Last Chance U: Basketball

We’ll begin this week with apologies to an unknown neighbour of mine.  The flat on the other side of the wall to which my big telly is mounted has occupants unknown to me.  They have a different entrance and we’re therefore mostly happy in our separate lives.  Sure, one of them has a very loud voice and spends most evenings playing video games while shrieking into a headset, but I just turn up my own boxset volume to drown at a grown man shouting at people to “Kill him, kill him, KILL HIM!”  But oh how the tables were turned this week as I made my way through the final episodes of Last Chance U: Basketball.  These ball games were recorded over a year ago; they’re being broadcast as part of a documentary.  Yet, the excitement of the matches, the odds at stake, the significance to the players and the closeness of some of the scores, all these things had me jumping up and down, yelling at the screen and even clapping each time points hit the scoreboard.

Such is the power of Last Chance U as a franchise.  I’ve already posted about its progenitor format, following junior college teams playing American football for their last chance (clue’s in the name) at college scholarships.  The fifth season’s appearance was a welcome lockdown drop, standing out for having a coach that actually seemed completely decent, yet sadly tailing off as the pandemic came along to ruin young lives.  Well, this is more of the same outstanding drama, but make it basketball.  I’ve covered my dalliance in this sport already, having been very pleasantly surprised by the triumphant The Last Dance a few months back.  I’m basically an NBA expert now.  And so here we are, at a college in East Los Angeles (ELAC) following their basketball team’s dreams to improve their game, come together as a unit, win state and bag scholarships to unlock futures otherwise denied to them as young African-American men.

If you’re a sporting imbecile like me, you’ll find basketball is a much easier follow than the defence-offence-special teams confusion of American football.  For those still needing help, there’s a basket at each end and you’ve got to put your ball in there to score.  It helps if you’re six foot heading on seven, as these baskets aren’t built with anyone of less-than-average stature in mind.  You also can’t just carry the ball, but you can bounce it as much as you like.  There are also sometimes fouls, but I don’t know why these happen.

At the heart of any Last Chance U is the head coach.  Step forward John Mosley, a man you’ll come away desperate to be friends with.  He gets it.  He knows the odds are stacked against his kids, so he pours everything into getting them what they need.  He’s in no way camera shy, acting out some dramatic tirades when the team aren’t following his instructions or trying hard enough.  And this man can preach, taking his fervent Christian beliefs out at the slightest provocation to deliver heartfelt sermons in the locker room that are guaranteed to have uptight Brits cringing.  His team aren’t always appreciative of how much he pushes them, yet some of the best arcs within this first season document how they come to realise his significance in their paths to progress.  And there’s affection in the tension too.  When not clapping and yelling, I was also laughing my head off during the team’s cohesion trip to the Californian countryside where one evening’s activity was competitive impressions of their exuberant coach.  Mosley took their spot-in impersonations in his stride.

Within the team itself, we are directed to focus on four key players.  Each will win your heart, from Joe Hampton’s palpable frustration at referee persecution to Deshaun Highler’s unrivalled grit and tenacity in getting where he needs to be in the face of personal tragedy.  Around this core, the rest of the team is just as engaging and you’ll find yourself wanting to know more about all of them. You’ll laugh along at team jokes like you’re a fellow player.  In fact, it’s a privilege to be able to have such a nose around in their lives and team dynamics, which leads me to the most apt term for Last Chance U’s style of observation: unflinching.  We look away from nothing.  From the captain spewing up his guts to various locker-punching tantrums, we’re with it all the way, even after we’d prefer not to be.  Signature to this series are long face-on shots of key characters, part-brooding, part-defiance, all haunting.  It breaks the otherwise sacrosanct rule of nobody looking directly down the lenses of the cameras that are thrust in their faces.  They see us, watching them.  This intensity elevates.  The only thing missing is the syncopated drumbeat of a typical Last Chance U opening sequence.

I’ve recommended Last Chance U: Basketball to anyone that will listen, and to even more people that won’t.  It will get you in its grip till you miss it when it’s over.  This series is perhaps one of the bittersweetest what with the 2019/20 season running into something just over a year ago that we’re still dealing with to this very day.  But, in time, you’ll remember the hope it has given you.  The next time you’re feeling sorry for yourself, ask yourself what the players of the East Los Angeles College basketball team would do.

