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I’m a big sports movie guy; people know that about me. Unfortunately with only a two hour average run time, sometimes sports films leave some big unanswered questions. I took my best crack at filling in the blanks.
Varsity Blues
The Question:
Varsity Blues is the pinnacle of 90s sports movies. Star West Canaan HS QB Brian O’Connor goes down with an injury and his backup Dawson Leery has to lead the team to victory with James Caan’s son as his best receiver and Angelina Jolie’s dad as his dickhead coach.
Long story short, despite injuries, a team mutiny of their head coach, and a debilitating strip club visit, West Canaan wins a district championship. The problem is, according to their backup QB’s narration, the district championship game (set in an incredibly dimly lit stadium) is their last football game.
How is that possible? Back in my high school days like half the district made playoffs, so obviously the district champion would have a playoff game that next Friday against some lowly 4-seed. What the hell happened?
The Likely Answer:
Come on, you think Bud Kilmer’s team wouldn’t be on some kind of probation due to UIL (Texas’ high school sports governing body) sanctions? Child please. Hell, half of Kilmer’s 22 district championships were probably vacated due to rampant steroid usage. There were more used needles strewn around that locker room than a subsided housing apartment complex in West Virginia. The Coyotes probably won that DC in the middle of a three year postseason ban.
Major League/Major League 2
The Question:
Ex-stripper and new owner of her dead husband’s Cleveland Indians, Rachel Phelps goes out of her way to tank the season by recruiting a team of has-beens and nobodys to form her coaching staff & 25-man roster. In what should come as a surprise to no one who’s seen a sports movie, the Indians make the playoffs.
However, why then was Mrs. Phelps persona non grata by the time Major League 2 rolled around? She should’ve been the player personnel darling of baseball. Despite having zero background experience she managed to find an ace pitcher out of a California prison and fishes her catcher/team leader out of a motel room deep in the heart of Mexico.
The only person on the squad who probably made more than league minimum was Roger Dorn and his piss contract. Rachel Phelps made Theo Epstein look like an amateur.
The Likely Answer:
The god damn patriarchy. This happened almost 30 years before we had Jessica Mendoza in the Sunday Night Baseball booth; MLB just wasn’t ready for a female ex-stripper to be its darling roster creation wunderkind.
Remember The Titans
The Question:
Coming into his senior year, the defensive back played by Ryan Gosling had serious pedigree. According to his angry helicopter dad, he was a 5-time Player of the Week the previous year. Now high school sporting achievements rarely mean shit, but 5 POTW awards at least mean that he’s a well above-average DB.
Flash forward one year and he’s riding pine and can’t seem to keep up with any of the guys he’s defending. It’s not like he’s suddenly playing against new athletes; his school is the only desegregated one in the district. How did a year’s time sap all of this guy’s speed?
The Likely Answer:
Summer before his senior year he realized that he was Ryan Gosling, and spent the summer dripping in ass instead of doing sprints. Lost too much development time, and all the other white boys caught up.
Trouble With The Curve
The Question:
Why did almost anything baseball-related in this movie happen? The kid who was the top draft pick was overweight with a terrible swing & makeup who should never be drafted. The Braves head scout was obsessing over high school stats, which is outrageously unrealistic. The Braves front-office then declares the top pick a bust after whiffing on a few curveballs in BP. How did any of this happen in a baseball movie?
The Likely Answer:
What they likely failed to explain in the movie was that anyone with baseball talent or knowledge was wiped out in a genocide before the movie took place. That’s the only explanation for it. This movie is fucking terrible.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
The Question:
Near the movie’s final dodgeball match, Peter LaFleur is drinking away his shame in an airport bar when Lance Armstrong shows up to give him the pep talk of the century. An hour later he leads an upset victory against a superior-in-every-way Globo Gym squad, clinching it with a sudden death win against a far greater athlete in White Goodman.
