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The Daily Tar HeelThursday, June 28, 19907A
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Track camp attracts
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Coach Charles Foster works with 15
What to do,
It's the middle of the summer. It is
too hot to play your favorite sport out
side without burning your skin off. Since
the dorms still do not have cable, the
live TV action is non-existent. What's a
bored sports fan to do?
Ah! The VCR looks quite inviting. If
you can't play or watch sports for real,
then let Hollywood conjure up some
bigger-than-life script to take away the
summer doldrums. Yeah, that's the
ticket.
Now, the next step is to actually pick
a tape. Since this is a new experience for
most fans, a guide to the best sports
films of all time is needed. Since it is
summer, baseball flicks are quite ap
propriate. Therefore, the top 10 list is
full on the national pastime.
As Casey would say, back to. the
countdown.
1 0. Sport Goofy (1 94 1 -1 949) - Don't
laugh too hard at this selection. Goofy
provides plenty of chuckles for the old
funny bone in this series of Disney
cartoons. The most popular were
"Double Dribble", "Goofy Gymnas
tics", and "How to Play Football."
For anyone who has ever tried and
failed to make the team, Goofy puts it
all back into perspective. Where else
would you come up with an extra point
attempt that is deflated by the halftime
gun and lands right in the middle of the
goal post to add .5 to your score? Not in
today's cartoons.
9. Bad News Bears (1976) - The
classic little league flick. At some point
in time, every dad has wanted his son to
strike out the batter or knock one over
the fence. Walter Mathau plays an ex
minor league drunk who comes back to
lead a scraggly bunch of little-leaguers
to the championship game. In the pro
cess, the kids learn a little about life
including that it's OK if a girl (Tatum
O'Neal) is your ace pitcher.
8. Rocky II ( 1 979) - This was the only
sequel that was worth anything. Every
one knows the story. Rocky Balboa
ersity
and
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what to do,
John VonCannon
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(Sylvester Stallone) comes back de
spite doctor's orders for a rematch
against Apollo Creed. Of course, our
hero becomes the heavyweight cham
pion of the world. The most memorable
scene is Rocky's run through Philadel
phia with all of the kids trying to keep
up.
7. Victory (1981) - The only soccer
film of the bunch. While the plot is
hardly original, the movie is still quite
inspiring. Michael Caine turns a group
of Nazi prisoners into a respectable
soccer team. Stallone plays an Ameri
can who thinks he is playing football
but makes the team nevertheless.
Pele, probably the biggest name in
soccer history, shows why he has earned
that reputation. His skills with a soccer
ball were marvelous to watch during the
practice and game scenes. The end is
also moving as the stadium crowd helps
the team escape from the Nazis.
6. Eight Men Out ( 1 988) - Based on
the book by Eliot Asinof, the Black Sox
scandal of 1919 is recreated by Charlie
Sheen and Christopher Lloyd among
others. Perhaps the most noticeable point
in the film is the attention given to
detail. The viewer feels like he is back
in 1919 with the old baseball uniforms
and ballfields.
The book is also a must-read. Asinof
really feels sympathy for the players as
do many baseball historians these days.
The final scene shows an overweight
Joe Jackson playing for a minor league
team in North Carolina years after the
suspension.
5. Hoosiers (1986) - Basketball
movies are few and far between, but this
one grabs the heart from the very be
ginning. Gene Hackman plays a coach
who leads the local high school team to
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athletes eager to learn from UNC team
By A.J. BROWN
Staff Writer
For nine months of the year, Chapel
Hill is the ultimate college town, with
students from all over the country and
the world providing a unique cultural
diversity that enhances each student's
education. But for those other three
months, this intellectual hub is trans
formed into a village of pre-teen and
adolescent noisemakers who flock to
the University to participate in the
various sports camps sponsored by UNC
athletic teams.
About 40 of those youths came last
week to the camp sponsored by UNC's
track and field team and directed by
Dennis Craddock. The six-day program,
in its third year, attracted potential
collegiate tracksters from Virginia,
North and South Carolina and Georgia.
The camp is open to athletes from
elementary to high school seniors.
Charles Foster, UNC sprint and hurdles
coach and director of camp operations,
said he sends pamphlets and brochures
advertising to high schools up and down
the Eastern Seaboard.
"We try to encourage coaches and
parents to send their kids to our camp as
early as possible," Foster said. "We
work with athletes from the sub-novice
level to those with full-scholarship po
tential," he said.
UNC's program is unusual because
collegiate athletes also work with
campers, Foster said. This year, sprinters
Kendra Mackey and Reggie Harris, high
jumper William Darity and triple and
long jumpers Sharon Couch and Penny
Blackwell helped with the camp.
go outside
the Indiana state championship.
However, everything is not a bed of
roses. The local townsfolk have prob
lems with his coaching methods. At one
point, the team plays with only four
players because one player is riding the
bench for taking a shot too quickly.
The Chicago Bulls could learn
something from this film. When the
team was intimidated by playing in a
large arena, the coach has a player
measure the dimensions of the court.
The basket was still 10 feet from the
floor and the free throw line 15 feet
from the basket.
4. The Natural ( 1 984) - This plot has
been replayed many times on ballfields
all over America. However, it will never
be quite like the film.
The .Ail-American boy, Robert
Redford, is a baseball player who gets
his chance to finally to make it big in the
major leagues. His team is struggling
until the manager gives him a chance.
Of course, he knocks it out of the ballpark
in spectacular fashion.
The whole movie has a sense of magic
to it. The bat was made from a tree
knocked down by a lightning bolt. When
Redford falls for a women in Chicago,
he goes into a batting slump. The idea of
him even making it to the pros in his late
30' s is strange enough. Still, this makes
the film quite special.
