When the high school basketball playoffs begin every winter, coaches all over the country try to inspire their teams by watching the movie “Hoosiers” together.

The story of a plucky small-town basketball team pulling off a series of upsets on its way to a state championship has been used as a motivational tool since it came out in the mid-1980s. As I wrote here around the beginning of the basketball season, it has its flaws, but it’s an entertaining flick.

The players coming together may be inspiring, but their leader is far from that. Head coach Norman Dale stumbles through the film and when you look at him over the course of it, he had barely anything to do with the team’s success. On the surface, you may see a guy doing his best to bring his team together, but in reality, you’re watching the actions of a madman.

The movie opens up with Norm driving through the cornfields of Indiana and he sees two kids shooting hoops at the side of a barn. He arrives at the local high school and stands in the hallway looking at the trophies that line the walls. The film seems pretty basic so far and he looks like any other coach you might see in a small town.

However in a manner of seconds, Norm’s charming personality shows through. A woman who works in the high school gives him directions to the principal’s office and tries to size him up in the hallway.

She’s skeptical, and with good reason, so she asks him questions about his past. Norm gets annoyed and asks why he’s being interviewed when he already has the job. He then takes a jab at small towns and their hospitality. So we’re already off to a good start with Norm.

It’s been 20 years since Norm and the principal have seen each other and the latter shows him around the school. They head to the gym, which the principal says can hold 800 fans. He also introduces Norm to the best player in town and one of the best in the state, Jimmy Chitwood.

Jimmy ignores him and Norm grumbles about how the town isn’t nice to him. You just got there, man. What did you expect? A parade?

When I moved to southern Illinois and to the Upper Peninsula, I met some good people right away, but a certain chunk of them kept their distance until they got to know me better. It’s how things work in a small town, but Norm doesn’t grasp that.

Now we get to the team’s first practice. Norm informs the team that he hasn’t coached in 12 years and it shows. He sets up furniture for the players to dribble around and forces them to do some grueling drills. He also refuses to have the team practice shooting and outlaws scrimmaging.

So right now, we have a guy who insists on wearing down the only five players he has and refuses to put forth any practice time toward actually putting the ball in the hoop. Old Norm is on a roll right now.

Norm decides to go one step further and attempts to talk to Jimmy, who loves basketball, but doesn’t want to play for the team. You’d think he’d try to connect with the kid and try to understand what he’s going through. Instead, he tells him that he doesn’t care if he’s on the team or not as if Jimmy is nothing special. Norm also ignores the fact that during this entire conversation, Jimmy doesn’t miss a shot.

Norm’s shenanigans start to reach their peak during the team’s first game. Before the game, Norm tells the team that they must pass the ball four times before they shoot. It doesn’t matter if they have a wide-open look at the basket, they must pass it four times. The team falls behind early and turns the ball over as they make pointless passes instead of moving to the hoop.

The fans are upset and even the principal is having doubts about Norm’s abilities. Eventually the players get fed up and one of them ignores Norm’s plan and starts knocking down jumpers. Norm benches the player and when one of the other kids fouls out, he refuses to put the benchwarmer back in the game.

So the team is now playing with four players simply because Norm is a stubborn jerk. After the game, he praises the four players that played but continues to say that what he says is the law. Norm, your law has just been deemed unconstitutional as the fans, your friend, and now your players think you’re whacked out of your gourd.

Now that he has lost the support of virtually everyone, you’d think Norm would stop and re-evaluate what he’s doing. Well you’d be wrong as Norm then tries his hand at being an amateur Alcoholics Anonymous counselor.

He asks one of the boys’ alcoholic fathers, Shooter, if he’d be his assistant coach, but insists that he’s sober and it doesn’t go over well. It seems like Norm’s heart is in the right place, but he’s going about this all wrong.

Norm is soon after told that there is a petition for him to be removed as coach, but he wants to prove them wrong at the next game. At that game, Norm gets ejected, which puts the nail in his coffin.

The woman we met at the beginning is Jimmy’s guardian and confronts Norm with his past where he punched one of his players in the face. As a result, he got banned from his college, the NCAA and from coaching high school in New York.

At the meeting, Norm is removed as coach, but refuses to apologize for his idiocy. However, he’s saved by Jimmy, who says he’ll play as long as Norm stays. The town then revotes and Norm is back in.

By the end of the movie, the team is in the state finals and is getting blown out early. Norm calls timeout but provides zero guidance for his team. As a result, one of the kids comes up with a plan to fix things. Norm is nothing more than a talking fencepost at this point.

The team comes back to tie the game and get the ball with 19 seconds left. Will Norm step up and call the winning play? Of course not!

He decides to take the ball away from Jimmy and use him as a decoy. The players shake their heads and roll their eyes at Norm. Jimmy finally says that he’ll make the shot and Norm changes the plan. Sure enough, Jimmy hits the jumper, the team wins and the crowd rushes the court.

So let’s recap Norm’s antics. He acts smug when arriving in town, doesn’t believe in practicing shooting, doesn’t try to reach out to one of the best players in the state, comes up with a bizarre game plan, thinks it’s fine to play with four players, fails at helping an alcoholic, gets ejected a few times, struggles to coach during the state championship and almost blows it in the end.

This is all after previously slugging one of his players, which he still doesn’t feel bad about. All in all, Norm is an inept version of Bob Knight.

So coaches, when you show “Hoosiers” to your players, make sure that they focus on the kids and how they overcome their multiple obstacles and not how their coach almost messed up everything.

And when you get on the sidelines, be ready to perform and don’t be like Norm.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.