The White Shadow Season 2 Kickoff: Gambling, Race, and Crosstown Transfers

The White Shadow Season 2 Kickoff: Gambling, Race, and Crosstown Transfers

Joe and Carlos discuss The White Shadow season two’s early episodes, starting with “On the Line,” where Jackson is drawn into betting and point-shaving by a neighborhood gambler while a student reporter pursues an exposé; they note the episode’s prescience amid modern sports gambling, a post-Watergate “investigative reporter” theme, and a broadcast-order continuity issue with the season’s games. They then cover “Albert Hodges,” about a wrongfully convicted student returning with anger about racism, challenging Ken Reeves’ leadership and prompting team conflict over naming Salami captain, alongside a powerful exchange between Albert and the principal and another Ken Reeves “connection” securing a Boston College opportunity. In “Crosstown Hustle,” Reese transfers to a wealthy, mostly white school under the pretext of integration, faces “ghetto ball” rhetoric and harsh coaching, and learns he’s barred from returning until an assistant coach helps him avoid ineligibility; they mention Jay Bilas’ cameo and Haywood’s absence due to a suspension.

00:00 Heat Wave Banter
00:43 Season Two Kickoff
01:14 Jackson and Gambling Trap
02:34 Betting Then and Now
03:56 Student Reporter Angle
06:33 Reeves Spots the Fix
07:14 Broadcast Order Tangent
09:27 Episode Wrap and Cubs Hat
10:45 Albert Hodges Returns
11:21 Race Tensions and Sex Ed
13:07 Reeves Self Reflection
15:58 Reeves Pulls Strings
17:13 Captain Salami Controversy
18:34 Locker Room Goof
19:20 Teacher Foreshadowing
19:59 Principal Confronts Racism
21:37 Why Albert Has a Point
22:55 Switching to Crosstown Hustle
23:03 Suburban Coach From Hell
25:05 Transfer Rules and Integration
25:55 Ghetto Ball and Dog Whistles
26:51 Reese Trapped by Eligibility
27:34 Cameos and Apes Tangent
29:23 Black QBs and Sports Bias
33:01 Carver Game Twist and Win
34:16 Haywood Missing Explained
35:26 Shower Song and Wrap Up

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

How are you today, Joe? I'm pretty good, Carlos. It's a warm day here. Record temperatures tomorrow here in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

I think we got a heat wave going across the country. Thank goodness for I said it this weekend where it was pretty warm. So, you know, let's all have a take a shot on behalf of Mr. Carrier for inventing air conditioning.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

There we go. But yeah, it's a it's good to be alive. It's good to be talking about the White Shadow, and we're on to season two. And I want to thank the all the people that listened to our last episode who recommended what other shows we might do after the White Shadow. And I know that was great. And Carlos and I will talk about that. And we also may have a special guest coming on at some point too as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Really excited about that and the details to follow.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah. But let's, as you say, Carlos, let's dive into the White Shadow season two, episode one.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

On the line.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

We have this is a Jackson-centered episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, I think he's the lead again for like in in two episodes. He's really gotten a lot of scream time here in the first two seasons.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

He has. It's the neighborhood. There's guys that have cash and have flashy cars, and those are the kind of guys that the kids are automatically saying, hey, what's this guy got going on? And one of those guys befriends Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yeah. And kind of the classic age-old story, right? Where that guy is wants him to gamble on their games, and only when it's like as long as they're winning, that's kind of like hey, you're bet on yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

You believe in yourself, right? And then once he's roped in, and then all of a sudden we need you to throw this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Exactly. And then the other thing that kind of was interesting about this episode is I like the realisticness of sort of that pool hall bar slash thing. And I'm still trying to get my head around how are these 17-year-old kids getting into these.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Of course, the fact that these 17-year-old kids all look 30 might be why This is true.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

