Hoop Dreams: Is sport a viable passport out of poverty?

Overall, I enjoyed the documentary very much, and I found it interesting that although William was the one who was favored to succeed from the start, Arthur ended up getting closer to being a state champion than William did. I felt like Hoop Dreams captured a lot of the culture in West Garfield as well as St. Joseph’s. I don’t know how natural the behaviors on film were, but the presentations of the socioeconomic status of the two environments were very different. Not only was West Garfield a mostly black neighborhood, but it reflected a low socioeconomic status. The scene that stood out to me the most was the when the Arthur and Shannon were in summer school together for a remedial English class. The class was for freshmen, sophomores, AND juniors because there weren’t enough English teachers during the school year, which reflects the school’s poor public funding. Also, the way that the African American students in the English class speak and disrespect their teacher portrays them as uneducated and immature. This kind of environment is contrasted with St. Joe’s, where all the boys wear ties to school and William gets individual attention from teachers to help him succeed. Both William and Arthur discuss how the school is predominantly white and people are “different from back home.” The discipline is stronger at St. Joe’s, with detention and policies that “suspend you quick.” The gym was well-furnished compared to the netless and unpainted courts in the West Garfield neighborhood. Overall, the film captured the more wealthy and powerful class identity of the St. Joseph community compared to the underfunded community of West Garfield.

For both William and Arthur, getting recruited to St. Joe’s gave them the opportunity to play “better” basketball, and Arthur’s family said he matured after going. William had bad grades in grammar school but greatly improved his grades during his freshman year, mostly motivated by basketball. Because William was good enough to play varsity as a freshman, he was a hot commodity and that got the attention of people with power. For example, part of his tuition was paid for by an organization called Cycle, and because he was so good at basketball, he got his entire education paid for through connections of powerful people (like the head of Encyclopedia Britannica). He was also given a job opportunity over the summer through these connections. St. Joe’s viewed him as a valuable asset and therefore made efforts to keep him around. For Arthur on the other hand, his family had to pay for half of the tuition, and when the tuition rose, St. Joe’s made zero efforts to keep him there or help him with financial aid, although he was a starter on the freshman team. I forgot who in the film said it, but a fan or teacher explained simply that Arthur “wasn’t as good as they had hoped he would be, so they let him go.” He was required to leave mid-semester, which meant that he was behind in credits when he transferred to a public school near his home. Not only that, but St. Joe’s made it extremely hard for his family to access his transcripts to find his graduation status because Arthur’s family owed the school money. In the end, Arthur’s mom claimed that she almost wished that Arthur had never gone to St. Joe’s. Other people who were interviewed for the film felt that if he was good enough, arrangements would have been made to keep him at St. Joe’s.

Basketball played an extremely important role in the lives of the two boys as well as their families. William discussed how during the time after his injury when he could not play basketball, his grades slipped because he had become unmotivated. Many decisions were made revolving around basketball, beginning with transferring to St. Joe’s, going to a summer Nike All-American camp, and doing well in school. To William, it was his “ticket out of the ghetto.” For Arthur, successes that he achieves through basketball are celebrated by the entire family. The same goes for William’s family, and his brother kind of lives vicariously through him. Curtis Gates never got a college degree, so even though he was good at basketball, he ended up becoming a security guard with low pay. The parents of the two boys know the boys love basketball and there are several scenes of Arthur playing with his father, and William’s family watching basketball together.

Because basketball was so important to the boys, sometimes other priorities were not put at the top. For example, William and his girlfriend get into a slight argument about how he was not present in the delivery room when she gave birth to Alicia. William responds that there was no way that he could leave during ‘that time of the season.’ Also, because basketball was the number one thing for him, when basketball was not a present part of his life (after his knee surgery), academics also sank for him.

This documentary reminded me of many of the topics we discussed in class. One was the way the NCAA or universities exploit their athletes. It felt like the same thing was being done with both William and Arthur. With Arthur, it seemed like St. Joe’s used him, realized they didn’t need him, so they let him go. With William, St. Joe’s gave him many opportunities, but so that they could possibly obtain a state championship. The St. Joe’s head coach says at the end of the documentary “one walks out the door and another comes in.” I think this reflects the exploitive nature of the program and emphasizes the way athletes are used for their skills. William claims that basketball became more of a “job than a sport to play.”

This documentary also reminded me of the discussion we had in class about how retired pro athletes don’t have many options after their athletic careers are over. However, William and Arthur both received education because of basketball (even though a certain amount of effort and potential in education was required to get there – eg. William’s ACT score situation). I looked up what happened to the two of them after college – one got a seminary degree and the other created a charity foundation. Both of these opportunities were probably enhanced by the education both men received. Neither of them ended up making it big in the NBA, and education ended up being an equally important way out of the environments they had previously been in. In both their cases, basketball was not the guaranteed one way ticket out of poverty. If sports were the “passport” out of poverty, education would be the actual airplane. Sports allowed them to get an opportunity, but an education was required for them to pursue any of the opportunities that were presented.

References:

 Hoop Dreams [Motion picture]. (1994). USA: Public Broadcasting Service.