15 Most Melodramatic Sports Movies
Friday, February 05, 2010 10:05 AM
 Sports movies often attempt to be inspirational and motivational by showing how an underdog can overcome any obstacle through discipline, hard work, and a training montage. But more often than not, these films end up so melodramatic and over the top that all they end up motivating is the audience to vomit. In honor of this weekend's Super Bowl, here are 15 of the most melodramatic sports movies of all time. Some are classics, some are cringe worthy, but all are sappy.
Scrawny Rudy Ruettiger has big dreams of playing college football for Notre Dame, but without the money or grades to even attend the school, his chances don’t look good. Yet Rudy’s passion and dedication are as big as his dreams: by attending school across the street, Rudy eventually transfers to Norte Dame and even lands a spot on the practice team. He lacks skill, but his extreme determination allows him to suit up for the final home game of the season, and he even participates in the final play.
A small-town high school football coach befriends a mentally challenged local, and gives him something to live for by letting him attend school and help out with the team. Unfortunately, this creates obstacles for Coach Jones, both on the field and at home. But eventually the skeptical townspeople come around and become more accepting of those who are different.
When a devastating plane crash takes the lives of most of Marshall University’s football team, the new coach, Jack, has quite a challenge ahead of him. Jack struggles to walk a fine line between honoring the late football team and disgracing them with the uninspiring new team. Jack tries to return normalcy to the team and the community, while the audience tries not to laugh at the bad acting.
Remember the Titans (2000)
Set in 1971 in Virginia, the townspeople aren’t pleased with the newly appointed black high school football coach. The high school is newly integrated, so initially the white and black students clash, but Coach Boone forces his players past their prejudices. When the two star athletes, rivals of different racial backgrounds, change their attitudes and become friends, the whole team reacts by uniting. Then when a car accident causes one of the star players to be paralyzed from the waist down, the team further bonds together and goes on to win the AAA State Championship, proving that all it takes for racial unity is horrible debilitating car crash.
High school basketball coach Don Haskins was the first to ever start five black players at an NCAA Championship game. The former high school girls basketball coach moved his family into a boys’ college dorm for the opportunity to teach college ball for an underdog Division I team in Texas. His recruitment of the best players, regardless of race, changed sports history, and took his team all the way. Determined to do whatever it took to get his team to the championships, Haskins even recruited a player’s mother to make sure her son kept his grades up.
Thanks to his owner, unconventional trainer, and devoted half-blind jockey, this unlikely, knobby colt became a winning thoroughbred. The horse’s unexpected success made him hugely popular, and he acted as a great morale-boost for the Depression Era American public. Later, after a trip to the glue factory, he acted as a great unifier of paper and uncooked macaroni.
When a high school baseball coach’s pitching talents are revealed, he strikes up a deal with his players: if they start winning games, and make it to the playoffs, he will attend a tryout camp for pro ball. This motivates his team, who make it to the playoffs, so the coach must try out. Having been retired from the minor leagues for twelve years due to an injury, he seems an unlikely candidate. But when it’s realized that he is one of less than ten men that can consistently pitch at 98 mph, he gets to pitch for Tampa Bay.
Angels in the Outfield (1994)
Foster-child Roger’s father promised they would be a family again when the Angels baseball team wins the pennant, a seemingly impossible feat as the team is one of the worst in the league. But when Roger prays for the Angels to win, God’s angels begin helping the team out, and the team goes on to win the pennant. While Roger isn’t reunited with his birth father, he and best friend J.P. are adopted by Angels coach Knox, so he does become part of a family again, albeit a creepy one run by Danny Glover.
Philadelphia's football team, the Eagles, get a new coach who decides to hold open try outs for the first time in history. The team’s biggest fan, a thirty-year-old bar tender who only has a year of high school football under his belt, tries out and is the only one invited to training camp. He lands a spot on the team, and even makes a touch down in the second game.
The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005)
Born to a poor family, Francis Ouimet dreams of playing golf, but his economic status demands that he learn a trade. He isn’t allowed to play at members only clubs, so he works as a caddy to be close to the game. When he’s given a chance to play, he makes his way to the U.S. Open, against public consent, who are against a peasant playing a gentleman’s sport. Remarkably he beats the defending champions, becoming the first amateur to win the U.S. Open.
Jim Ellis, a college-educated black man, is having trouble finding a job, so he accepts the position of tearing down the local Recreation Center in Philadelphia. When he takes down the basketball hoops, the local teens are devastated, so Jim invites them inside the Recreation Center to the run down pool, which he tries to save by starting a swim team. In doing so he changes the lives of the teens, as they struggle against prejudice and poverty, and competing in a sport dominated by whites.
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Billy practices boxing at the wish of his father, but is drawn by the ballet practice that occurs in the same building. He secretly switches, trading in his boxing gloves for ballet slippers, but when his father finds out he forbids to continue, until he sees him dance. Realizing his son’s passion, he takes him to audition at the Royal Ballet School, for which he leaves home at age eleven to attend. The film then fast-forwards fourteen years, and Billy his living his dream: performing the lead of Swan Lake. The dad, however, I playing the part of the disappointed drunken father at a local bar.
Jackie Kallen has one passion: boxing, and one draw back: being a woman. She works for a boxing promoter until she is offered a boxer’s contract for $1. She accepts the deal, seemingly taking on more than she can handle. But eventually her boxer, Shaw, begins to win, and her reputation begins to grow as the first female boxing promoter. When she gets too swept up in her own image to continue managing her only client, she sells him to another manager under the condition that he’ll be given a championship fight, which Shaw goes on to win.
University of Minnesota hockey coach Herb Brooks interviews for the Olympic Coach position for the 1980 games, and he has his heart set on the impossible: winning the games over the unbeaten Soviet Union team. He disregards the player tryout process as well as the Olympic board preferences, instead choosing players his own way. At first the team he puts together struggles through old college rivalries and the distraction of pretty girls, but once they unite as a team, they manage to take the gold from those filthy commie bastards.
Chicago Bear’s rival players and racial opposites, Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, manage to overcome their differences and become friends, and end up as the first black and white room mates in professional sports. When Piccolo is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Sayers helps him through it. Sayers goes on to become a Hall of Famer, which he dedicates to Piccolo.
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