Hoosiers: 15 Things You Don't Need to Know

hi I'm Jeff Terrell and welcome to a million movies now when I look down the bench at all the movies about basketball that I've ever been made there's really only one go to basketball movie for me and of course that's going to be the story of Coach Dale and the 1952 Hickory Huskers and since my March Madness bracket was busted a long time ago I'm taking a break from the games to cover some facts you really don't need to know about the 1986 classic Hoosiers so let's huddle up and get ready for some Indiana basketball and I know I don't say this enough but I love you guys all right well let's start by pointing out that while Hoosiers is not based on a true story it absolutely was inspired by a true story now until 1997 schools in Indiana weren't classified by the size of the school that meant that whether you were the biggest high school in the state or one of the smallest you had a chance to compete for the state championship in 1954 the Milan Indians with a total enrollment of just a hundred and sixty-one students became the smallest school to ever win the single class state basketball title their win over Muncie Central High School became known as the Milan miracle and is still talked about as one of the great David and Goliath victories in sports and if you know when to look for them you can spot two people who played key roles in that championship game in 1954 in the movie first Milan player reycraft landed a role as the manager of Hinkle Fieldhouse that's him welcoming the team when they first arrived in Indianapolis and off the record I think this is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to Indiana basketball so we're all behind you good luck and caramel he's also the voice you hear when the team is told it's time to take the court before the championship game the other veteran of violence championship game was announced our Hillyard gates in 1954 gates was at the microphone calling the game for radio audiences across the state and when it came time to cast the role of the play-by-play announcer in the movie gates got that part in the history of the Indiana high school basketball team filling out the roster for the Hickory Huskers turned out to be a bit of a challenge the director and producers were more concerned that the guys could really play basketball than they were about their acting experience in fact Hoosiers was the first movie any of the players ever appeared in Wade shink who plays Ollie was a senior on his high school team when he was cast in the film one day during production he got homesick and left the set to go see his old team play the crew ended up calling his mother to get him to come back to film his scenes and Kent Poole who plays Merle was a small-town Indiana basketball star whose team fell just one shot short of moving on in the semi finals in 1982 with his small-town roots the director gave him this classic line knowing he could deliver it with real emotion what's one missing for all the small schools never had a chance to get here and finally Steve Haller who plays raid was on the indiana state championship team in 1984 he was playing for DePaul University when he heard about the casting call for Hoosiers he landed the part but once the movie came out the n-c-double-a launched an investigation to determine if Haller and other college athletes who played members of the competing teams had violated any regulations that might lose them their amateur status the incidentally ultimately determined that Haller and the other players were paid as actors and not as basketball players but they still gave them each a three-game suspension and in at least hollers case they find them 5% of the money he earned for being in the movie the Phenom shooter on the Hickory Huskers was Jimmy Chitwood as played by Maris villainous of all the players cast for the team Maris was the only one who had not played basketball in high school in fact he'd been cut from the team all three times that he tried out he got the part thanks to a visit the casting director made the st. Luke's the Scout players in their Monday night basketball league Maris got hot that night and started being shot after shot the casting director pulled him aside after a game and occurs in the show up for the casting call the next day when Maris got to the auditions he saw there were already about 500 other guys already there he stood in line for about five minutes and was just about to leave when the casting director came out and spotted him in line casting director took Maris the front line and straight into the auditions where of course he got the part now it had to be a big thrill for the players to all see their names up on the big screen but thanks to a clever set decorator the guys didn't have to wait until the end credits for that to happen in the locker room scene just before the championship game coach Dale points out the names of the top players on the South Bend team each names on the boards were the real names of the actors on the Hickory team having actors who can actually play basketball well helped in ways the production team didn't fully appreciate when shooting began because the players were able to hit a high percentage of their shots the director and cinematographer were able to capture full plays all in one shot now after the film was completed the producers commented on how much being able to show the shot and basket being made all in the same sequence helped the film seem more authentic they said it helped the audience feel that these players were really playing in these games a great example of being able to rely on the shooting of their cast was in the scene where Gene Hackman delivers a monologue to Jimmy letting him know that as a coach winning at all costs is no longer his priority the wide shot of this monologue was done in a single take and Maris never missed a single shot until the very end of the scene later on mayor's explained that he was barely even listening to Gene Hackman deliver the lines Mehra said he was a hundred percent focused on not missing any of his shots so he wouldn't ruin the take even though all the guys cast his players on the team could play basketball they needed to adjust their playing style to mirror the way basketball was played in the early 50s that meant no dribbling behind the back or between your legs and getting really good at the one foot push shot as well as the occasional granny shot on the free the style of play wasn't all that needed to be reworked players and referees uniforms scoreboards and even the free-throw Lane needed to be adjusted back in 1952 the free-throw lane or the key as basketball players call it was just six feet wide with a 12-foot diameter free-throw circle at the top and if you're wondering why it's called a key it's because this narrow lane and the free-throw circle made it look a lot like a keyhole in the 1951-52 season the NBA changed to the 12-foot wide key we all know today but high schools and colleges were still on the six-foot wide key we see in Hoosiers and if you look closely at the key and hickories gymnasium you can see the outline of the more modern 12 foot wide key that the production team needed to remove in order to get the court to look like it would have in 1952 with the players the uniforms in the gym all ready to go all that was missing was the coach now originally the character of coach Norman Dale was scripted as a younger man but after the screenwriters saw Paul Newman in the verdict they started thinking about different aspects that could explore the character if he was an older