Cheer

After finishing Last Chance U and needing something to restore my faith in the good old USA while I endure lockdown and witness presidents recommend the direct injection of bleach to cure what ails you, it was only natural that my next step on Netflix would be to enter the world of Cheer.  From the same producers of a documentary whose drama and story telling rocked my viewing experience, Cheer would offer me more of the same, I reasoned.  However, at a time we’re potentially looking to avoid drama (when there is so much happening out there in the world just now that’s all too similar to the opening scenes of a science fiction film), what was I doing launching myself into six episodes of the most compounding drama and tension?  I was this close to requiring an emergency service to cope with it.  Given that our public service heroes are kind of stretched just now (and so many are busy clapping them in some misjudged gesture that really only makes the clapper feel less guilty) I’m wondering if Netflix could part-fund their own – something for people whose real lives are now so strange, that the effects of their programming’s drama are causing enhanced trauma and, er, excessive entertainment.

While the rhythm of drama in Last Chance U reflects an episodic cycle, with a game per match delivering each climactic beat to the storyline, the world of cheerleading Cheer is built around ladders up to one singular moment.  The pressure and the tension, therefore, ramp up episode by episode.  There are no real peaks and troughs, no post-gearshift respite before accelerating again.  We build and build and build until it all comes down (like a dropped top girl) to the final cheerleading routine of precisely two minutes and 15 seconds.  This isn’t just atmospheric pressure from above.  The team we follow in Cheer, from Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas, have pressure coming at them from every direction.

Firstly, they’ve won the National Cheerleading Championship many times before.  Umpteen times, to be precise, regularly topping the podium since the start of the 21^st century.  Each year, they enter the championships under a crushing weight of expectation, from their formidable head coach, Monica Aldama, from their passive-aggressive assistant coaches, from squad alumni, their own families and, to a lesser extent, the wider Corsicana community, who are somewhat oblivious to the breath-taking achievements in stunting, basketing and, well, cheering, going on in their local area.

As a Brit, I now feel the need to pause for some exposition.  Mostly because cheerleading is a very un-British thing.  It’s about being supportive, cheerful and optimistic.  Our sporting events are characterised by rainy downpours, with hooliganism for the commoner sports, and exclusive elitism for the more expensive ones.  But cheerleading has long been an American solution to their need to prevent women getting crushed underfoot in violent sports.  Girls can’t play the game, but they can console themselves by cheering along the boys from the side lines and helping to point out to the spectators that they ought to do this too.  I know this sounds cynical, but we must expect nothing less of me than to point out the farcical.  That said, cheerleading is still a key theme in my most beloved types of TV shows, mainly because it features heavily in one of my top tropes: dramas set in high school or equivalent higher education locations (and rarely in post-apocalyptic dystopian futures ideally including zombies).  I can’t quote Bring It On as accurately as I can Mean Girls, but a recent re-watching after Sky-Plussing it off Comedy Central saw me easily able to identify what scenes had been tampered with to suit its daytime schedule outing.

So, by way of exposition, this is real-life Bring It On.  As there is no professional career league for cheerleading careers as such (or should this be ca-cheers?), Cheer further accentuates the importance of these final championships.  For many, it’s their last cheer.  It’s certainly not going to get them a scholarship, we are told.  But, like Last Chance U, the time is taken to get to know the most compelling characters from the Navarro squad.  As always, the challenges in their background are teased through in ways that relate to their current actions.  The importance of cheerleading to them, as an escape, as a survival instinct, as a route to self-confidence, is abundantly clear.  And you’ll have no time for British scoffing at pom-pom-waving and bra-loads of pep.  This cheerleading is a discipline that is part floor gymnastics, part airborne gymnastics, laser-accurate choreography and a bucketload of incredible toughness.  As rehearsals ramp up, the physio tape is used up in bulk stitching back together the various significant injuries sustained by our athletes.  Whereas our football players would skip out games to recover, the cheerleaders run straight back onto the mats, ready to be tossed aloft or to perform dozens of somersaults in one of many full-out practices where the same energy is used as on competition day.  These kids really bring it.  Oh, it has already been broughten.

