(2001)
3.5
Tom Wiener
All you need to know about the importance of football to the people of Massillon, Ohio, a town of about 33,000 in the northeastern part of the state, is that when the 1999 team profiled here plays their final regular-season game against their archrival, Canton McKinley, the contest is held in the stadium next door to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. For 40 minutes, this documentary comes perilously close to a film that boosters for the school that has won 22 state championships would be proud to show, but then it begins to introduce some darker elements: academic concerns, a jail sentence for rape served by one of the team's co-captains, brief interviews with students disaffected with their school's obsession with football, and most importantly, controversy over a local school levy that has been defeated three times. The election to decide the levy is an issue for the entire season, and the coaches aren't reluctant to use as a motivator: So goes the football team, so goes the town's attitude about its schools. Of the three players profiled here--defensive end Ellery Moore, quarterback Dave Irwin, and linebacker Danny Studer--Moore is easily the most interesting, because he seems to have risen above his criminal past. One impression the film leaves is how tied in to religion sports are; there are any number of pep talks given by local ministers, and the team recites the Our Father in the locker room before the start of each game. Though the film does still come off as largely celebratory, it does offer enough evidence of the mixed blessings of high school sports to make it credible.
Go Tigers! on AllMovie
Go Tigers! (2001)
