REEL OR REALIs it reality or just hollywood.

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Movies like Coach Carter, Hoosiers, and Double Teamed have on thing in common; they all are based on true basketball sto-ries. Making a movie based on a true story can be hard to make be-cause the information in the movie may not always be true. In the movie Hoosier Coach Norman Dale coaches this under-dog team that ends up winning the state championship of 1954. To start off the major dif-ferences of the movie, Hollywood changed the coach’s name from Marvin Wood to Norman Dale. Hoosier is based on a small town high school called the Milan High School Indians not the Hickory High Huskers as portrayed in the movie. Like most of Hollywood does

a romance had developed between Coach Dale and Myra Fleener, a teacher. Where in real life Coach Wood was married with two chil-dren. Inthemovieduringthefinaltimeout, with the score tied star player Jimmy Chitwood is told by Coach Dale to be a decoy while the team runs its “picket fence” play, where a fellow teammate will take the last shot. The teammate who is uncer-tain of himself looks at Jimmy as he tells the coach that he’ll make it. In reality Coach Wood told Bobby Plump, who is Jimmy in the movie, totakethefinalshotthewholetime. “I was a very shy kid,” Bobby Plump told the Washington Post in 1995. “I never would have said, I’ll make it.”

Above on the left: Gene Hackman plays Coach Nor-man Dale in the movie Hooiser. On the right: Marvin Wood was the real coach of the Indian Hoosiers.

“I was a very shy kid,” Bobby Plump told the Washington Post in 1995. “I never would have said, I’ll make it.”

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Above on the left: Maris Valainis plays star bas-ketball player Jimmy Chitwood. On the right: Bobby Plump was who Jimmy was based off of.

Below on the left: Poppi Monroe and Annie McEl-win play sisters Heather and Heidi Burge in Dou-ble Teamed. On the right: Real sisters posing with their awards and basket-ball.

Basketball is always thought as a male cen-tered sport but it’s also for girls too. A Dis-ney original movie called Double Teamed is based on the success of twin girls Heather and Heidi Burge. In the movie Double Teamed it’s about twin sisters who move to a different school to get themselves better opportunities. A coach noticed Heather’s height and asked her to be on the basketball team. She thought it’d be a good idea to be in training for volleyball season. Heidi wanted to sepa-rate herself from her sister so she joined the-

atre. She was offered a position on the team too and later accepted. Heather and Heidi Burges success in highschool wasn’t as noticed as their college careers were. InthefinalsceneofDoubleTeamedthe girls are protrayed as older and in the WNBA going up against eachother. This is false, the girls never got to play against eachother.

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Above: The maroon team tries to go for the basket while the white team defends their goal.

When making a movie you never know what’s reel or real. ‘Based on a true story’ can actually just be a summary of what happened with extra drama or the actual story. Next time you see a sports movie that is based on a true story, try to see what’s real or what’s reel.

Below: Number 24 dribbles the ball slowly down the court. To the right: Teams gather as they wait for the player to shoot the foul shots.

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