Undefeated - 4 smiles

The Oscar-winning documentary “Undefeated,” chronicling a championship season, is a moving testament to resilience and determination amid staggering odds. Directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin provide an intimate look at a group of underprivileged African-American high school football players in north Memphis. Early in the film, former NFL player Aaron Hayden asks how many of the players have two parents who graduated from college. No hands are raised. But when he asks how many have had a close relative in jail, nearly every hand goes up. “You’ve got to think outside your circumstances,” Hayden tells them. “It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.” This is what volunteer coach Bill Courtney firmly believes. “Young men of character and discipline and commitment end up winning in life. Football doesn’t build character. Football reveals character,” Coach Bill says again and again.

Some of the players make powerful impressions. There’s O.C., the hulking left tackle, an easygoing senior who lives in a tiny house with his grandmother and sees football as a way out of Memphis. He’s received recruitment letters from various colleges, but his grades are low. Montrall, aka Money, plays right tackle. His father, who died when he was 13, emphasized education. And Money, who has a 3.8 GPA, is aware that although he’s usually outmanned physically on the football field and that he’s too small to play college ball, he’s tough mentally. Later in the season, Chavis Daniels joins the team, fresh from a year in juvenile prison. Chavis, who played as a freshman, wants to rejoin the team, but his anger problems has him lashing out at his teammates for trivial reasons. Coach Bill intercedes as mediator, therapist and sometimes enforcer. The directors deftly balance the students’ stories with that of the coach, who’s white. You quickly realize that what Courtney’s players care about, what makes them so fiercely loyal to him, is that this gruff, demanding, often foul-mouthed man, is a true teacher and mentor, one who really cares and is driven by a passion to make his players the best they can be, not only athletically but academically. By the end of the season, the players have revealed their depth of character. It’s impossible not to be moved by their struggles and accomplishments detailed in “Undefeated.”