Ward Serrill's video documentary chronicles the story of Bill Resler, Seattle tax man turned girls' basketball coach, and of his prize pupil, Darnellia Russell, a black transfer from her neighborhood Garfield High to white-bread Roosevelt High: "Darnellia Russell is my only chance at being famous." The story spans her entire five-year high-school career and more. It details the ups and downs of the seasons, the state tournaments, the intrasquad and intracity rivalries, the lessons learned ("Don't dribble the ball behind your back with ten seconds to go"), the coach's unconventional motivational methods (an annual theme: Pack of Wolves, Tropical Storm, Pride of Lions, etc.), and it expands into extracurriculars such as race and class, sexual molestation, teen pregnancy, courtroom drama: "To get back on the court," a TV reporter formulaically puts it, "Darnellia had to go to court." All told, it makes a good story, and the local news announcer would seem to be guiltless of hyperbole when he calls it "one of the greatest stories in high-school basketball in the state of Washington." (A decent number of qualifiers: "one of"... "high-school"... "Washington," and no need to add the qualifier of girls' basketball.) These stories happen all the time in sports, all over the place. Without the film, we would have missed this one. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.