Award-winning documentary transcends basketball
By Kathleen Grohman
The women's basketball team at Seattle's Roosevelt High School gets hyped for their game by their coach, Bill Resler, shouting, "Sink your teeth in their necks!" To which the girls respond, "DRAW BLOOD!" This is only a small picture of the intensity the award-winning documentary "The Heart of The Game" captures as it follows the Roosevelt High School basketball team for six seasons.
The communication department and Communication Honor Society put on a screening of the documentary in the TV studio of the Arts and Sciences Building and invited director Ward Serrill for a question and answer session after the film. About 40 people gathered in the TV studio -- including a local high school girls' basketball team -- for the event.
Serrill said he got involved with the team when he was working as an accountant. He met Resler, a tax professor and basketball coach, at a dinner at a friend's house and decided to start filming his team. Serrill did not know at the time just what he would capture.
"I went to the gym and saw all these girls bashing and crashing into each other and laughing," he said, describing his first day. He only intended to film one season, but the next year, the film's star entered the gym.
"I knew I had this great story when Darnellia came into the picture. Darnellia's story transcends basketball," he said.
It seems to be just this transcendence that has made this documentary so successful. "The Heart of the Game" has won over seven awards, including a tie with "An Inconvenient Truth" for Best Documentary at the Maui Film Festival.
One major question students wanted to know was how Serrill got Ludacris to be the narrator. After its showing at the Toronto International Film Festival, "The Heart of the Game" was picked up by Miramax, which allowed Serrill to get a big name for the narrator. He chose Ludacris because of his distinctive voice.
Serrill gladly answered technical questions from students in a documentary class about everything from what type of camera he used to how he recorded sound in a noisy gym. He planned to stick around and answer more technical questions the following day during their class.
The documentary begins when Resler adds the challenge of coaching the Roosevelt girls' basketball team to his teaching job. The team enjoys marked improvement with Resler as coach, winning their first game by 68 points. But the real story begins the next season when Resler coaxes reluctant prodigy Darnellia Russell to join the team as a freshman.
"I have been supremely lucky to meet Darnellia Russell. I've told her many times that Darnellia Russell is my only chance at being famous," Resler says in the film.
The documentary follows Russell through her struggles to play basketball and fulfill her dream of getting a college scholarship and become the first person in her family to get a college education.
Life is good as she names off a stack of letters from college recruiters -- including one from Santa Clara. But once she gets pregnant, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association tries to bar her from playing, and the story jumps from the basketball court to the courtroom.
The story unfolds amidst gut-wrenchingly close games, victories and losses, and even captures the highs and lows of growing up.
It is surprisingly funny as Resler encourages the girls to think of themselves as a pack of wolves and the girls have some mischievous fun toilet-papering Resler's house in the middle of the night.
Senior Danielle Alexander, a member of the Communication Honor Society, said her favorite part about the documentary was the story.
"I really loved how it followed the girls as players, but as people off the court as well," she said.
So what's next for Serrill? He said he is currently working on screenplays and a film on tango dance in America.
Contact Kathleen Grohman at (408) 551-1918 or kgrohman@scu.edu.