And then there was a shot of a young woman at the bar, and I can't remember what the instance was, but it was some sort of thing like she was looking at him, or I can't remember what the thing was, but it was that was just an interesting little aside, and that was a very much a Stacy's mom type situation. Exactly. So it was but yeah, and I think that this episode is you even applicable today, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Yeah, I was gonna say it's very prescient because although the part that requires a little bit of disbelief is the idea that there are lines on high school basketball games. Yeah, but I guarantee you that somebody is setting a line on Texas football.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

You know what I mean? Sometimes you have sports that are big enough, and maybe Central LA was something where high school basketball was so big. So just with the ubiquity and how easy it is to bet now.

unknown 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

The temptation is gonna be there. If if you turn him from a high school kid to a college kid, that's absolutely happening every day, and it's a problem we're gonna have to deal with. So once again, the white shadow going deep and serious.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, and my theory too is that I'm sure that'll ring the truth of it, because that was all under the radar, under the table kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

That was I like you and you know this too, Carlos. Growing up, we'd see shows, they'd uh people would talk about their bookie, people running numbers, stuff that is on the fringes of what that never was my age.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

I honestly I knew people who bet with bookies and stuff. So I did grow up knowing people who did that, but that was it was almost like a TV thing for me, too. I I never had a bookie. The only bets I've placed have been legally in a sports book.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

But so that yeah, but the shadiness of that, it w it was uh common thing, but this also introduces one of the big staples of the 1970s, which is post-Watergate, the investigative reporter.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Anybody who wants to make the world a better place, he didn't go into politics and you became the next Woodward in Bernstein. And this episode also centers on a young man who's a student who wants to write an article about the paper.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, and I think that guy too, the actor does a good job, and he is an actor that I have a memory of and seen him in things, but I've never really he wasn't really big in anything for any sense of instance.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

He's one of those character actors that you saw. Zion BD B page would be one episode, one episode, one episode, one episode.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

And isn't memory a funny thing too that maybe I'm thinking that he's so ubiquitous in my mind because I remember him from just this episode? It's very strange.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

I don't know. Sometimes though you it's like I see that, I know that face, right? You have some of those actors that they call them character actors, and I've never heard a definition, but to me it's almost got a face. You just look at that face. The example I would use outside of Hollywood, because I had a kind of discussion with it, somebody, is Don Zimmer. Don Zimmer had a face, former baseball coach, but had a face that you could tell. He's got a lot of stories to tell because all of his living is you can see it on his face. I mean, so I feel like character actors have that kind of compelling nature where you look at him and you're like, oh, there's something going on there.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Well yeah. Minute you said that I just remember back in the 80s or 90s, even that shot of Don Zimmer on the bench. He just was it was the classic manager in his face. It was just it was amazing. But no, and I think the actor who did that, the school newspaper, was pretty good. Yeah. I think that though how we found out about it was a little hackneyed in terms of he's walking down the street.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Yeah, it is very much a hey, is he handing him some cash? It was very much a LA is too big a place to that to happen, but suspend belief for that. But he's he thinks he's got himself uh Pulitzer winning story. He's gonna launch himself into you know, with this big career, which, you know, if you're a high school paper, but then the angels on his other shoulder start saying, Hey, let's figure out these guys aren't bad, they let me in.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

I see that though. I also see kind of uh Ken Reeves, the man with many contacts, gets him a uh I don't know if it was an internship or some sort of thing at the uh I think it was the LA Times, but yep. It's another instance of Ken Ken knows the age of the.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

And that actually will come up as a key point in the next episode when we get to it.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah. And the thing too is.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Yeah, so Jackson kind of feels himself getting roped in and now he wants him to throw a game, and Jackson one one point one of the he's launching shots when he shouldn't, when they so that they can cover. So he's clearly, even when he's winning, he's altering his play.

unknown 6:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

And Reeves is like, what the hell are you doing? At first he's going, Are you just being a bonehead? But then the pieces start coming together, and it becomes obvious what he's doing.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Yeah. And I think too that think about if this happened today, there's no way that kid doesn't write the story.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

