Motivational Sports Movies

As a sports fan, I have found inspiration and interest in uplifting sports movies.  As a former coach, I have used clips from certain movies in an attempt to inspire my team to do their best.  I’d like to share my insights here on three movies in particular that I have used for motivational purposes.

Although I am not the first or the last coach to use sports movies as inspiration, what makes my experience in this area rather unorthodox is that I may be the only one to ever do it in the non-sports arena.  My experience in coaching sports is limited to my one season as captain of my college intramural basketball team that infamously lost a game 63-2, as well as the time I took over as acting coach for one game for my church league softball team and lost 29-4.  Rather, my coaching background comes mainly from several years leading a Bible quizzing program for teens at church, plus three years as a high school academic team sponsor.  So, even though I did not use these movies as the coach of a sports team, I figured the lessons and inspiration that can be gained from them would still translate.

It would be this time of year when our Bible quiz team would either be at the annual national competition or cramming in the days leading up to it.  The fact that it would be at this time of year is what led me to think of this and write about it here.  So, naturally, it would be at this time of year when I would spend valuable practice time that I could have spent helping them study, or on practice questions, that I would spend showing them one of the following clips from the following movies:

My 15 Minutes of Sports Fame

For a brief period in 2002, I became a minor celebrity in the world of sports.   The fame was extremely short-lived, and perhaps the word “fame” is a bit of an overstatement, but I got my moment in the sun.  And I owe it all to ESPN and to hockey star Vincent Lecavalier.