Episode 19: Hoosiers movie discussion: Part 1.

🎙 Welcome to GenX Classic Sports—the podcast that takes you back to the golden age of sports and nostalgia! If you grew up in the ‘70s, ‘80s, or ‘90s, this is your home for reliving the greatest moments in sports history.

In this episode, we’re talking about a GenX classic sports movie: Hoosiers — the legendary 1986 basketball movie that became an instant classic. Whether you remember watching it on VHS or caught it during a Saturday afternoon TV marathon, Hoosiers is the ultimate underdog sports film. Join us as we revisit the unforgettable story of Hickory High, the inspirational coaching of Norman Dale, and why Hoosiers remains one of the best sports movies of all time.

Hit that like, subscribe, and notification bell so you never miss an episode of GenX Classic Sports—where the past comes alive!

Production Credits:

Intro and outro music: Mason Enis

Narrator: Haylee Wolf

Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2025. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

Transcript

welcome sports fans to Gen X classic

Sports where we bring the Nostalgia of

our Sports filled you into the present

day grab your favorite retro jersey crab

open a cold one and let's stroll down

memory lane together we're here to

discuss iconic Sports moments teams and

athletes from our generation this is Gen

X classic sports sports talk for Gen

xers by gen

xers okay everybody today is going to be

a little bit different for us um I'm

going to fly solo on this this one and

today's topic is the 1986 movie

hooers um we've mentioned before on here

uh that we were going to do hoers back

before the holidays when we were talking

about uh Sports movies when we did our

episode on Friday Night Lights we

decided we were going to do hooers when

it came basketball season so here we are

basketball season has just wound down

here in the state of Arkansas for the

high schools and we're in the middle of

March

Madness for the

colleges so let's get started talking

about whoers for those of you who don't

know hoers is one of the more well

thought of sports movies in American

culture honestly and I'll talk about

some of the accolades later but hooers

was released in November 14th 1986 so if

you're really thinking back to those

times probably right before basketball

season really got cranked up in most of

the high schools in America so the

setting for hooers and is the small town

it's fictional town but small town

fictionally of Hickory Indiana and it's

set in

1951 and what you need to understand

about this before we ever even launch

into the movie is that it's based very

Loosely it's not a

direct um faithful adaptation of it at

all but it's based on the 1954 Milan

High School team out of Indian uh

Indiana and that team also was a small

high school that uh it ended up winning

the state championship now what's

important about this is not just that

some team won a state

championship what's interesting about

Indiana high school basketball is that

until I think the '90s

the in N until 1997

um Indiana high school basketball

tournaments for the State uh high

schools were what we call an open

classification meaning the biggest

schools in the state play the smallest

schools in the state and everything in

between to Crown one state champion so

most States you know you're divided by

classification to make it more even uh

by enrollment so this was based on the

1954 Milan High School state champions

in Indiana

uh that school's I just want to give you

a little bit of background about the

actual school that this is Loosely based

on that high school's enrollment was a

total of 161 students so you know even

if you're counting

freshman um as they said in the movie

there's you know 40 or 50 boys in the

whole school probably so that season

Milan finished 19-2 in the regular

season and they finished 28-2 overall

what's interesting about the 28 and2

versus the 19 and2 in the regular season

to me is that that means their

postseason was nine games additional to

the regular season so having to go nine

and zero in the postseason that's the

only way you were going to win a State

title so I find that fascinating because

that that's a that's a that's a half a

season of

games um so the way they divide it up in

the movie and back then was at first you

had sectional qualifiers meaning uh one

round of one or two rounds of tournament

there you had regionals and then you had

the actual State and in Indi Indiana

back then they they played their finals

or actually their state tournament

itself in a at Butler University

fieldhouse in

Indianapolis and that's exactly where

the the movie uh state tournament is

said so I I thought that was cool um

when Milan High School won it in 19 19

54 they won it by whopping score of

32-30 over a very heavily favored Muny

Indiana team so it was an upset when

they won that back then and what I

thought was cool is um the day after

Milan won the high school state

championship 40,000 people showed up in

that town to celebrate and that was a

town of 1150 people about 40,000 people

showed up to celebrate so that was a big

deal obviously for a town that's small

