from grace when Klien and the Mud Dogs defeated his once unbeatable team.
This may sound harsh, but we feel Patches O'Houlihan is next on our list. Now, we know
Dodgeball isn’t the most inspiring sports film out there, but this coach was just too insane to
not mention. He was harsh, and that’s putting it nicely. Throwing wrenches and other such things
as his players is not a good way to motivate them. All we can really say positivity is that
his methods did help them improve, but was it really worth all the bodily harm?
John Kreese we have to give the Gold Medal for evil coaches in film. Leader of the Cobra Kai
dojo, he is most known for his insistence on showing no mercy towards his opponents and
taught his students the same. In the first film, he insisted on his student to sweep Daniel’s leg,
making an illegal attack at his knee. After Daniel overcomes the injury and wins the tournament,
Kreese is enraged at his loss of status, openly attacking the young man before Miyagi intervenes.
The conflict leaves Kreese without his students or life’s work,
and leads him to become obsessed with getting revenge. In the new Cobra Kai series,
it is shown he tries to learn from his past mistakes and redeem himself,
but we felt his actions in the original saga were enough to place him low on our list.
But what do you think? And if you liked our breakdown of Sports Movie Coaches…
Make sure to go check out our Sports Movies Villains: Evil to Most Evil
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