There's no way that doesn't become a kid is not going, especially since it's just a oh, the team let me cover them for a few days. If it's covering up some kind of a closer relationship.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

The other thing that we'll notice, and I don't know, I will call it out for this episode, since it's the first episode of the season, but it's something that happens common to a lot of shows, and a lot of shows that end up being those one season shows that then get canceled, people love. Firefly being an example. The shows get broadcast by the network out of order and they muddle some longer-term stories. Not important for White Shadow, because White Shadow does not have continuing storylines typically beyond the characters, but with Firefly, they lost some context. So in this one, it's very clear the second episode is the first, the season hasn't started yet. But in the first episode, they're already playing games in season two.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

So they clearly brought no big deal, it doesn't really affect a lot of things other than I noticed it.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

And I think too, yeah, I've seen that, and that's the continuity issue, too, as well. I remember uh trying to watch what was that other out there show? What was the name of that show? There it was the tagline was there out there, it was a science fiction one with Scully and Mulder.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

Oh yeah, X-Files, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

X-Files. So I remember uh trying to watch that, but I was really only interested in the episodes that dealt with the like the mysterious man. I did find out online that you could watch them and they w were the standalones, they said here's a standalone because in X-Files lore, those are called the Monster of the Week episodes.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

You can skip the Monster of the Week episodes and watch the continuity episodes. Yeah, that was something that was very But I love the Monsters of the Week. X-Files actually X-Files is not forgotten, but it's one of my top five shows of all time. So if anybody ever wants to do like the millionth X-Files podcast, call Carlos because he'd be glad to do it. I'd love that show.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

So, but no, and then but I think too that uh the very end when kind of Reeves gives him the knowing look, the player the knowing look. Yeah, yeah. And was like, uh, you know, this is that that's not the end of it in our day and age, that would not be the end of it.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

No, yeah, exactly, exactly. It was like there were no repercussions, there were no anything, there was no reporting to any authorities, or do we have to disclose this to the high school league? And if we don't, if it comes out, will we be suspended? None of those stuff. And actually, an episode later on in the season, which you haven't finished yet, one of my big notes is yeah, this is not realistic because the lawyers would be the first ones that was called. But we'll get to that one.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Now, do we I would do you think they're having trying to broaden their demographic by having Ken Reese wear that Cubs hat so we could pull in some of the things that we're gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 9:34

I don't know, maybe they were because well he did play for the Bulls, though, so yeah, maybe he considered himself a Chicagoan. A Dodger hat might have been a little more apropos.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, so it was just strange to see him like in this episode, and I think he also wears it in the next episode, he wears the Cubs hat. And I'm like, where did that come from? That's another one of those things.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

It really is, but he does have the Chicago connection.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah, he does have that. But it was just I thought it was interesting that said, hey, let's put him in a baseball cap. But uh but yeah, so this one was uh this particular show was a sort of a setup.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Just the new season, pretty much all the same faces, right? So there were those seniors on the team that we are wearing.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

There were no seniors last year, yes. At the end of season two is actually where we lose some players, and then we have a new set of recruits for season three that we'll get into whether or not that was cousin Oliver or if it was still a quality show. But I think are we do you have anything else?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

No, it's back added on this particular show. The I like the angle of the as you would say in that 70s era, the you're gonna be uh You're gonna be a newspaper reporter was a big thing, and they call basketball and that altogether. So I think that's what I have for my thoughts on episode one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

