Interpersonal
Communication
Analysis of Coach Carter
Dani Qualls
To understand the communicative behaviors that take place between the Richmond Oilers
basketball team and their coach, one must first be familiar with the concept that, when people are placed
in a team setting the thoughts and actions produced can be considered a single idea, though from
multiple sources. It is this team psychology that will be considered when reviewing the interpersonal
communication that takes place in this film. The basketball team will be considered a single identity with
singular thoughts and reactions. The ultimate result of the communication between Coach Carter (herein
referred to as “coach”) and the team will be that this group of boys will become a team of men. Coach is
the single idea that can change a mind--the single viral worm that can infest ignorance and develop the
thirst for knowledge. The idea that these boys can be more than just high school basketball players with no
future is the truth that coach brings and establishes. This would not be possible without effective (and
sometimes rough) communication.
The introduction to the film finds what the watcher is led to believe is an upstanding and proud
man invited to lead a discouraged and disrespectful group of teen boys. These boys have lived their whole
lives given little and expecting little of their own futures. The part of town that they live in is filled with people
that believe that because they came from nothing, they could never be anything else but nothing. The
coach is brought into this situation expected to build the basketball team to win, and nothing more,
because there is nothing more that can become of these boys.
Being a strong and motivated character with a background similar to that of this team, coach
takes it upon himself to develop the team to be more than players. He wants to them become “student
athletes” with an emphasis on the “student”. He presents the team with what seem to be outlandish
requirements in order to play. The team begins their relationship as disrespectful, inattentive and entitled.
They take offense at the request of the coach and insist that they will graduate based solely on the fact
that the other teachers love basketball and will pass them through. For this reason, they are unwilling to
work, and are reluctant to give coach the respect that he feels he has earned in his experiences. The
parents, having lived in the ‘ghettos’ their whole lives, and also believing that there is no future for their kids
besides basketball, take immediate guard against the regulations. This ultimately will cause the team to fail
to uphold the standards required.
On more than one occasion, the team loses members. These team mates are the ones that are
unwilling to cooperate with the new organization. Inevitably, these players will experience, or be reminded
of, life lessons outside of the team that cause them to realize the opportunity that coach is presenting to
them. As these members leave and return, the rest of the team begins to see the importance of what they
are doing and the things they are learning.
As the struggles of the team begin to be exchanged for a winning streak, a certain respect begins
to develop from the team to coach. However, this respect is merely that of a proud team that thinks they
can do no wrong. In the back ground we will find that the students have not been upholding the
contractual obligations put in place to be eligible to play.
After the team wins the regional tournament, coach discovers the depth (or lack of depth) of the
respect that his team has for him when he finds them drunk at a celebration party far from the hotel. This
causes him to realize how little his team has actually learned, and embraced, about his teachings.
In response to the celebration, and also upon discovery of the poor or failing grades of the team,
coach locks the gym doors and requires all students to attend tutoring during practice time until all grades
have met the required minimum. Rather than let the few students that do have the necessary GPA play,
coach chooses to treat the situation as a team problem. Due to the dynamics of the team as a whole, this
is the more productive route to take. The team will find that helping each other to reach their potential will
translate to the court, and to life.
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When the school board learned of the lockout, they held a meeting with the parents to determine
whether or not it should continue. Upon a vote of 4-2 in favor, the lock out was cancelled and the
basketball team was told to return to the gym. This event proved to coach exactly what he feared from
the beginning. The students on his team were being set up to fail. The adults in their lives were willing to turn
a blind eye to their potential in exchange for letting them do “the one thing they’re good at”. For this
reason, coach decided he would be more useful elsewhere and resigned.
At this climactic finale to our story we learn how deeply the true and new respect runs; the respect
that coach developed through the trivial lock out period. As he enters the gym to pack his belongings, he
finds all of his team members and their tutors sitting in school desks at the center of the gym. They have
decided that they will do what is right by coach, because all along he has fought to do what is right by
them. They as a team have finally realized all that coach was striving for on their behalf, and will return the
favor by doing what is right by themselves, for themselves.
Throughout the movie coach asks his team what their biggest fear is. When the team finally realizes
all that coach has instilled in them, one member responds eloquently “Our deepest fear is not that we are
inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that
most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in
some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates
others.”
Coach treated the team like a group of men, and that’s what they became. The team treated
coach like a foreigner with ideas that could never take, but because coach stood his ground and believed
in what he taught, he broke through. The basis of good communication is passion--passion in the speaker,
and the listener. If either party doesn’t care about what is being said, or why, communication will be one
ended. Although the team didn’t feel they should be subject to the new boundaries and requirements set
down, because they loved the game, they listened and they learned. Because coach had unwavering
faith, he was able to feed the fire that turned boys into men.
“You said we're a team. One person struggles, we all struggle. One person triumphs, we all
triumph”
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