to win the State title as I said earlier

the idea of an open classification in

Indiana uh it ended in 1997 because uh

like most American states consolidation

kind of um uh took away a lot of the

small schools anyway so they broke it up

by classifications after 97 some of you

that are in ba fans May recognize the

name Scott Sky Scott Skyles was an

Indiana high school basketball phenom

and he led his team which is another

which was Plymouth and they were another

very small team very small school rather

and they won it all in 1982 and they

were really the last Scott Sky's team

was the last quote unquote small school

and Indi in Indiana to win the uh

basketball state championship

um so anyway that's the background about

that one other little footnote in

history is that in the semifinals that

Milan team that actually won it and I

don't know if it's Milan or Milan I hate

to say that but I'm not really sure but

I'm calling it Milan uh Milan defeated a

uh Oscar Robertson the one and only

Oscar Robertson was a sophomore on the

Christmas addicts high school team uh

that um actually was

defeated um

by Milan along the way to their State

title so I thought that was interesting

obviously Oscar Robertson later becoming

one of the best to ever do it so that's

sort of the background the story sort of

behind it and like I said it's very

Loosely based on that but the uh the

people who made the movie Wanted Wanted

it made very clear that it wasn't based

on any particular team it was just

inspired by them basically so uh don't

get too caught up in the historical part

of it because it's not based really on

that team very closely um but uh that's

the team that most people sort of narrow

it down to as I told you before hooers

came out in 1986 November of

1986 and it was a very small movie you

know movies nowadays here in the 2020s

it takes $20 million to make a lot of

these movies that you see now hoer had a

budget of somewhere around $6

million which is shockingly low right so

with stars the one and only Jean Hackman

who we just lost recent recently and it

stars Barbara Hershey and it stars

Dennis Hopper and then there was some

really interesting supporting people

we'll talk about later along the way as

well but those were your three biggest

names that anyone had ever heard of Jean

Heckman Barbara hershy and Dennis H

Hopper and Jean Hackman plays coach

Norman Dale okay and you know as as far

as plot goes it's a typical sports movie

and so forth but we'll kind of move

through some of the things that happen

in the movie and um we'll try not to go

shot for shot because there's no point

in doing that but there are definitely

some cool and key moments in the movie

along the way and if you've heard our

podcast before about Friday Night Lights

there are some

similarities between those movies so if

I don't think to point them out along

the way you probably in your own mind

will figure out where those

are so here here's kind of the story you

know in 1951 this this is this is

farther back in time even than the real

Milan basketball team but in 1951 coach

Norman Dale played by Jean Hackman it

literally shows this guy driving into

town and he's driving along and there's

there's guys shooting Hoops on the side

of Barnes and there's fields of

different kinds of grains growing or

that have been growing and then there's

just one Farm after another until he

rolls into this small little town that

represents Hickory Indiana and and he

goes into what appears to be a one

building school you know and a lot of us

have seen those around where there's one

building that houses several grades and

so forth and and you know one of the key

moments of the movie that sets up the

relationship he has with a couple of

different peoples when he arrives the

first person he meets of course is

Barbara Hershey whose character is named

Myra fleiner and he meets Barbara

Hershey when he arrives and she's a

fellow teacher at this high school that

he's been hired at and they don't really

hit it off that's what's funny about it

they uh he's a little bit um I don't

know if you'd say rude he's a little um

abrupt with people perhaps and she

doesn't seem to appreciate it a whole

lot and so they don't hit it off really

well but then he makes his way up to the

principal's office and the principal is

played by a guy named sheb Woolly who

has an actual Connection in a way to my

hometown that I'll try to remember to

bring up later she woly was famous in

his own right for other things and we'll

talk about those at the end but clearly

they're old friends and

he meets up with his old friend the

principal Cletus Summers and you can

tell immediately that they know each

other and Cletus even ask him where he's

been because he was hard to track down

and Jean Hackman coach Norman Dell

actually tells him well you know I've

been in the military and I think at

different times throughout the movie

he's wearing what I would call a Navy PE

code so it um it's pretty clear that

he's spent some time um outside of

coaching and in the military and so

forth so you kind of immediately get the

feeling that uh this isn't

exactly um you know a normal thing for

