MovieChat Forums > McFarland, USA (2015) Discussion > Some thoughts on the film from an xcount...

Some thoughts on the film from an xcountry junkie

posted 9 years ago by Scott-101
8 replies | jump to latest

The coaches being that casually racist towards Hispanics was a little weird. It seems like the actors were given direction to appear a little snooty, but they overdid it with something malicious.

I like the idea that these dual meets would have absolutely zero spectators. I think even the most lame meet would still have a few parents there.

They could have made the running scenes slightly more exciting by perhaps yelling mile splits or so, or having a better sense of the numbers. Some cross-country meets have a guy on the PA system officiating, and they could have done that. Still, I was relatively impressed with the visual camera work.

MacFarland couldn't have possibly scored 104 points in the first meet. We saw one guy get like 3rd and another guy place in the top 10 in that scene.

For someone to do 16:30 at the start of the season is pretty darn impressive. It seemed based on their times they had to have run before.

I didn't understand what the goal of the squad was. They qualified in 4th for states, so why did they realistically think that they would come in 1st or make that their do-or-die goal? I thought a happy ending was that they got on the podium (generally a top 3 finish) and would go on to win it the next year. It's unrealistic to think that a group of runners with no base training the summer before could win states. Running is one of the more predictable sports there is. My coach used to always say balls can bounce any which way, but you can't dream as big of an upset in running, a 5 minute miler isn't suddenly going to beat a 4:30 miler.

I still don't get why the gang was upset with the coach at the state meet and then they all of a sudden were like "let's go, team!"

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[–] kelsiecknock 9 years ago

It's my understanding that only Thomas knew about coach White's job offer at the state finales and Thomes decided to not tel, the others so that they would have a good race. Which is probably why Thomas was the only guy from the team watching when the coach went and talked from the guy from Aplo Alto, while the other guys were celebrating the win,

[–] engeer 9 years ago

Was it realistic to think that they could win state? Maybe not. But reading the captions on the bottom of the screen just before the end credits apparently shows that they did just that.

[–] Scott-101 9 years ago

They did not do that.
They did it in his 7th yr as coach, meaning they had the summer to train:
http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/mcfarland-usa/

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Twitter @okonh0wp

[–] JayHysterio 8 years ago

No, you misread that...he was at the school in 1980, but didn't coach cross country until 1987. The program had been discontinued for a year (1986), he revived the program and they won state his first year.

Yes, it is plausible to win state that quick. Not knowing the exact makeup of the team, there could've been holdovers from 1984-1985 (freshman and sophomores) who would've been juniors and seniors in 1987, with a running background from 1984-1985.

Also, the runners certainly were undertrained heading into the 1987 season. Thus under proper training a huge improvement curve was certainly possible to the point where they peaked at the right time at state. I've seen it happen and been part of teams where it did happen.

[–] tgonzalessurveysshop 9 years ago

I didn't run crosscountry but a ran track. Racism was very obvious in certain areas. I lived in Traverse City MI and even in my school there were kids that had confederate flags on their jackets or scooted away from me in gym class as if I would rub off on them and this was in the 90s.
The point was they HAD run before they did it everyday of their lives. Remember Thomas could to a 5:00 minute mile. And running is predictable for someone that trained for it everyday but not so much for someone that jumps into in the middle. Believe me I know I never trained in middle school or 9th grade even I jumped into it in 10th grade. The jumps I made in long jump and sprinting with times were amazing phenomanal even especially in 10th grade because I needed a lot of training and wasn't yet peaked and only getting incremental improvements like most were. When I was in 11th grade a new school my coach did not know this and I trained myself and by the end of the season I was the fastest on the team nobody got it or new "where I came from" but I knew these kids had been on track since 6th grade and I had to peak still.
Agreed with being the top 3 would be more realistic but that is what I love about based on true stories. Sometimes real life can surprise you. They were state champions because they were in real life.

[–] Ghetto_Defendant 9 years ago

I ran in dual meets in the early 1980s in Central California and some of them had no spectators. Parents did try to make home races, but sometimes it was just the two or three coaches and the runners for an away race. Honestly, I thought the Palo Alto Invite seemed too small for an invitational and seemed like a quad meet or double dual. I also think the "talking smack" is probably untrue because runners tend to be chatty or just won't talk if they're nervous, but I've never once heard other runners say crap to each other. Not Palo Alto nor Palos Verdes runners, and I was from a poor county public school.

[–] JayHysterio 8 years ago

I've run and coached XC and I never saw anything overtly racist conveyed like that from a runner or a coach to a member of another team. Doesn't mean racism didn't exist or that it's ok to hide it, but I've never seen it.

I'm not so sure of the placing in that first meet. Assuming 4 teams/7 runners per team there would be a field of 28 runners. I know Thomas was in the top 3 heading into the hill, but the hill killed him and I thought he was the first McFarland finisher in around 10th and their #2 around 20th. If that's the case they could've placed 10th, 19th, 24th, 25th, 26th for 104 points.

[–] shoobe01-1 7 years ago

I lettered in XC and track, graduating in 1988. Lily white region, but the few hispanics, asians, blacks on the teams encountered no overt racism. Not saying there wasn't any, but not sneering coaches or elbowing people off the track or any such thing.

There were zero spectators. I remember literally none, at any event. I was never good enough to get to the Kansas Relays, or any such thing, but I hear those regionals had spectators.

I am sure of this, as I was injured for a season (hard cast from a stress fracture), but retained on the XC team, attended all meets and did timing, and video of key parts of the course. There was no one ever around I had to avoid.

Our HS had some money, but we had a cool big scoreboard on a tripod (like 4 ft wide) even for practices; It would have been a nice way to have some time tension for the movie. Something to look at.