Directed by David Anspaugh and written by Angelo Pizzo.

The film is loosely based on the story of the 1954 Indiana state champions, Milan High School.

Coach Norman Dale

• If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we're gonna be winners.

• [to Jimmy Chitwood] You know, in the ten years that I coached, I never met anybody who wanted to win as badly as I did. I'd do anything I had to do to increase my advantage. Anybody who tried to block the pursuit of that advantage, I'd just push 'em out of the way. Didn't matter who they were, or what they were doing. But that was then. You have special talent, a gift. Not the school's, not the townspeople, not the team's, not Myra Fleener's, not mine. It's yours, to do with what you choose. Because that's what I believe, I can tell you this: I don't care if you play on the team or not.

• Stick with your man. Think of him as chewing gum. By the end of the game, I want you to know what flavor he is.

Opal Fleener

• [to Coach Dale] Sun don't shine on the same dog's ass every day, but, mister you ain't seen a ray of light since you got here.

Dialogue

Coach Dale: You know, if everyone is as nice as you, country hospitality is gonna get an awful name.

Myra Fleener: What a pleasant thing to say.

[Strap is continuing his prayer as the team gets ready to leave the locker room]

Coach Dale: Strap? [to Rade] How long is he going to go on like this?

Rade Butcher: I don't know. He'll come when he's ready, not before.

Coach Dale: Hopefully that'll be sometime before tip-off.

Coach Dale: First of all, let's be real friendly here, okay? My name is Norm. Secondly, your coaching days are over.

George: Look, mister, there's... two kinds of dumb, uh... guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, uh, guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don't matter, the second one you're kinda forced to deal with.

Coach Dale: Translate. That some sort of threat?

George: I don't know why Cletus drug your tired old bones in here, he musta owed you somethin' fierce. Fact is, mister, you start screwin' up this team, I'll personally hide-strap your ass to a pine rail and send you up the Monon Line!

[George angrily turns and storms out of the gym]

Coach Dale: Leave the ball, will you, George? [to himself] OK, let's see what kind of hand I've been dealt.

Coach Dale: [as Rade gets up to check in the first game after Merle fouls out, even though Coach Dale has benched him] Where are you going? [Rade, puzzled, looks at him] Sit down.

Rade Butcher: You gotta have five out there!

Coach Dale: Sit... down.

Referee: You need one more, coach.

Coach Dale: My team is on the floor.

Myra Fleener: A man your age comes to a place like this, either he's running away from something or he has nowhere else to go.

Coach Dale: What I'm doing here has nothing to do with you.

Myra Fleener: Just stay away from Jimmy. I don't want him coaching in Hickory when he's fifty.

Myra Fleener: [about Jimmy Chitwood] You know, a basketball hero around here is treated like a god, er, uh, how can he ever find out what he can really do? I don't want this to be the high point of his life. I've seen them, the real sad ones. They sit around the rest of their lives talking about the glory days when they were seventeen years old.

Coach Dale: You know, most people would kill... to be treated like a god, just for a few moments.

Cast

• Gene Hackman - Coach Norman Dale
• Barbara Hershey - Myra Fleener
• Dennis Hopper - Shooter
• Sheb Wooley - Cletus
• Fern Persons - Opal Fleener
• Chelcie Ross - George
• Robert Swan - Rollin
• Michael O'Guinne - Rooster
• Brad Boyle - Whit Butcher
• Steve Hollar - Rade Butcher
• Brad Long - Buddy Walker
• David Neidorf - Everett Flatch
• Kent Poole - Merle Webb
• Wade Schenck - Ollie McClellan
• Scott Summers - Strap Purl
• Maris Valainis - Jimmy Chitwood