this guy he's perhaps been out of the

game for a while and a couple of

interesting things happen right off the

bat when a coach is hired is you know

there's the there's always the barber

shop scene or some version of it in a

sports movie like this and sure

enough coach Dale is sort of welcomed by

the men of the town at the local barber

shop and you can tell by the way the men

are dressed they represent all facets of

society you've got the town policeman

you've got the town preacher you've got

Farmers you've got guys that are dressed

like perhaps they business owners or

Professionals of some kind and you know

they kind of Grill him they want to know

what kind of Coach he is and so they let

him know quickly that they have a

certain way of doing things in Hickory

Indiana for basketball and they expect

him to follow along now I mentioned

earlier Friday Night Lights if you're

familiar with that movie then you know

as well that in Friday Night Lights a

very similar scene happens in which

Billy Bob Thornton's coach gains is

sitting in his office and is visited by

three or four guys from town boosters

and they let him know really quickly

what kind of Defense they expect to run

and so forth well the same thing happens

in this and and hooers these guys they

Grill the coach pretty hard and what's

what's great about it is coach

Dale uh he doesn't really say a whole

lot he just kind of listens and takes it

all in and so you know as would probably

happen in real life in a lot of places

they've let him know what they expect he

hasn't really in return let them know a

whole lot about his plans and so it's

just kind of left at that for the moment

but another key part of that um early in

the movie that that relationship between

this mysterious coach Dell and the town

is that the Barbara Hershey character U

Myra fleiner she's a teacher at the

school also and she makes it very clear

to him that the town's greatest

basketball player this kid named Jimmy

Chitwood she's sort of her his surrogate

family and she tells coach Dell that

Jimmy's the best we have but he was so

close with our previous coach who died

by the way that's why coach Dell is

there in the first place that this coach

was practically a father to him and

Jimmy is so devastated by the the coach

dying that he's not playing this season

he's just not going to do it and so she

agrees with that and she tells coach

Dale you know I have bigger plans for

him and they involve academics not

Athletics and his grades and his test

scores will get him out of this town and

and in any other movie I really believe

that that one little plot point there

would have been handled

differently and what I love about hooers

and that whole subplot involving Jimmy

chipwood and his relationship with

Barbara Hershey's character and his

relationship with Coach Dale is that

coach Dale decides just pretty much not

to have a relationship with him at all

there's a moment early in the movie when

he sort coach Dale does approach him

while he's shooting hoop he tells Jimmy

you know you I you know I've watched you

hoop and I understand you don't want to

play and all that and and the the

punchline basically of that very short

scene is I don't care whether you ever

play for me or not and he leaves it at

that Coach Dale leaves it at that and

walks off and what I want to just

reiterate is that I don't think that

would have been handled that well in

very many movies I think most movies

would have turned that into some weird

plot where he's just fawning all over

the guy and trying his best you know and

it might even be a point where the two

uh where Barbara Hershey's character and

the coach could perhaps have some mutual

romantic thing happen because of their

love for the kid or whatever they don't

do that um coach Dale makes it clear if

you don't want to play that's fine and

so I appreciate that about the film as a

matter of fact so that establishes a

couple of things early on we've got a

star player not playing

we've got a town full of people who want

things done a certain way and we've got

a coach who's not going to spend or not

going to waste any time recruiting this

kid and so another thing that happens

early on which I feel like is a little

bit of a sports formula perhaps but I I

always enjoyed the scene is is there's

one man uh when they're grilling the

coach in the barber shop and by the way

coach tells them yeah I used to coach

college ball so I don't know if that was

meant to impress them or not but I think

it it least for a moment made them

realize that he wasn't just a complete

amateur or whatever but there's one man

who's been communicating with Coach

about all this the most and he's a

character named George and most of you

would recognize his face from some other

movies but this guy named George I I

can't remember if he's a parent or not

actually but he he has taken it upon

himself to put this the boys on the

basketball team through their Paces in

the um absence of Jean Hackman's

character being there coach Dale's not

in town yet so good old George is

running the very first practice that

coach Dale walks in on and one of the

one of the things that I love about it

