Hoosiers Film Adaptation
The movie Hoosiers was a great story that dealt with many of the topics covered in our readings for this week. The story is about a small-town Indiana basketball team that overcomes many challenges to win the state championship. The main character of the movie is Norman Dale, a passionate basketball coach that faces many obstacles in his attempt to teach his players about the benefits of working together as a team. The movie dealt with many team oriented topics such as team development, interdependence, group cohesiveness, intergroup problems, and confrontation. The movie begins with Dale making his way to the small town where he receives a very apprehensive welcome from a school staff member, the townspeople, and the basketball team. The small town and its people are very set in their ways and are reluctant to change. Coach Dale stirs things up by altering the way things are done with the team by using his version of team development. He makes his players practice without a ball and tries to teach them the importance of communication, setting goals, and the functioning of the group as one. His methods are met with criticism from both the players who are not accustomed to change, and the townspeople that held regular meeting to discuss the coach’s approach to the team. One of Coach Dale’s biggest lessons to his team involves interdependence. According to Brown (2011), “interdependence refers to situations where one person’s performance is contingent upon how someone else performs” (pg. 262). This was shown a few times during the movie. In one part when the team is down, they come out in the second half and one of the players decides to take it upon himself to not follow the coach’s rules and not work together. The coach quickly takes him out even though he is
