Word: spradlin
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Dates: during 1977-1977
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Benson, who doesn't even look like a jock, plays a heavily recruited high school hoop star who chooses fictional Western University in Los Angeles, a perennial basketball power. Any parallels to UCLA, it seems, are purely intentional. The coach, played by one W.D. Spradlin, even clutches a rolled-up program during games, a quirk college hoop fans will immediately recognize as the trademark of John Wooden, UCLA's fabled Wizard of Westwood...
...game. Of course, he goes absolutely wild, running around and jumping up and down like a madman while his teammates stand around and giggle helplessly. Benson is a fair actor, but his part doesn't demand all that much besides wide-eyed innocence, with an appropriate burst of emotion. Spradlin turns in a solid performance as the fiendish coach, and O'Toole is passable as the lover. The worst thing about the film is a pitiful score written by that misbegotten little nitwit, Paul Williams, and performed by those masters of Muzak, Seals and Crofts...
...without being cloying. As the "older woman"-a senior who is hired by the athletics department to tutor him-Annette O'Toole has the film's best tough talk to handle, and her verbal style contrasts piquantly with her fresh, natural good looks. Finally, there is G.D. Spradlin as the martinet coach to consider. He is not so much a molder of men as a stamp press, mean and implacable. The role may be overwritten, but Spradlin underplays it beautifully. It is no joke going one on one with him for possession of your own soul. The conflict...