Thinking, before the game, about ‘Plump’s Last Shot’ and the all-time best sports movie ever

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hoosiers

As I’ve mentioned before (in a fairly well-written if I do say so, but little engaged, post), “Hoosiers” resides at the very top of my Top Five Best Sports Movies Ever.

And tonight, we get to watch a real-life evocation of that epic:

INDIANAPOLIS — You can’t get away from “Hoosiers” out here. If it’s not Hinkle Fieldhouse becoming Indianapolis’ leading tourist attraction, it’s Butler playing Hickory High to Duke’s South Bend Central in tonight’s NCAA championship game.

I keep thinking I’m going to look up and Brad Stevens’ choirboy face will be replaced by Gene Hackman’s weathered mug.

But it’s just not on the court(s) that you can catch remnants of the famous 1986 film about the greatest upset in Indiana prep history.

Remember Jimmy Chitwood, the Hickory High boy who made the last-second shot to beat South Bend Central? He was the fictional character representing Bobby Plump, whose buzzer-beater led tiny Milan High over powerhouse Muncie Central in the 1954 one-class Indiana title game. Oh, it was played at Hinkle.

Well, Plump now owns a bar in Indianapolis. Guess the title: Plump’s Last Shot.

The only more aptly named bar I’ve ever seen is the one on Colorado, near Rose Medical Center: The Recovery Room…

Plump, 72, never tires of talking about the right elbow jump shot that is more famous now than it was then. When Butler knocked off Michigan State in the semifinals Saturday, I had to make a pilgrimage to the bar the next day…

I admit I’ve ignored this NCAA tournament up until now, because I didn’t get my bracket turned in on time. If I’m not literally invested in it, I can’t get interested. (This is the outgrowth of the time, about 20 years ago, when Charlie Pope talked me into filling out a bracket just so he could get my dollar. Even though I knew absolutely nothing about the teams that year, even though I was too dumb and naive even to look at how they were seeded, I won the pool, much to Charlie’s consternation. That sort of got me hooked on betting on the tourney, on the theory that when I do it, it’s not gambling — not that anyone at The State newspaper would ever actually organize anything so unsavory, heaven forbid.)

But I’m interested in this one, for two reasons:

  1. I always bet on Duke (that’s how I won that one year; nobody thought they’d make it but me), except for the year that I bet on my alma mater Memphis, and they came in second.
  2. The Hoosiers/Milan/Chitwood/Plump/Butler angle.

I’m thinking about going to watch it at Yesterday’s so I can see it in HD and drink beer at the same time, Lent being over. But I haven’t decided if I want to stay downtown that late on a school night. If I’m there, and if you’re there, I’ll see you…

One thought on “Thinking, before the game, about ‘Plump’s Last Shot’ and the all-time best sports movie ever”

  1. Brad Warthen

    By the way, to repeat my Top Five List:

    1. Hoosiers (1986) – This just has it all – the more or less obligatory underdog storyline, the nostalgia, Gene Hackman (in his best role ever), Dennis Hopper (ditto, and then some – he’s the best thing in it), Barbara Hershey (and not a seagull in sight), and a team of non-actors who succeed as no actors could in making the action more real than real. You may surmise I have a particular affinity for a story about a fiftyish coach in need of professional and personal redemption (starting with a job). And yet, I was first impressed with that theme 24 years ago, and even then there was a personal identification. And I suppose we could have a long discussion about the difference between White Ball and Black Ball, and the nostalgic pleasure that a gray-haired White Guy might get from watching some basketball from back in the days when traveling was still against the rules, and everybody wore black Chuck Taylors. But beyond all that, just an awesome flick. And don’t forget, it’s based (loosely) on a true story.
    2. Rocky (1976) – When this came out, it was the first new film I could remember as plain and simple and sincere as this. And there’s been little to touch it since. This is like a plain granite block of a movie – the basic, unadorned stuff from which all good movies that touch the heart are made.
    3. The Natural (1984) – Thank goodness they went all Hollywood on this one, and slathered on the gauzy sentimentality, because it was exactly what this story needed. In Malamud’s novel Roy Hobbes was a brutish antihero, a case of natural talent invested in an unworthy creature, not a guy you particularly wanted to see succeed (and he didn’t, by the way; the ending leaves you feeling dead and empty inside). Redford’s frayed farmboy stoicism, modified only by a tendency to get misty-eyed and lyrical on the subject of baseball, worked perfectly. The ultimate baseball movie, when you’re feeling reverential about the game (when you’re feeling less so, go with “Major League”). Favorite little slice of life: Pop and Red in the dugout during practice, trying to stump each other with “Name that Tune.”
    4. Vision Quest (1985) – As a former high school wrestler myself, I can attest this is THE definitive high school wrestling movie. OK, there isn’t a lot of competition, but that just makes me grateful that when Hollywood made this one attempt, they got it right. Matthew Modine perfectly expresses the awkwardness of being an intelligent, introspective young guy trying to figure out life (favorite example: – he’s trying to impress the girl by complimenting her musical taste and when she says it’s Vivaldi, he says, “Yeah, Vivaldi – he’s great” in a way that utterly fails to convince that he’s ever heard of the guy. Another: He confides to his teacher that he thinks he’s suffering from priapism. Also, before I let you out of this parenthetical, the scenes shooting the bull with Elmo the dishwasher are gems.), and while “coming of age movies” constitute one of Hollywood’s most overworked genres, this is possibly the best such attempt ever. While there was never any danger of my becoming state champ and I never had a hot 21-year-old semi-bohemian chick come to live with me when I was in high school, this feels like what life was like at that age.
    5. Chariots of Fire (1981) – Just thought I’d throw in a posh, arty, nonAmerican film to round out the five. Not that this one doesn’t deserve the honor. Like all good sports flicks, it displays what is best about sport, in terms of its capacity to lift the human spirit (as Elmo explained to Loudon in the clip linked above). Favorite scene – the quiet little homily Eric Liddel offers in the rain after a race, which is as powerful an expression of faith as you’re likely to find in a major Hollywood movie.
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