So uh, what else did Lance Armstrong give Peter besides a pep talk? No one goes from knocking back whiskeys at McCarran International to short-arm humming a dodgeball on one knee to knock Ben Still back ten feet without a little extra something backing it up.
The Answer:
Come on, you know where I’m going with this.
Tin Cup
The Question:
During a meal at breakfast legend Waffle House, Roy McAvoy’s strip club owning ex-gf gets into an argument with members of his squad over whether there’s a Waffle House in Midland or Odessa. Getting a Waffle House location wrong is actually a felony in the South, so who’s right?
The Real Answer:
They’re both goddamn liars. There isn’t a Waffle House in Midland or Odessa, which is a huge letdown when you attend college in Odessa. .
Image via YouTube
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Kyle Bandujo
The artist formerly known as Crash Davis. My kid doesn't think I'm funny.
@kylebandujo
@bandujokyle
kyle.bandit
Question: How did a walk on non athletic person make a behind the LOS tackle in top tier college football?
Answer: Rudy was offsides
Rudy was a fraud and a cheater.
So disappointed that you didn’t address how in D2 the Ducks were able to swap Russ Tyler from skater to goalie during one time out! I mean, did team Iceland just not see Goldberg taking off his pads and the defenseman they’ve been keying on throwing on the chest protector?
I always thought that was odd. Also about D2, how do Jamaica and Italy have a team in the Junior Goodwill Games, but not Russia or Canada?
They both did. If you check the standings board during the group stage, they’re listed. USA just never played them (which in and of itself makes no sense).
Henry Rowengartner’s “floater” pitch in Rookie of the Year would have been belted to the moon.
Clearly, Lance Armstrong gave Peter LaFleur his severed testicle.
How does Daniel-san beat Johnny and win the tournament with the crane move when the ref explicitly states at the beginning of the match that kicks to the face are illegal and will result in disqualification?
Not a sports movie, per se, but I’ve always wanted to know what would have happened in the next volleyball game if Maverick didn’t bail on Goose to go bang Charlie in Top Gun
Another game would have been played I bet.
Not really related, but Charlie Tweeder is one of my favorite sports movie characters of all time.
Even when Scott Caan was in Entourage, I couldn’t get past the fact that he was Tweeder. Go ‘Yotes
Tweeder single-handedly made that movie-
The “Good moonin'” monologue during the opening scene
“She broke my heart, so I broke her jaw”
The “New Tweeder Endzone Dance”
Stealing the cop car and driving around drunk with naked chicks
Being Lance Harbor’s pain-killer supplier
Classic.
“I still got the alcohol in my system”- Billy Bob
“I still got Miss Davis’ fat ass bouncin’ in ny face!”-Tweeder
*Naked sophomores whose clothes were thrown out by me.
Just to be specific
I appreciate the compliment friend. Now grab me a beer and a couple Percocet so we get them panties droppin’.
Noticing James Vanderbeek is going bald in Varsity Blues 10 years after watching it because you are seeing the same thinning pattern in your hair. #PGP
Have always said if I ever win the lotto or come into an enormous amount of money, I’d immediately do two things:
1) quit my job (obviously)
2) put up the necessary funds to greenlight the movie we’ve all be dying to see for all these years – Varsity Blues 2: Kilmer’s Revenge
Would absolutely pay money to see that. BUt only if Dawson Leery is back; preferably moaning over loosing Joey Potter too.
How did the Permian High Panthers with only one future D-1 football player compete with Dallas Carter in the state championship game in Friday Nighf Lights? And how did not one single referee see Mike Winchell get his helmet kicked in his face?
I mean — this actually happened! At least the one D-1 guy part.
Actually it didn’t actually happen. Permian lost to Carter in the State Semifinals. Carter went on to beat Converse Judson who is actually listed as the 88 state champs as a result of Carter being stripped of the title for illegal players.
Ivory Christian – TCU
#GoFrogs