is that I think a lesser movie would

somehow approach that relationship as

the the new coach having to learn the

old coach and and they have a

relationship and you know that sort of

uh hearkens back to Remember the Titans

and so forth they don't do that here

here either uh this character George

who's running the practices uh he he

kind of oversteps his bounds and uh and

Coach Dale tells him

immediately I have the whistle I'm the

head coach I don't need you anymore

basically Beat it I'm okay I don't need

you and so George of course is unhappy

with that he's taking a back by that and

he takes a back seat to that and the

only reason I'm spending as much time as

I am on these individual scenes is

because is because early on they really

set up the story and and we can gloss

over things later but Dove tailing into

that scene of him running George off is

how the actual first practice goes and

this this also sets up a lot of things

about the story and that is first of all

the play there's only seven

players and immediately two of them get

smart or one of them gets smart with

Coach Dell he kicks him off the team

right then and there

and that kid takes another kid with him

so now we have five players one of which

is the equipment manager and uh coach

coach Dale seems completely unfazed by

this hey if it's five players this town

is going to give me it's it's five

players and

so he proceeds with practice with two

two guys kicked off the team with five

guys and

so one of the things you get a very

clear notion of early on watch watching

these practice montages and such is that

he's a fundamentals guy and he he

stresses to these guys that they're

going to play defense they're going to

pass the ball four times and then

they're going to shoot it and um you

know knowing how basketball is evolved

over the years there were probably a lot

of coaches who believed that back then

but he makes it very clear that his team

will function as a team they don't need

any individual heroics and that they

will be fundamentally sound and he even

mentions that they're going to run more

than anybody else and be in better shape

than anybody else which is something

else that I think is important because

you know if you're an

underdog um you can at least be in

better condition than the other team

that it takes no Talent you know to be

in shape and to put forth effort so I

think that's not so much openly spoken

but um he does mention that we'll we'll

be fresh when the other teams are tired

and so I I personally just always like

the way they set that up that maybe

these guys were a little bit looser with

the ball and they depended on Jimmy too

much in the past and these other four

guys on the court with him tended to

just stand around and watch and it's

pretty clear that coach is a different

kind of coach than to allow something

like that to

happen so the next day not only does uh

George come back to practice but George

brings half the men of the town with him

to watch what Co watch what coach Dale

is

doing and this leads to another couple

of great scenes that set up the story

because coach Dell doesn't care about

hearing what they believe by this point

he's heard them he's heard from them at

the barber shop and he's heard George

try to tell him how to do things and

he's had enough of it

so in the midst of all these guys

hanging around and arguing with him he

notices that one of the players he had

kicked off the team the day before is

back with his father this large guy in

overalls who's clearly a farmer and he

tells the coach that my son you know

basically didn't mean to be that way

with you and he'd like to have a word

with you and the kid apologize and it

seems

sincere and Coach uh Dale definitely uh

welcomes him back onto the team and so

now we're back up to six players right

so the same farmer who brings his kid in

to apologize also tells the other guys

that are gathered around the other

fathers and the cop and all them hey hey

you know beat it and let the coach do

his job basically and so you know he

runs them

off and so that's how we start things

with six players and the town's already

mad at the coach Dell character and so

forth so it's not a it's not an actually

smooth start to the season if you know

Sports movies part of the deal is you're

supposed to not be very successful early

on most likely and sure enough they're

getting beat early in the season and

having problems scoring and having

problem s playing defense and everything

else and the first kind of pivot in the

story when you get a glimpse that

perhaps the players are catching on and

and playing for their coach and for each

other is

when one guy files out leaves them with

five and another player uh gets pulled

by the coach for shooting too much and

not passing the ball enough so when

coach pulls that player he puts him on

the

bench and the kid's name is raid and

coach pulls raay rade and Coach pulls

raid out of the game and then another

kid files out so raid assumes he's going

back in the game because they only have

five players and and Coach uh Dale makes

him stay on the bench and finishes the

game with only four players on the court

