In Honor of Jimmy

Thanks to (once again) the vigilant commenter Mullet Man, You Never Can Tell with Bees now possesses another exclusive photo.

Remember impressionable youths: if you want to get your way, all you have to do is whine hard enough.

Hoosiers is one of the few truly great sports movies. And that’s just a nice way of saying that most sports movies are crap.

They’re crap because it’s difficult to rise above cliché.

Your typical sports movie involves a group loser misfits, who end up getting coached by some guy (or chick, if it’s really going out on a limb) looking for a second chance. One player on the team tries to woo a lady, who informs him that she doesn’t go out with his particular brand of athlete, or, if the player is in high school, he has an alcoholic father.

The group dislikes each other at first, but comes together as a team under the odd, yet effective lessons of the coach. The movie ends with the Big Game against an evil team—most often a team that demolished the misfits earlier. If the movie is aimed at children, the evil team must cheat constantly. If it is aimed at adults, the cheating is merely hinted at.

There is always one exceptional player, who, for whatever reason, chooses to play with the misfits, but he may not necessarily win the Big Game for his team. For instance, if the movie is a sports comedy, it is perfectly acceptable for the fat player to win the game.

And, of course, if the movie really wants to throw in a dramatic twist, the team will barely lose the Big Game, but will have learned far more important life lessons along the way. It will end either with a team photo, or a montage of what “happened” to all the athletes.

Hoosiers is different, though.

Hoosiers involves a bunch of misfits with a second chance coach. An alcoholic father is redeemed, the misfits win the big game, and the movie end with a photo of the team.

You see? You see?

Shut up.

(Other good ones: Miracle and, to a lesser extent, Friday Night Lights. All others are crap. No exceptions. Ok, maybe The Natural. But that’s it. I swear.)