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The only time they stopped running was to remember
By the mid-1980s Paul Westhead had worn out his welcome in the NBA. The best offer he could find came from an obscure small college with little history of basketball. In the same city where he had won an NBA championship with Magic and Kareem, Westhead was determined to perfect his non-stop run-and-gun offensive system at Loyola Marymount. His shoot-first offense appeared doomed to fail until Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, two talented players from Westhead’s hometown of Philadelphia, arrived gift-wrapped at his doorstep. With Gathers and Kimble leading a record scoring charge, Westhead’s system suddenly dazzled the world of college basketball and turned conventional thinking on its head. But then, early in the 1989-90 season, Gathers collapsed during a game and was diagnosed with an abnormal heartbeat. Determined to play, Gathers returned three games later, but less than three months later, he tragically died on the court.
Avis de la communauté (1)
This is an interesting if overly episodic and too brief documentary about both an interest coach who bucked trends and a terrible tragedy. The problem for me, is that the terrible tragedy could have been the entire 50 minute film, it could have been more than that. I think this is a missed opportunity and I almost feel like there are two different stories here and the filmmakers picked the slightly less interesting one. Honestly, there’s enough material here for two separate movies, at minimum, and most of the various narrative strands that could have been explored are not. On the other hand, it’s very interesting – Westhead’s style has been successful and I’d love to see it in action in person – and the parts around the death of Gathers are moving.