Killer story, perfect job by Costner, bad movie, I liked it a lot. Go figure. Macfarland is a small California town that dominated in cross-country under the tutelage of a former football coach who figured out how to coach running on his own.
I’m not sure how much of this is true. It feels like a big chunk of it is because many members of the team’s cross-country team seem to have participated in the movie, if the ending credits are any indication. They rolled through parallel videos of actor/real person for almost all of the characters and it made it feel somewhat authentic.
I’m only marginally interested in the reality of it all, I just lapped up the story with Gail, her mom, and my bro-in-law on a cold winter Saturday at the Lake Theatre in Oak Park.