This is a real time review of the newest Real Sports which debuts on a Monday night.
Reported by Mary Carillo, this is a profile of Indy Car Series driver Dario Franchitti, the Scotsman with the Italian name. He’s married to the gorgeous Ashley Judd. They’ve been married 7 years and he’s not so well known here in the States, however, he did win the Indianapolis 500 last year. This year, he’s going to the NASCAR circuit where he’ll debut at the Daytona 500 this month. A man who crashed quite a bit saw his mortality with the death of friend, Greg Moore. Wife, Ashley knows that this is a possibility, but she refuses to think about it.
One person who helped him was Grand Prix legend Jackie Stewart who helped him get sponsors in Scotland.
Dario met his wife on a blind date. Both didn’t know about the other career’s. We know that Ashley is a big Kentucky basketball fan, but she has become quite familiar with the racing world. Eight years after they met, they shared the great moment of him winning the Indy 500.
Mary asks him if he’ll be accepted by the conservative NASCAR dads, but Dario says we’ll find out. The learning curve going from Indy Cars to NASCAR will be difficult, especially in controlling the car.
At his house, he has several momentos including the helmet he wore when he crashed in Michigan last year. At the age of 34, Franchitti becomes a rookie again, but wife Ashley doesn’t doubt him at all.
Mary in the transition says Dario knows that he’s got to be really good to drive the car. And he knows he hasn’t been accepted with the NASCAR fans as of yet. He wants to succeed in NASCAR.
Grade – B minus. It’s ok. Not great. Not quite deserving of the first segment.
Reported by the great Andrea Kremer, this is about a community that practices polygamy. We start with a profile of Anne Blackwood of the El Capitan High School, located in Colorado City, AZ. The school has had difficulty playing against other schools precisely because of its polygamist practices. Anne says she loves her family, but she knows it’s different. She says it’s not weird, just different. The town was found in the 19th Century, breaking away from the Mormons.
Over the past century, the Colorado City has been isolated and has grown insular. One man, Jethro Barlow, says his town is made up of chosen people. The town basically cut itself off from the outside world due to the word of religious leader, Warren Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints.
Anne felt everything fun was taken away. Barlow was excommunicated from the church when he started to question Jeffs. He lost his wives and his children. In the meantime, you’re probably familiar with the story about Jeffs having sex with underaged children. Because of the notariety, the town closed itself even further.
But one woman stepped forward to bring the town into the 21st century. Natalie Giding brought art and sports into the high school. She was an outsider from Utah, but she wanted to bring things forward.
While some parents objected wanting to keep their kids covered up, and others wore spandex underneath, kids started to play organized sports. And then, they started to leave Colorado City to play other schools. But other schools didn’t want to play them. And they got teased by the students. Natalie says the kids can’t go 20 minutes without being teased. Plus, Natalie chose to be a polygamist herself despite growing up outside the community. Natalie doesn’t consider herself a criminal. And other schools found out El Capitan’s girls basketball team is good and is 15-2 this season even beating the defending school champions.
The Barlow clan is back together and the kids are playing basketball. Other parents are coming to grips about playing basketball with the outside world, but they understand. They know integrating with the outside is much better for Colorado City.
And back to Anne Blackwood, she’s glad the future looks bright. While the school doesn’t have a budget for sports, it’ll continue to press on. Plus, she doesn’t want to get married at 18, she wants to go to college.
This should have been the first segment. And Andrea always has solid features. Grade – A+.
Reported by Frank Deford, this story is about 77 year old Sister Madonna Buder of Spokane, WA. She’s been a nun since the age of 23. But when she’s not doing God’s work, she’s taking part in triathlons including the extremely tough Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. And she finishes it.
She feels she’s empowered. And she’s participated in 20 Ironmans, winning her age group 8 times and she’s made organizers create age groups just for Madonna. She looks great and it goes without saying, physically and mentally fit. She lives alone in Spokane for the last 15 years, but she’s a big presence at churches and in the community.
At the age of 14, she felt God call her. She lived in a privileged background in St. Louis. Despite the objections of her parents, she became a nun. Madonna didn’t even start exercising regularly until she was 50!
Her first big race was the Boston Marathon in 1982. Madonna’s fellow sisters in St. Louis wondered about her saying racing was not what nuns do. She then went to triathlons, dedicating each race to one person in need.