From the girls, we hear about familiar insecurities, such as online trolling, fitting in with groups and escaping parents who left you out in a trailer (really).  The bruised ribs, high altitude drops onto heads and dislocated elbows are the easy part.  Comic relief comes in the form of Gabi Butler’s parents playing themselves as the deliciously unaware pushy parents momaging their protégée.  The boys’ stories, balanced out so males don’t dominate the whole narrative, address head on their truths in being part of a sport traditionally considered to be for girls.  They don’t get airborne, but many have had to emerge from communities with unsupportive views on minority sexualities, only to land in a part of Texas where it’s clear folk don’t take too well to their kind round these here parts.  Progress is a bit slower in some corners of the world, but you can be buoyed by Monica Aldama’s response to anyone who comes for her boys.

Over our journey, we bond with the team just as they do with each other.  From Whatsapp group exclusions at the start, to insider handshakes, communal hair-volumising and excessively large bow-application by the end.  Such is their self-assurance with each other that we are shown scenes of athletes addressing their teammates with unprompted (and unwanted) feedback whenever it suits them.  Way to be direct, guys!  It goes without saying, then (so I’m not sure why I’ve laboured the point so heavily – let’s call it lazy writing), that the drama climaxes at the championships in the most heart-stopping, mouth-with-vomit-filling way, but it’s the friendships and the athletes’ journeys along the way that make everything about Cheer so compelling.  For example, after a good full-out run through, the team celebrate by breaking out into re-enactments of their favourite show, Bad Girls Club, faux-beating each other with handbags and tearing out pretend weaves.  As Monica finally joins in hesitantly, you feel the urge yourself to run onto the mat and act like you’re teaching a bitch a damn lesson, such is the strength of the sense of belonging.  Go team!

Last Chance U

After 83 weeks of lockdown, I’ve been finding myself on a roller coaster of emotions.  This hasn’t been due to any real pandemic-related stressors.  I’m grateful to be able to say that my new isolation life is only mildly irritating in the following ways: I miss the gym, I need a haircut, queuing for the supermarket is time-consuming but I always have a good podcast, I have the third biggest spot of my life at a time when I constantly have to look at my own face on endless Microsoft Teams calls.  It could always be worse – I’m lucky to be able to work from home.  Let’s be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing friends and family, or being able to plan a trip in the future, but for now I’ll take the small comforts.  And one of those comforts is finding something to watch that gives you boundless entertainment and diversion.  This week, I will be talking about Last Chance U for this very reason.  But I will warn you now, the show combines enough of the world of documentary storytelling and the world of competitive sport to break your heart at the same time as making it race uncontrollably with dramatic tension.  If you can handle that emotional roller coaster, all while staying in, then this is one for you.

It's about American football

I’ve never seen a full match of American football, yet I find drama based around this sport incredibly compelling.  My earlier post on Friday Night Lights touched on this, but Last Chance U takes that drama and multiplies it by an emotional factor of 20 billion.  As a Brit, everything in the US is a bit more showbiz to me, and sport is no exception.  The structure of the game, with swaps between defence and offence, the battle to cover yards en route to your opponent’s end, the snaps that lead to touchdowns, lends itself almost too well to cinematic climaxes.  I still don’t think I know the rules, but I’ve gleaned the majority of it.  Each episode of Last Chance U ends in a crucial game for the team in question.  You care about each character individually (more on this later) so you’re truly invested in the game.  Your job, with each point, is to remember who’s in what uniform, keep an eye on the ball and, before long, you’re basically a sports fan spectating American Football (albeit matches that took place years ago and whose results you can look up online).  Live in the moment, act like it’s real and you could find yourself in the same position as me: leaping out of your sofa in excitement at a dreamlike touchdown or a heart-stopping fumble.