All right. Let's move on to episode two, Albert Hodges. Interesting show. You gotta start off with a young man, Mr. Hodges, who had been wrongfully accused and convicted and served some time for a robbery that he did not commit. He is now back in the high school, and the vice principal tries to throw the charm towards Ken Reeves and say, hey, you know what? Let's give this kid a chance. He's had a lot of really bad cards dealt to him. So let's let's help him get back in the things. Albert Hodges has a chip on his shoulder. I think that if what happened to him had happened to me, I would have a very huge rocket Gibraltar on my shoulder. So I tried to engage with him, but he somewhere he developed the kind of the angry black man motif, which I hope that's not to me. That means something. That that is just to me, what it means is you've got an African American who starts to get educated about history, yes, and how about a lot of their own history is not taught to them in schools, and a lot of the history of their ancestors was interesting, and so I I feel like that's when the angry black man comes. I I think of he was a comedic character, but I felt like he represented that, which was uh Michael on Good Times. Yeah, nowhere else, not in school, not on TV, had I ever heard the name Medgar Evers. He would talk about leading beyond the Martin Luther Kings of the world, the people who fought on the front lines. And so, once again, when I say angry, I don't mean to mean that in a derogatory sense. I just mean I maybe I should say enlightened. But, anyways, he has a chip on his shoulder, arguably has it, seeing a white man coaching a team full of black kids, calling them animals, which comes up where he's gonna be able to do it. Yep, yep, he's animals, yep, and actually a part of the conversation happens because we Reeves is once again in the classroom.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

This time he's teaching sex ed.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

That's right, that's right. And he's he doesn't want to be there, but obviously Sybil makes him go there too as well. But I just thought really taking on that this whole concept of a network TV at the time is quite forward thinking.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

And I feel like to me, the crux of the show or the soul of that team is Haywood.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

When we've already commented about how he wore the Africa neckel, you know what I mean? So I feel like he is becoming more and more enlightened. And so what although Haywood's personal experience with Reeves has been positive, some of the things that Albert is telling him are resonating with him too, because he knows, hey, wait a minute, you know what I mean? We're not getting the whole story about what's going on with our people. And so that's why I felt part of you can easily look at this and go, hey, Reeves has been great to these kids. Why are they being such jerks? And I think that this maybe I'm giving the show too much credit, but I feel like they dealt with it in a very serious way. All the players would react, and then how would Reeves would react? Because Reeves was not like screw you, he Reeves was like looking internally at am I doing something?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah, he did that, he did talk with the principal about that, and he was like, and obviously Reeves who roomed with his the principal in college, so I think that obviously much more a charge political time than than even those the late 70s.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

We were very near very explosive history of race relations in this country. Not that race relations have ever been great in this country, but at that point it was a particular flashpoint.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yeah, and so I think that they handled it well. They handed Albert for me, whenever he was like in northern exposure, he was also in 30 something. Okay, that character he played in White Shadow colored my perception of him.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Of him later on. Could never break out of that for me, which is which is uh You know the one I've actually thought of I use this as an example a lot. I hated Merrill Street for a decade. Okay because her character was so horrible in Kramer versus Kramer, abandoning her child, it's so horrible that I held hatred for the reality is, of course, we've all come to know it because the greatest actress of our lifetime, you know what I mean? And she's that good that she can make you hate her, and it's good for him. He played the role well.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah, and side note that that that movie came out when you and I were in junior high, because I remember talking about it, not necessarily in the in the lunchroom back in those days and and at Westwood. So when that movie came out. And you and also that brings up another memory, Carlos. You the first guy, and that just came to me unbidden today. You're the first guy to turn me on to Steve Martin, and we'd start talking about junior high.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Me and our classmate Mike Schultz, who's gone on to a rock and roll career in the band Uncle Chunk now and other bands before that. He and I were big Steve Martin fans. Huge. We went to see Steve Martin in seventh grade, I think, State Fair. Wow. And yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, I was SNL, Wild and Crazy Guys.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

To me, that was like there was nothing cooler on the planet.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

So you turned me on to watch Saturday Night Live because of that. And I kept thinking, why does this guy have white hair?

