Stuff the Capitalist (aka KD) Likes: Sports Movies I Can Relate to HR...
June 24, 2016
Who am I? Who cares? Good questions. It's my site, so I'm going dig in once in a awhile by telling you more about who I am - via a "Stuff I Like" series. Nothing too serious, just exploring the micro-niche that resides at the base of all of our lives. Potshots encouraged in the comments.
I like sports movies that transcend sports and tell us about life, relationships and influence.
Oh yeah, and I just like great quotes that I can repeat to my friends. Because I'm a white guy from GenX, and that what the **** we do. Whatever stereotype you're thinking about from a Title 7 protected class, you should stereotype people of my "ilk" this way. Quoting movies, preferably sports movies. And I'll never call you a racist for doing it.
Here's my top three sports movies, pulled from a post my good friend (also white, male and GenX) Steve Boese did over at his blog:
He Got Game: Denzel, Spike Lee, a backdrop of hoops and Ray Allen starring as “Jesus Shuttlesworth”. I love the story of a complicated father/son relationship as Denzel tries to parlay his way out of prison by encouraging his son (Jesus) to play at Big State U, which just happens to be the school of choice for the governor. Great music spanning a lot of tastes from dramatic orchestra scores to Public Enemy. Spike Lee perspective in Camera shots. Fun fact: One of my sons got asked at church at a young age what the last name of Jesus (son of god, not Ray Allen) was. That’s a trick question in a church setting. My young son didn’t miss a beat – he raised his hand like Horseshack in Welcome Back Kotter and enthusiastically said, “Shuttlesworth”. Welcome to the Dunn family, where everything has a hoops influence.
Bull Durham: You haven’t lived until you’ve had a son who’s played baseball and coached with another guy who knows all the lines to this movie. The game in front of you actually becomes secondary. You sit down next to a 10 year old in the dugout and say, “get a notepad, because it’s time to practice your cliches.” Two minutes later, the kid is repeating the wisdom of Crash Davis - “I just hope I can help the team” and “It’s a simple game – you throw the ball, you catch the ball”. After he has the cliches down, you bring the kid inside for senior level Crash Davis: “Anything that travels that far should have a stewardess” as an example. Then, the fun is suddenly over when he commits two errors in the field and you resume screaming at him to "man up”. Sports movies can only take you so far.
Any Given Sunday: A must for any sports fan who wants to think about talent from the lens of sports. While I agree with Tim Sackett that the Pacino speech is classic, I’m going deep in this movie and tell you that hall of famer Jim Brown is the hidden gem. Playing the role of Defensive Coordinator, he steals the movie from Pacino and Jamie Foxx with two scenes that are coaching classics. The first scene involves Brown going on a sidelines diatribe towards his defense and a player encouraging him to calm down before he has a stroke, to which Brown replies, “I don’t get strokes Mother#######, I GIVE THEM”. The second scene involves Brown addressing the team at halftime and using a chalkboard diagraming X’s and O’s, with the following gem: “Now you’re dumb enough, so we made it simple enough. We made this #### real ####ing simple (as he pounds the chalk against the board)”. Who among us couldn’t use that line at times in corporate America?
Hit me in the comments with your favorite sports movies, the reasons for the favorite and your money quote from the film. You don't even have to be white, male and GenX to comment, but I suspect many of you will be...
"Strikeouts are Facist!" from Bull Durham
"There's No Crying in Baseball!" from A League of Their Own.
And "Just a bit outside" from Major League. People quote that and don't even know where it comes from. I had a tennis opponent say that just recently.
--MattL
Posted by: Matt Landrum | June 24, 2016 at 02:40 PM
I'm a big sports fan but I don't like sports movies. They're all the same - they all come down to "the big game" so there are only 2 possible endings.
Posted by: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | June 24, 2016 at 02:45 PM
One of my favorite quotes from Bull Durham is from Annie: 'The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self awareness.' I have found this to be true in my HR career and personal life!
Posted by: Traci Bell | June 27, 2016 at 10:50 AM
Oh yeah, and I just like great quotes that I can repeat to my friends.
Posted by: Ascah Kasisi | July 06, 2016 at 03:04 AM