3. Rocky (1976) - The standard by
which many sports films are judged.
Sylvester Stallone makes a name for
himself in this one. Even if you've seen
this one a million times, it is still worth
dragging out of the archives.
The scene that makes the movie is the
fight itself. When Rocky knocks Apollo
Creed to the floor in the first round, the
audience knows the fight will go the
distance. Though, that was Rocky's goal.
2. Field of Dreams ( 1 989) - Based on
the book Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella,
this film goes a step beyond "The
Natural." Just the sight of "Shoeless"
Joe Jackson standing in left field of a
Phone orders with major
credit card can be placed
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University Mall
942-0913
Foster said that the purpose of using
the athletes is to show the campers that
the members of UNC's track team are
not just taught to perform. They un
derstand their events well enough to
teach someone else the things that they
have learned from their coaches. He
said that aspect of the camp may be one
of the things that attracts the campers.
Amy Clark, a 15-year-old camper
from Huntersville, agreed.
"Coach Foster tells us a lot things
that will help us improve, but it's really
helpful to see athletes who can do ev
erything that he's telling us to do,"
Clark said. "Then, things don't seem so
hard."
William Crutchfield, a 16-year-old
camper from Pittsboro, came to camp
last year because Coach Foster said he
could show Crutchfield how to lower
his times in the 100- and 200-meter
dashes into the scholarship range.
"When you have an athlete like
Kendra (Mackey) or Reggie (Harris)
working with you, or a coach like Foster
who can do what he's telling you to do,
instead of showing you with a film, it
makes you think you can do it,"
Crutchfield said.
He said his performance improved as
a result. Last year, Crutchfield only
made it to the conference championship
meet, but he finished second in the
conference in the 200-meter dash and
fourth in the event at the sectionals, and
anchored three relay teams at the
regionals in 1990.
When she came to the camp a year
ago, Tiffany Everett was probably one
of the sub-novice athletes Foster talked
and burn or
A scene from
baseball field in the middle of Iowa
brings shivers up and down the spine of
any baseball fan.
Kevin Costner, along with James Earl
Jones, goes on a cross-country search
for the meaning of life. In the process,
baseball becomes a larger-than-life,
almost religious experience. The ending
is quite fascinating as a line of cars
stretching for miies waits to watch the
baseball's history unfold in the middle
of a cornfield.
1. Pride of the Yankees (1942) - No,
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"When you have an athlete like Kendra
Mackey or Reggie Harris working with
you, or a coach like Charles Foster, it
makes you think you can do it"
William Crutchfield, track camper
about. The 15-year-old Franklin, Va.,
native competes in the 100- and 300
meter hurdles, as well as in the three
jumping events for Franklin High
School. She said she has seen definite
improvement in her performance.
"When I came here last year, I was
going into my freshman year. I was
taking five steps between each hurdle.
Kim Austin worked with me and got me
down to running three steps between
them," Everett said.
Although Everett didn't place in the
state meet as a freshman, she finished
eighth in the 100-meter hurdles in the
meet this year. Aside from receiving
instruction from Coach Foster, Everett
said that she likes the personal contact
she gets with the current athletes.
"Sometimes, you just get tired of
hearing coaches telling you what to
do," she said. "Coach Foster is hard, but
he's good. And, it's fun to work with the
athletes because they probably used to
make the same mistakes some of us are
making," Everett said.
The athletes are equally enthusiastic
about working with the campers. Sha
ron Couch said she gets excited when a
watch a sports movie?
'Eight Men Out,' a top pick for summer
my favorite team isn't the Yankees, but
the story of Lou Gehrig is a remarkable
one. Played by Gary Cooper, Gehrig
rises from an immigrant family to be
come baseball's ironman. In the end, he
is struck down by an incurable spinal
disease which brings a sudden end to his
baseball career.
Two scenes are memorable. In the
first one, Babe Ruth (played by himself)
promises a crippled kid a home run in
the world series game that afternoon. In
front of all the photographers, the Sul
The fun begins at 8:00 pm with
specials on bowling and billiards,
free create-your-own ice cream
sundaes, and dancing in the Caba
ret. Shake it loose, cool it down,
and strike out!
Admission to Union Films is
FREE with UNC ID or Union
Privilege Card.
camper that she's instructing finally
begins to do the things she's telling her
to do with consistency. "It just makes
me happy to see them learning, and
from me, too," she said. "I think I want,
to be a track coach someday," Couch
said.
Mackey also said that working the
camp was exciting.
"It's exciting to work with them be
cause they're excited to be working
with a UNC athlete," she said. "It's
really a good feeling to work with them
because they want to learn," Mackey
said. She even admits seeing a little. bit
of herself in some of the campers.
Foster said camps like UNC's, as
well as other programs, can help stjr
interest in track and field across the
nation. He also works with the national
Track Athletics Congress' programme
develop athletes in many events for
future Olympics and international meets,
acting as hurdles chairman for the
Southeastern United States.
"Through our campers, I want to
leave a mark on the sport of track' and
field in this country," Foster said. He's
off to a good start.
sports videos
tan of Swat autographs a ball. Then ;
Gehrig sneaks in after everyone has ;
left, and the kid asks for two home runs.. ;
Gehrig says he will do it if the kid ;
promises to walk again someday. Of ;
course, both guys fulfill their promises. ;
At the end, the Yankees hold Lou ;
Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium. It is ;
here that Cooper gives Gehrig's famous ,
speech: 'Today, I consider myself the ,
luckiest man on the face of the earth." ;
This speech alone makes the movie a
classic.
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