Hoop dreams
The White Shadow: The Complete First Season launches on DVD today. Proving yet again that, if you wait long enough, every series in the history of television will eventually show up on DVD.
But in this case, that's not a bad thing.
For those of you who slept through the late 1970s — or who weren't yet born in that storied era of polyester shirts and platform shoes — The White Shadow starred Ken Howard (at the time, the son-in-law of newspaper advice columnist Ann Landers) as Ken Reeves, a retired pro basketball star of the Caucasian persuasion (we saw his career-ending knee injury played out in the opening credit sequence every week) who takes a job coaching at an inner-city Los Angeles high school. The storylines revolved around the efforts of the lily-white Reeves to fit in with the mostly African-American student body and administration at Carver High (hence his rarely-uttered nickname, "The White Shadow"), and to bring together the motley crew of young athletes who played ball for him.
The show was noteworthy for its attempt to portray — as realistically as possible on network television in the late '70s — the tortuous road of inner-city life and race relations in America. The Carver High basketball team didn't spend all of their time engaging in group hugs and choruses of "Kumbaya." There were conflicts, especially in the early going, between the black players and their teammates of other ethnicities. Reeves and his team members had to wrestle with the consequences of poverty, discrimination, drug abuse, gambling, gang violence, and a host of other social issues. Because this was television, the problems often got wrapped up in the space of an hour-long episode, but sometimes they didn't — as when player Curtis Jackson (played by Erik Kilpatrick) was shot and killed as he stumbled upon a convenience store robbery.
Like the classic smorgasbord-style casting of old war movies, the Carver High basketball team represented an all-too-convenient cross-section of iconic ethnic types, albeit with far more dark-skinned faces than we usually saw in similar situations. Although the teenaged student-athletes always looked suspiciously mature, especially toward the end of the show's three-season run, their characters were nicely fleshed-out. The show didn't always escape the lure of stereotype — the lone Jewish kid was the smartest guy on the team, the Italian kid was a slick-talking con artist with a Brooklyn accent, the Hispanic kid was a hothead, all of the team's most athletically gifted players were black — but the writers managed in most cases to present the guys as real, three-dimensional young people with realistic hopes, aspirations, and fears, especially when compared to the caricatures seen on such contemporary shows as Welcome Back, Kotter.
The cast added immeasurably to the show's positive character. Ken Howard was believable as the former Chicago Bull who truly cared about his young charges, but didn't coddle or patronize them. And, as testimony to their diverse talents, several of the actors who played team members went on to greater acclaim as directors: Kevin Hooks (sensitive Morris Thorpe) has enjoyed success helming feature films (Passenger 57, Fled) and is one of the most sought-after directors in television (24, Alias, Lost). Thomas Carter (team captain James Hayward) also became a noted filmmaker, whose Coach Carter, starring Samuel L. Jackson, was one of this year's most popular movies. Timothy Van Patten (hustler "Salami" Pettrino) directs episodes of HBO's cutting-edge dramas (The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome).
All good things come to an end, and The White Shadow burned out fairly quickly. The original cast members "graduated" after the second season, to be replaced by new, less intriguing characters in the show's final year. Byron Stewart later revived his character, center Warren Coolidge, as an orderly on the '80s hospital series St. Elsewhere.
So if you're bored with the slick, glossy soap opera that passes for teen drama on TV these days, hop into the Wayback Machine and keep it real with Coach Reeves and the kids from Carver High. You can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey.
But in this case, that's not a bad thing.
For those of you who slept through the late 1970s — or who weren't yet born in that storied era of polyester shirts and platform shoes — The White Shadow starred Ken Howard (at the time, the son-in-law of newspaper advice columnist Ann Landers) as Ken Reeves, a retired pro basketball star of the Caucasian persuasion (we saw his career-ending knee injury played out in the opening credit sequence every week) who takes a job coaching at an inner-city Los Angeles high school. The storylines revolved around the efforts of the lily-white Reeves to fit in with the mostly African-American student body and administration at Carver High (hence his rarely-uttered nickname, "The White Shadow"), and to bring together the motley crew of young athletes who played ball for him.
The show was noteworthy for its attempt to portray — as realistically as possible on network television in the late '70s — the tortuous road of inner-city life and race relations in America. The Carver High basketball team didn't spend all of their time engaging in group hugs and choruses of "Kumbaya." There were conflicts, especially in the early going, between the black players and their teammates of other ethnicities. Reeves and his team members had to wrestle with the consequences of poverty, discrimination, drug abuse, gambling, gang violence, and a host of other social issues. Because this was television, the problems often got wrapped up in the space of an hour-long episode, but sometimes they didn't — as when player Curtis Jackson (played by Erik Kilpatrick) was shot and killed as he stumbled upon a convenience store robbery.
Like the classic smorgasbord-style casting of old war movies, the Carver High basketball team represented an all-too-convenient cross-section of iconic ethnic types, albeit with far more dark-skinned faces than we usually saw in similar situations. Although the teenaged student-athletes always looked suspiciously mature, especially toward the end of the show's three-season run, their characters were nicely fleshed-out. The show didn't always escape the lure of stereotype — the lone Jewish kid was the smartest guy on the team, the Italian kid was a slick-talking con artist with a Brooklyn accent, the Hispanic kid was a hothead, all of the team's most athletically gifted players were black — but the writers managed in most cases to present the guys as real, three-dimensional young people with realistic hopes, aspirations, and fears, especially when compared to the caricatures seen on such contemporary shows as Welcome Back, Kotter.
The cast added immeasurably to the show's positive character. Ken Howard was believable as the former Chicago Bull who truly cared about his young charges, but didn't coddle or patronize them. And, as testimony to their diverse talents, several of the actors who played team members went on to greater acclaim as directors: Kevin Hooks (sensitive Morris Thorpe) has enjoyed success helming feature films (Passenger 57, Fled) and is one of the most sought-after directors in television (24, Alias, Lost). Thomas Carter (team captain James Hayward) also became a noted filmmaker, whose Coach Carter, starring Samuel L. Jackson, was one of this year's most popular movies. Timothy Van Patten (hustler "Salami" Pettrino) directs episodes of HBO's cutting-edge dramas (The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome).
All good things come to an end, and The White Shadow burned out fairly quickly. The original cast members "graduated" after the second season, to be replaced by new, less intriguing characters in the show's final year. Byron Stewart later revived his character, center Warren Coolidge, as an orderly on the '80s hospital series St. Elsewhere.
So if you're bored with the slick, glossy soap opera that passes for teen drama on TV these days, hop into the Wayback Machine and keep it real with Coach Reeves and the kids from Carver High. You can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey.
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 8:35 AM
1 insisted on sticking two cents in:
I love how with DVD box sets and such everything old is new again. What I don't love is being tempted to pay for something I probably have on VHS somewhere to begin with.:(
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