and of course the crowd's going crazy

they lose everybody's mad at coach Dale

again and the team and the kid raid just

can't believe then instead of putting

the fifth kid back in the game he would

actually finish the game with only four

guys on the court but you know that's

the way coach Dale rolls so that's what

they do that's not the turning point

though one of the first turning points

is in the very next game that they show

the same kid raid he jumps in the middle

of a a little pushing contest that the

other team is having and one of the kids

on the other team pushes coach Dale and

this raid kid punches him right in the

face and gets

ejected um in fact he and Coach Dale get

ejected if I remember correctly

now what you need to know about that is

the principal okay Cletus the guy who

hired him in the first place Cletus is

the serving as the assistant coach and

during this brawl that

ensues uh Cletus uh he suffers a heart

attack and he can't go anymore he he's

put on in bed

rest and that leads to another

subplot of the movie and my my favorite

part of it actually and that subplot

involves the character named shooter and

shooter is played by the late Dennis

Hopper and this was an

Academy Award nominated performance for

Dennis Hopper and he shooter and to just

to put it mildly he's the town

drunk and not only that but he's also

the father of one of the players named

Everett and so Everett and his father

are a strange ever's embarrassed by him

shooter has shown up to a couple of d uh

games really drunk drunk but somehow

coach Dale has talked to him enough in a

couple little scenes to know that the

guy understands basketball drunk or not

and you get you get some information out

of a couple of scenes that shooter was a

star himself on a team in the

30s and Coach

Dale actually listens to what he says a

couple of times and so when Cletus the

principal and assistant coach has the

heart attack

uh

unbelievably Norman coach Norman Dale

asks shooter to be his assistant coach

of course the town since they don't

understand the town's people since they

don't understand anything else about

what's going on um they certainly don't

understand why he'd make the town drunk

the assistant coach but coach uh coach

Dell has a plan he tells shooter that

you can be my assistant coach but I have

to have you show up Stone sober for

every game you have to stay sober and in

one of the light-hearted moments you

know shooter tells him fine but you

can't get kicked out of any games and of

course coach Dale ruins that for him a

couple of different times

but to me this is the key subplot of the

movie because this movie is really about

redemption in a lot of ways and Coach

Dell has his own Redemption story but so

does shooter and Coach Dale is sort of

the Catalyst for allowing shooter to

have a second chance at life beyond

being an alcoholic and Beyond

embarrassing his son and Beyond being

sort of the old washed up guy around

town that truly had some greatness in

him but you know it's sort of long ago

gone away and so I really enjoy this

subplot of the movie a lot um uh Dennis

Hopper is phenomenal as shooter uh that

there's a scene where he first shows up

as an assistant coach and he's got a

suit on and he's clean shaving and his

hair is sliick down and and you know he

sits on the bench with him his son's

upset about it but you know over the

course of a two or three games you

realize that um coach Dale's heart's in

the right place about this he's really

trying to help shooter and and Everett

and the team he's trying to help

everybody out and so I really enjoy that

um even though the team is struggling uh

there comes a point where coach gets

thrown out of a game and shooter

actually steps up drop calls up a play

that allows him to hit a a buzzer beater

winning winning shot and so his son

backs off and the town backs off it's

like okay shooters shooters Being Sober

Shooters you know he's good at what he

does and we're going to let this ride

now even though they're very unhappy

with Coach about some other

things even though Shooters doing his

thing to try to help them out the town's

people are not happy whatso ever with

Coach Dale there's just not enough

winning they don't see the microscopic

sort of changes for the positive in the

team and so I don't know how this

happens but it's a small town anything's

possible Midway through the season they

just decide they're going to gather at a

church as a town I don't know where the

I don't know if the I don't think they

made it clear whether the school board

was sponsoring this move or not but the

entire town shows up male female you

name they're all there and they're going

to vote on whether to throw coach Dale

out as the head coach and this is the

pivotal scene in the entire movie at

this point okay everybody I think we're

going to stop right there for this

episode and I'm trying to keep these

things 30 minutes or under as best I can

so we're going to stop with the hooers

episode right here and we'll pick back

up uh in a couple of weeks with the

conclusion and as always thank you for

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