The Street Buzz

Coach Carter Soundtrack features the song “Hope” by Twista and Faith Evans as the main song off the film’s soundtrack. An extensive list of songs is featured on the soundtrack which differs from the soundtrack recording. The recording has five songs which were not featured in the film : About da game by Trey Songz; Balla by Mack 10 featuring Da Hood; Beauty queen by CzarNok; What Love Can Do by Letoya; and Wouldn’t You Like to Ride, Kanye West; Malik Usef, Common.

Coach Carter is a 2005 film, directed by Thomas Carter. It is based on a true story, in which Richmond High School (Richmond, California, USA) head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.

At the start of the movie, Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) takes a part-time, low-paid ($1500 for the whole basketball season) job coaching the basketball team at his old high school, an inner-city public school in Richmond, California. At first, the boys are unruly and disrespectful. They also lost 22 games and only had 4 wins in the previous season.

Coach Carter sets strict new rules for the team — they must maintain a 2.3 grade point average (C+), they must attend classes and sit in the front row, and they must wear jackets and ties on game days. One of the boys, Timo Cruz (Rick Gonzalez), walks out of practice on the first day after an altercation with Carter. We later see Cruz hanging with his older, drug-dealing cousin.

Under Carter’s leadership, the team starts winning games. Carter’s son, Damien, a good student who attends the private school St. Francis and plays basketball there, quits the private school (against his dad’s wishes) and transfers to Richmond High School to play basketball on his dad’s team.

Another player, Kenyon (Rob Brown), has a pregnant girlfriend, Kyra (Ashanti) who has given up on her plans for college in favor of having the baby, even though she sees first-hand how that has gone for her cousin.

Cruz goes back and forth between dealing drugs and playing on the team, even though he has to fight his way back on the team. Carter challenges him with an impossible herculean task of 1000 suicides — a sprinting drill — and 2500 pushups in one week, and when he comes very close but not quite up to that number, the other boys impress Carter by offering to do the rest of the suicides and pushups for Cruz … so Carter lets Cruz back on the team.

Even though the boys are winning games, Carter eventually realizes that they are developing a bad attitude about it by being arrogant and taunting the other teams, and that many of them are not living up to his academic requirements, which is attending class and maintaining a 2.3 average.

Carter cracks down on them, even locking them out of the gym in the midst of an undefeated season. He cancels basketball practice, forfeiting some games, and makes the team spend the practice time in the library, being tutored by some of their teachers. All this going on leads to Cruz quitting the team a second time, and goes back to working for his drug-dealing cousin. One night, his cousin is shot on the sidewalk while Cruz is walking back to his cousin after greeting his friends from the team, but it was too late. Fortunately, Cruz ends up at Carter’s house that night; Carter brings Cruz into his house, lets him back on the team, and saves him from a future like his cousin’s.

Eventually, the school board and the parents fight back. The board eventually votes 4–2 to end the lockout, the dissenting votes being the school’s principal and the chairwoman of the board. Carter is on the verge of quitting over this, but when he arrives at the gym to pack up his things, he finds the boys sitting at school desks in the gym, with their teachers tutoring them there. Heartened by this, Carter stays.

Kenyon then gets a full scholarship to Sacramento State University. He goes to his girlfriend, with whom he’s been on the outs, and tells her the college even wants to help them, as married students with a baby. She tells him that she chose to abort the pregnancy. Regardless of that, they do get back together.

The team makes it into the state high-school championship playoffs. The big climactic game takes place at the state tournament against their arch-rivals; St. Francis. The score, with four seconds to go, is 68–67 Richmond. In the last possible second, St. Francis scores one last basket, taking the score to 70–68 St. Francis. The team is understandably disappointed by the loss, but Carter gives them an inspirational talk about all they’ve accomplished, and tells them that this loss doesn’t take that away.

Over the closing song, it is told that six of the players went on to college (this was a school at which only about 50% of students graduated, and only 6% of those who graduate usually went to college). Junior Battle went to San Jose State University on a full scholarship. Jason Lyle went to San Diego State University and got a degree in Business Administration. Timo Cruz attended Humboldt State University where he became a starting guard. Worm (whose real name is Jaron Willis) received a scholarship to San Francisco State University where he played point guard for 4 years. Kenyon Stone attended Sacramento State University and received a degree in Communications. Damien Carter went on to break the Richmond High School scoring and assist records previously held by his father. Upon graduation, he received a full scholarship to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

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