GO TIGERS!
Reviewed by Harvey Karten IFC Films/ Triple Play Pictures Director: Kenneth A. Carlson Writer: Kenneth A. Carlson Cast: Town Mayor, Principal, Superintendent, Coach, Fans, Tiger, Students of Massillon, Ohio Screened at: Review Screening Rm., NYC, 8/16/01
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, thereby beating the U.S. in the Space Race, constipated intellectuals and their acolytes around the country moaned and groaned that the reason we lost was that our schools put too much emphasis on sports. "I traveled all over Eastern Europe and did not run into a single cheerleader," sniffed Admiral Hyman Rickover, who endorsed a study-only policy in the American high schools.
Well bully for them. One would think that I, having taught high school English and Social Studies and in the afternoon coaching nothing more athletic than the Drama Club would be a big Rickover fan, but no. Show me a dispirited city that's all rigid with study and I'll show you dynamic Pyongyang. Athletics are what give a school spirit, not trigonometry. Athletics are what bring in healthy parental involvement and get them to pass annual budgets as they are asked to do in Massillon, OH in this movie. Sports are what motivate kids to get by in their classes so that they will be eligible to continue competing on their teams. And by the way, last time I looked at the studies, the kids who turned out for the school teams generally had higher averages than those who sat on the benches.
This brings us to what's so fine about Kenneth A. Carlson's documentary "Go Tigers!" Carlson, a native of the town of Massillon, Ohio (population 33,000 but said to have one of the country's best football squads), is in love with the sport, with the school, with the community of steel-town blue-collar workers and its culture. Massillon is an integrated municipality. From what we see the blacks and whites get along on the team, in the stands, and in the nabes--though Carlson does not do much exploring of race relations as, say, a documentarian like Fred Wiseman ("High School") might have done. Directing photographer Curt Apduhan--who uses a pair of Hi Def units shooting simultaneously (for the techies, that's Arri SR-3 super 16mm film cameras for selected games and Sony's High definition HDW-700A)--he cuts and dissolves rapidly as though the team's effervescence were not in itself enough to infect the audience. (In fact, this MTV-style photography was my only objection to the picture, and it's not a minor irritant.)
"Go Tigers!" jumps from pep rallies featuring an array of miniskirted girls to quite a large band led by a military-style leader--who evoke a professional sound, I must say--then cuts to not just one but a bevy of coaches who harangue the squad when they're behind (in one season they end up with a 4-6 record and are in the dumps), informing the young men that the other side have bigger balls than they. From time to time the tiger cub is trotted out on the field and in one instance, two bulldog mascots for the other side, McKinley, are seen humping while the keeper is lecturing the camera presumably unaware of the reason that the on-site audience is roaring with laughter.
Some of the more intimate scenes revolve around individual players, one of whom was put away for 15 months for a rape which he insists he did not commit (though he agrees that he deserved to be incarcerated for selling dope). And if you think that there's absolutely no corruption in high-school football, think again. Parents have agreed in no small number of cases to keep their kids behind for a year, maybe more, so that their youngsters would be bigger and more muscular and thereby able to compete better against the opponents. In one case a player was recruited from a neighboring high school. (Even I was told several times, and by the swimming coach for pete's sake, to pass some sloooooooooooooooooooooow kids in Social Studies so that they could remain on the team.)
There's just one shot of the school nerd who says that he can't wait until he's 18 and then he's outa there..."this is bullcrap." Just one guy in the whole school who doesn't go for the football madness? Well, I must admit, this school is homogeneous, or if not, Mr. Carlson sure has a way of editing out dissension.
"Go Tigers!" is anything but a talking heads doc. It's loaded with action, packed with spirit, full of itself, and deserving of the accolades it won when it appeared at the Sundance Festival.
Not Yet Rated. Running time: 102 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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