In 1987, football coach Jim White was expelled from school because he accidentally injured a player in anger. In order to make a living, he had to move his family to McFarlane, the poorest town in Southern California, because he could only find a job in a middle school in this small town.
This is an agricultural town dominated by Hispanics. Most of the residents in the town are farmers and long-term workers who rely on picking strawberries, cabbage and other crops for their livelihoods.
What he didn't know was that this small town had undergone tremendous changes because of his arrival.
The children in McFarlane Town seem to be destined from the moment they are born:
When I was 10 years old, I started to help my family pick strawberries. I started to get up at 4:30 in the morning to go to the farm when I was 13 years old. They come from farmland and continue to work in farmland after graduation, unless arrested.
To make matters worse, the parents are poor, have little knowledge, and do not pay attention to education.
If Jim did not come to this place, these teenagers would continue the lives of their ancestors.
And what Jim experienced in this small town was put on the big screen by director Nikki Kahlo in 2015, starring Kevin Costner, and the title of the film is "McFarlane".
The conditions in the town are really poor, food, lodging, and transportation can’t be compared with the previous cities. From the moment he stepped into the town, Jim only thought about how to leave this terrible place. He really couldn’t bear to let his wife and two daughters. Suffer with him.
When he first arrived in the town, he discovered the talents of the students for long-distance running.
In order not to waste the talents of these children, and to find something to do for himself, Jim formed a seven-man cross-country team in an attempt to change the status quo through long-distance running competitions.
In this way, a non-professional coach, a group of teenagers who have never participated in a cross-country competition, through arduous training, became the champion of the California cross-country competition, and won the supreme honor for themselves and McFarlane.
In the movie "Forrest Gump", running is the only way out for A-Gump. He outperformed his little prankster riding a bicycle, outperformed his peers who humiliated him by driving a car, and ran to become a rugby player. The opponent who wins the eye-catching situation becomes an All-Star player. He continued to run, through the haze and rain on the battlefield, through the cruel rain of guns and bullets.
For coach Jim and the teenagers of the cross-country team, running and winning the game are their only way out.
However, the teenagers did not understand at first.
Thomas, the best runner, said, We run over and over again, and then? Our lives will not change because of this, and we will still be farm pickers tomorrow.
Residents in the small town think so too. Running is useless and reading is useless. It is better to drop out of school and go home to help the family with work.
But Jim did not give up. He led the team to participate in the competition, sowed them the fire of hope, took them to see the sea, to see other possibilities in the world, he personally participated in the hard work of picking, to understand the lives of the residents of the town, Understand the daily life of teenagers.
The more he knew, the more moved he was. He found that the residents of the small town were not stupid and stubborn. They knew how to be grateful, they knew how to organize fund-raising activities and donate uniforms and sneakers for the cross-country team. They held an adult ceremony with Indian characteristics for Jim's eldest daughter, allowing the Jim family to fully integrate into the town.
They will use the whole town to go to the state to cheer for the contestants. The grocery store that has never had a day off in 25 years will also close on this day and go to California. The team behind the school bus is exciting, just like "The World In "The Fastest Indian Motorcycle", when the male protagonist leaves his hometown to compete in the United States, all the young riders ride on motorcycles to escort him off.
What McFarlane lacks is just an opportunity for change, as the author Han Songluo said, "We believe that everything needs an opportunity, and we call this fate."
Running gives the teenagers the opportunity to choose. Jim said, you can study crop science, viticulture, agroecology, crop cultivation and farming, etc. After you finish your studies, you can return to your hometown to benefit the town. The university, which is an hour’s drive away, can help parents harvest on weekends.
The most impressive scene happened before the finals. Seeing excellent players from various places, everyone was very nervous. The slowest chubby Danny vomited nervously. Jim said to everyone, "Look around, you have gathered the best players in California, but they They didn't experience everything you experienced. They didn't get up to work in the fields like you did at half past four. They didn't go back to work after class. In addition to harsh training, you also endured more pain. They didn't have all of this. You endure the pain just to come here and give it a go."
Such words ignited everyone and made the teenagers, especially Danny, turned on and off at the last moment and ran the best results.
One of the teenagers grew up and became a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote in his composition at the time:
When we run, it seems to be the ruler of the earth, the earth is ours, we can understand bird language, we are no longer immigrants, no longer stupid Mexicans. When we run, the soul seems to fly into the sky and talk to the gods. When we run, we are gods.
All of this infected coach Jim and his family, and finally made Jim give up the attractive high-paying position and stay in McFarlane.
Yes, Coach Jim still lives in McFarlane.
In the fourteen years since the cross-country team won the state championship, McFarland Middle School won nine state championships in sports. Jim has guided each team. He has led students to participate in competitions all over the world, including the United States, Europe, and Asia. This film is adapted from his real experience in McFarlane.
None of the relatives and friends of the seven teenagers of the cross country team finished junior high school, but all seven of them were admitted to the university. After seeing the wind, rain and rainbow in the outside world, they chose to return to McFarlane to serve their home town and pass on hope, just like Coach Jim did.
Once I talked to a friend about this movie, I asked why long-distance running and sports changed this poor town? Instead of industry or technology?
My friend replied to me with a passage from the economist He Fan. The essence of sports is to create one after another dramatic game, one after another epic legend, in the time span of one generation or even several generations. Characters, creating a series of spiritual totems. In the end, these spiritual totems spread to everyone across race, culture, age, and gender, and changed the spiritual core of the people in the town.
View more about McFarland, USA reviews