In one Ironman, she was not even close to the cutoff time of 17 hours, but she asked God to help her make it so that she knew that her nephew would die in peace. And she managed to finish one minute under the cutoff time. Amazing!
Madonna has to qualify just to enter the Ironman so she has to finish under a certain time at other triathlons. We see her crash her bicycle and suffer a fractured arm. Madonna also says she hurt her hip once. Frank asked her if she thinks it’s crazy to do it. She says no.
But a few months later, Sister Madonna was back at the Ironman, dedicating a race to a close friend who was dying.
Before the race, she’s calming down other people. But she has trouble in the bicycle part of the triathlon. She can’t keep food or water down, but she pushes on. After 8 hours and 112 miles, she misses the cutoff time for the marathon by 30 seconds.
In the meantime, her fellow nuns in St. Louis wish she would stop racing. But Madonna says she’ll know when it’s time. Good for her.
She wants to continue racing at 80 to create another age group. I like her. Keep it up, sister!
This also should have been before Dario. Grade – A+.
An update from seven years ago and reported by Mary Carillo. Pat is the most successful coach in women’s basketball. Back then, she was in the midst of a championship drought. When HBO first did the segment, we saw Pat’s intense stare at her players. The will to win consumes Summit. Looking for an edge, she will go to no end to find one. She thought she found a lucky charm at the Atlanta Airport, a penny stuck in the ground and she kept getting it out until she got and Tennessee went 39-0 that season.
Pat’s father was tough on her on her family farm growing up. She said her parents made her pick her own switch to beat her. But her father says she ended up tougher than her brothers. By the time she was 18, she was a budding basketball star. But she couldn’t get the love fro
m her dad.
At 22, she was got her first coaching job. It took 13 years to get her first National Championship, but since then, she’s got several. But she also got criticism for being too tough. It took a picture in a newspaper where she was literally dressing down one of her players to decide to change her approach. Center Michelle Snow wanted to dunk the basketball during one game and Pat originally objected, but the coach allowed it.
And she has her team practices against men just as she did. Plus, she requires perfect attendance in class from her players. Finally, at age 43, she got the love from her father that she had been wanting. He gave her a big bear hug and told her he loved her.
Since the 7 years that HBO first profiled, she’s won 2 National Championships including one last season and her father died in 2005. And Pat has loosened up thanks to men’s coach Bruce Pearl. Instead of trying to compete with her, Bruce decided to win her over.
He painted himself orange and went into the student section at one of her games. And she dressed like a cheerleader and sang “Rocky Top” at one of his games.
Coach wants to win back-to-back championships this season. Grade – A.
Final Segment – Bryant’s last words
“Finally tonight, a few words about flattery. Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state and notorious self-promoter, once observed that: ‘Those who say flattery doesn’t work have never had it practiced on them’.
“That quote would seem to have registered with Roger Clemens, who, facing congressional hearings this week into his alleged steroid use, suddenly became civic minded last week, and made a number of personal house calls on Capitol Hill. Given Clemens’ well-earned reputation for surliness, his transparent charm offensive was to many … exactly that. Aside from the obvious question about why elected officials would consent to meet with a freshly deposed witness in advance of his testimony, you’ve also got to wonder just how much Roger’s shameless slurping may have compromised the objectivity of those slated to question him.
“Following some face time with the accused, one California Republican came away gushing about how much Clemens was the kind of guy you’d want as a neighbor. Since neither party has a monopoly on bad judgment, a Democratic congressman from Brooklyn named Edolphus Towns, all but fell at Clemens’ feet. Parroting the pitcher’s defense after their meeting, Towns claimed his half hour personal visit had made him a believer in Clemens’ character.
“Now I obviously have no idea if Roger Clemens is guilty of that which he is accused. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. But you do have to wonder why someone who’ll be under oath and claims he’s innocent would engage in what looks like the political equivalent of jury tampering to try to influence his reception before a House committee. You could argue it’s good insurance. Or you could conclude that on the heels of an interview, a press conference, a taped phone call and a deposition…he doth protest too much.”
Great words by Bryant. Grade – A+++.
Overall grade – Solid A. Another worthwhile effort by Real Sports, but Dario’s segment was definitely the weakest.
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