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Yeah, he's one of those guys that was prematurely gray. I think he's probably in his 30s when or twenties when he was gray.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

But it was good. But so that yeah, those characters that sometimes like this pre this character that he played colored my opinion of him going forward. But I think he did a great job with this particular thing. But the show again, a little bit hackneyed in a way, where Ken has another connection.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Yes, he does. He checks back to Boston College, even though this kid has been there for five minutes, and the five minutes he's been there, he's been nothing but a pain in the ass for Ken Reeves. He's gonna call in a favor with BC to get this kid in the program.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yep, and this kid doesn't even know, did never applied.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Yeah, he just thinks I'm calling because I'm great. He's already like ripping the team, and he's I'm gone, you guys are losers, you shouldn't be here, and he doesn't. Yeah, he's got no idea who his benefactor is.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

And by the and but the kind of the interesting thing is in the 70s was just sending over someone's transcripts, and it's like you can just do that, yeah. And without informing them that you just sign anything? How do they set you up with the high school? How'd that all work?

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Apparently no application for BC. It's just okay, you're in, you got the Reeves connection.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yep, and did Ken did allude to it in uh at some point, and I I'm going a little bit out of order of how we should talk about this, but said, hey, I did that for they it came to the clue that he did that for Albert, but I can't do it for you guys. I've already went to the well, and the kid said, Hey, we understand Albert needed a leg up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

But yeah, the team was not like and actually it was what? I think was it Heywood that's used on, hey, Reeves went to BC.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, yeah, and it was and that particular one, so they for those who are gonna watch the episode, they the main characters on the show not gonna play in the game because they want some changes from Ken Reeves and you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Well, we had missed the part where he named Salami as the team captain at the very beginning. At the very beginning, and it was thought of as well, you've got a team that's majority African American, and you're having the white kid or and so he calls that out and Reeves lays out his thinking at the very beginning to the principle saying, Hey, you know what? It was one of those I think it would be good for him thing. And it he's thinking about more than just the team, he's thinking about the players and developing the players and things like that. So it was a representation of long-term thinking, but then the team vetoes comes to him and says, No, it can't. We don't want him to be the the Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

And it was and he made and he did talk again to the prince about the reasons why he picked Salami for being captain. He's gonna be the least pay in the butt. Captain was one of those reasons. And so I think that was another one. And then again, as you alluded to, that the leader of the I'm blanking on his name right now off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Heywood.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Heywood. Yeah, is the one who was talking with the coach, and uh, even when they do decide to come back and play the game, he said we still have some things to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

To go over that. And I thought that was a good particular piece, too, as well. But that also leads up to one of the big goofs in the episode, right? So there's Gomez, Salami, and Goldstein in the locker room.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

All of the main characters who are African American are waiting for Albert.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

They only have three players. There's still three other team members, not in either group.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Yeah, exactly. It's those ones that don't have a name when you're like seeing the locker room scene. It's wait a minute, that's more bodies than there are stars.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yep, and then when they all run out at to play the game, they're there. So where were they where were they? But Gomez had the line, one of the lines of that episode is like the three of them are sitting there, and he goes, Are those guys coming? They said, I know. Gomez goes, Hey Goldstein, you may start. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

One little piece that I want to mention, because it may tie into a future episode. My cat's just not something over that's rolling on the floor, but okay. When Reeves is teaching sex ed, he kind of talks to a very young, newly minted teacher who is also teaching sex ed. Oh yeah. The reason I found that interesting is because there is an episode later on, I think season two, where there is a player who will have an inappropriate relationship with a young teacher. And I'm just wondering if it will be her, because she was very young, she was very eager. The scene just did not make a lot of sense. Why it's like going, okay, Reeves got someone to talk to about sex education, but I don't know. I just felt like it was foreshadowing of something. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yeah, we'll see and too. And then one of the the great scenes in that episode, and I'm not really too qualified to speak on this, is when the principal and and the character they talk and he they have an exchange about being black and and something that I couldn't I can't relate to, but I I just could just them talking, it was very pointing to the thing.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Very powerful. I mean yeah, I can't the words felt powerful sounded powerful to me, but uh not being part of the subject. I basically he said is yes, you're the racist, you're the one who is a problem with your with you being black, which is strikes me as a very deep comment, but I can't speak to whether it's accurate or not, or whether that's something that's realistic in this situation. But it was a powerful conver conversation.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, and I've seen people talk about that online too, as well. But and so I just thought that was a great scene. And again, what's always the principal is always sneakily one of my favorite characters on the show as I remember watching these because he's he's always dressed to the nines, he's not too vociferous, he's an even keel kind of guy. But this episode, when he talks to Albert, it's yeah, he's right, he's he's fake he's not afraid to take on the tough issues, to say the least.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