man they got even more ideas for the character after seeing Robert Duvall's performance as max sledge and tender mercies now even with the decision to change the coach to an older man made fairly early in the process the idea of the coach being younger still found its way into the final script in this scene you're not the new coach you're expecting somebody different sorry to disappoint you Jack Nicholson expressed a lot of interest in playing the coach but he had scheduling conflicts due to a lawsuit with MGM that kept him from working for about six months with Jack's blessing the team offered the role to Gene Hackman but a few months after Hoosiers hit the theaters Jack Nicholson ran into the director David and Spa at a restaurant Jack was extremely complimentary about Hackman Dennis Hopper and the players and when anspach commented that he still wonders what it would have been like with Jack playing the coach Jack put his arms around the directors shoulders and replied a mega-hit kid it would have been a mega hit there are several reports of Gene Hackman being great with the players including helping them through a week long acting workshop before filming started but there are also many reports of Hackman giving director David Anspaugh trouble starting with the first scene on the first day of shooting Hackman challenged the director in the screenwriter constantly over the entire 39 days of shooting even going so far as getting his agent to try and get an spa fired ultimately at all drove Anspaugh into a panic attack where he woke up one morning and the room was spinning and he couldn't walk now most of the issues between aunt Spong Hackman happened off-camera but at least one part of it made it into the movie in a montage of the chicory team playing you can see Hackman and Dennis Hopper sitting on the team's bench Hackman leans over to hopper and says something that makes hopper laugh out loud the two weren't miked for the shot so it wasn't until years later that Anspaugh found out that Hackman had turned the hopper and said hopper I hope you've invested well because you and I are never gonna work after this movie this is a career ending film for the both of us when shooting finished the production team still needed the principal actors to come back in to overdub some of the dialogue Hackman was the last actor they called and they were concerned he might refuse to do the dubbing when an Spock caught him the set of the recording session Hackman said he wanted to see the rough cut first and Spa set up a screening for him knowing that if Hackman didn't like the movie he most likely would not come in for the dubbing session the next morning Hackman showed up he walked into the room and looked and saw in the eye and said how the f did you do that on the other side of the equation reports are that Dennis Hopper was great on the set and got along with everyone as the town drunk who becomes the team's assistant coach Hopper who had just gotten sober himself in real life needed to perform a couple of scenes like he had been drinking he remembered a technique that he saw James Dean use when they were both on the set of giant in scenes where Dean's character needed to appear drunk Dean asked her to George Stevens for a 30-second warning before filming started during those 30 seconds Dean would spin around then when action was called he'd be off-balance enough to appear like he'd been drinking for Hoosiers hopper asked for that same thirty Seconds so he could spin around before he needed to walk into the shot oh and here's a quick bonus fact about James Dean in 1951 Dean played on the Fairmount high school basketball team in Fairmount Indiana he played against the Milan Indians the team that inspired Hoosiers now Dennis Hopper took his role as shooter seriously and even suggested cutting one of his scenes originally his character was supposed to leave the hospital where he was going through rehab and show up at the final game Hopper felt that shooter would take a sobriety seriously so he asked his character be shown listening to the game on the radio from the hospital instead now that championship game has his own mythology around it but one of my favorites is something that happens before the game even starts the national anthem scene isn't in the script but the director thought it would be good to include the anthem in the movie they didn't have time to audition groups so they reached out to a local country group the Travel Air's to come in and sing it the version we see in the movie was the first time they'd ever sung the anthem together in front of an audience or even for the production team they nailed it on their first take one of the titles suggested for Hoosiers was the last shot so let's talk about the last shot of the game for a minute the shot had been planned and rehearsed carefully so everything will be ready to go once the camera started rolling the only problem was that during the rehearsals the nerves may have been getting to Maris he was not living up to his Jimmy Chitwood mystique years later Steve Haller explained that all throughout the rehearsals of the shot mayor's have been bricking every shot he took the director came out the team and said no matter if Maris makes the shot or not everyone was going to act like he hit it including the extras who were going to rush the floor so with the cameras rolling and the clock ticking down Maris pulled up for his jump shot and he nailed it the team converged on Maris and the crowd converged on the team creating a moment that Steve Haller who had actually won a state championship back in high school said felt a hundred percent just like winning a real championship game I recently watched Hoosiers for the first time in several years but this time I watched it with my wife and daughters none of whom had ever seen it before now aside from asking me to explain what a Hoosier was a few dozen times they also had questions like when did Myra and the coach start to like each other because that kiss comes out of nowhere and when did buddy get back on the team so if you have similar questions the basic answer is that the original cut of the movie was just shy of three hours long the studio insisted that it be cut down to under two hours so some scenes were cut out including two scenes where we see the coach of Myra becoming friendlier with each other as their romance builds and a couple of scenes where buddy transfers to play for another school before coming back to Hickory to ask for another chance to play with his old team now if you're interested in seeing some of these deleted scenes be sure to pick up the double DVD collector's edition of the movie 30 minutes of these cutscenes are included in the bonus DVD well there you have it some facts you don't need to know about Hoosiers if you know a great piece of trivia about this movie that I didn't cover here please share it in the comments below and as always thanks for watching and I hope you come back and watch more episodes of a million movies

Channel: A Million Movies

Views: 233,212

Rating: 4.873045 out of 5

Keywords: movies, Hoosiers, Gene Hackman, Hickory, Huskers, Basketball, Indiana, Milan, Miracle

Id: 10ZJHLm-0NU

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/iuhoosierkyle]

That actor was my dentist growing up.

[u/JonesyOC]

Not him, but the actor who played Buddy was a Jostens rep that came to my school every year to try to sell us class rings. He actually showed us the ring that they made for the cast as a memento. So, that was pretty cool.

[u/Namath96]

One more time, can I get a fuck the NCAA?