It's about junior college

So that’s the end of each episode covered.  We can now look at the rest, which follows the stories of staff and students at two different junior colleges.  The first two parts follow East Mississippi Community College and the second two focus on Independence Community College in Kansas.  If you thought American football rules were confusing, you won’t welcome a compounding of that with the addition of the structure of US higher education.  What we call university, they call college, or, in fact, school.  Either way, this is the U bit of Last Chance U.  Most universities offer four-year degrees, but a system of junior colleges handle two-year courses, with the option of transferring up to a big school at the end.  Junior colleges tend to have Community College in their names, which is a further complication still, a bit like British public schools being private schools (where private means fee-paying).  Another difference is that, while British uni students do degrees in singular subjects, the American version is to carry on taking an array of classes.  It also seems that your performance is constantly graded so you know exactly what you are passing and failing, as opposed to my educational experience of some exam results every couple of years.

It’s about last chances

And herein lies the jeopardy of the show.  High school American football stars get scholarships to study at universities.  They must maintain grades to be eligible to play.  On graduation, they can be drafted into the NFL for professional careers (picking teams on a national level), having played for free till this point as student athletes.  Imagine if Premier League footballers could only join a team and get paid after they got themselves a BA Hons in Business Management from Loughborough.  It might make for more articulate speech in post-match analysis interviews, but the boy wonders dreaming of making it professional would really need to knuckle down to their studies in order to continue playing at the highest levels.  Unthinkable to us, but it’s very much the structure in the US.

However, the stars of Last Chance U are the athletes who, for whatever reason, lose their spots on their teams and need another go to get scholarships to play football again.  This is where the heartbreak starts to set in: these young men have often had the most harrowing childhoods.  From mothers in prison and spells in the care system, to murdered relatives and drug-addicted fathers, we are filled in on the backgrounds that go some way to explaining the subsequent struggles to adjust to athletic and academic pressure.  For the most part, we are dealing with the poorest Americans here.  There almost seems to be an inverse proportion between the disadvantages of their origins and their potential on the football field.  Yet, their character shines through.  If, like me, you’re a white man from Surrey, you’ll need the subtitles to decipher some of the turns of phrases, with southern drawls compounded by African-American coinages.  My language learning as I worked through the episodes progressed to such an extent that I found myself unable to understand German anymore when friends in Europe FaceTimed me on my birthday.

Indeed, race looms heavily in all episodes.  Netflix helpfully flags the content’s potential to offend due to discrimination.  American football has long been one of the few ways for black men to improve their circumstances in the States’ poorest communities.  The alternative shown to us is a life of crime.  But, savagely, only a very small percentage ever go professional in the NFL, so we see a lot of time being spent convincing the boys to have back up plans when many see the only other options to football being death or prison.  Furthermore, the very real risk of debilitating injury underlines the precariousness of anyone’s chances of making their millions on the field.  Last Chance U even leaves you speculating that American football has almost become a form of gladiatorial combat that black men must pursue for the public’s viewing pleasure.

I want to flag, though, the academic support staff of the two junior colleges who must cajole and persuade on-field hotshots to maintain their grades, show up punctually to classes and consider their insurance options.  Brittany Wagner proves herself the goddess of EMCC in the first two parts, with Latonya Pinkard taking the baton, among others, in our ICC seasons, her passion for raising up these black men palpable in its emotional intensity.  The contrast with the coaching staff, the majority of whom are spectacularly overweight and potty-mouthed, is stark.  Head coaches seem prone to the pettiest egotism on the side lines, potentially taking their cue from certain world leaders, and the question of the example they set to their teams is artfully played out across the episodes.

When the teams win, your heart will soar.  When they are annihilated, you’ll be devastated.  When the young athletes (of whom there are too many star characters to name) get offers, you’re made up.  When their future plans don’t pan out, you are crushed.  Each series ends with a round up of what happens next, plus I recommend digging out the two where-are-they-now specials for completion, which brings with it the terrifying confrontation of dreams versus reality.

It’s taken me too long to start watching Last Chance U, but it’s highly recommended Netflix fare that guarantees gripping and thought-provoking entertainment at a time when we’re stuck home with our screens.  There’s modern ultra-Americana for those that love the cheerleading, padding-clad, budget-busting expense of the American approach to sport.  There’s tense drama in each match.  There’s emotional investment in its characters.  There’s even the chance for cynical Brits to scoff at the unrivalled value place on blind faith in Christianity.  The storytelling is artful and credible, and your feelings won’t be the same afterwards.  If there are more instalments in this roller coaster, I’ll be getting straight on.