And we've seen that before in this episode where the one character was the bad egg, and remember that guy pushed him into the bookcase? Yes. None of the books move, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

Well, it's a special bookcase.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah, but it was but yeah, so I this is one of the member the the one of the episodes I remember most distinctly.

unknown 21:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Yeah, but this is a very distinct episode, and it's very, once again, it deals with very powerful issues because you've taken a team that we've spent a season plus getting to know and love and realize and think they're all on it working together, and then you have a kid that you throw in there who says, No. What we have here is we have an unbalanced power structure. You gotta see it this way, and it's whoa, there's a different lens that no one was looking at. Yeah. This entire happy family of season one. To me, once again, the Bruce Paltra, whoever it was that was making day-to-day decisions, I feel like they were always making the more challenging choice rather than the easy choice in these episodes.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

You can get put up the thing that Albert was not right all the time, but he was not wrong all the time.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

No, he was not. And that's why I think Haywood is to me the kind of the I don't know, North Star. Hey and Haywood, it absolutely makes sense to me that Haywood, despite knowing Reeves or his experience with him, will also listen to what he's saying. Albert is because a lot of what he's saying is true. Now, once again, you can't take generalizations you have to apply to individuals, right? So it could be generally true, but in this case not true, which is, I feel like, where Heywood landed.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Yeah. So it was a good episode, pretty powerful episode early on in season two. So I thought they did a great job of that. And again, memorable episode for me.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Yep. Are we ready to move on to Crosstown Hustle?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

I am. I'm ready to move on to Crosstown Hustle.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

This is a Reese centered episode?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

And I will say for me, despite the fact that we've had an attempted assault on Miss Buchanan, to me, we are presented in this episode with the biggest jerk ever thus far on White Shadow.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

The coach of the other team?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

The coach of the other team. We're going to fill in some of the blanks here, but like a fancy suburban school.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

Needs a point guard or a backup point guard or something, and so they're like, oh hey, this Reese kid looked pretty good in the tournament. Let's recruit. They don't use the word recruit.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

But they recruit him.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

And when I was thinking about that coach, and they had the little basketball scenes or the halftime speech or the end of the game speech.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

I said, man, that is that was 70s and 80s coaching.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

It was. It was. Just like in the last episode, what do you call you animals? It's like that's how coach coaches talk to young men. I don't care if it's suburban kids in St. Louis Park, white kids in St. Louis Park, or like urban kids, and that's how coaches taught.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

That's right. There was one way or there was the highway.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Yeah. Oh, I'm trying to think of our wonderful coach Mike Gavin, who taught us things like they put their pants on one leg at a time, or they still got the window open there for let the stink out from the last time you guys played there.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Any number of those things. But yeah, that was very much coach speak. So it was not out of the line. I didn't see it any race racism in it because I've been called the same thing by coaches my whole life.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

So I just think it's and it was Reese's. It's a fish out of the water episode, right?

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Yeah, yeah. Once again, yes, Reese. You did notice that team was all white.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

He shows up for practice.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

And it's it's obviously say it's very upscale, very suburban. Who knows? Westwood maybe where it was. But I think that again, they're commenting on, especially in this episode, sports and race. Not only with Reese kind of going fish out of water to that, they're talking about socioeconomics, the coach. Your favorite coaches, this place is a dump when they're playing it card.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

And you got to go back because the rules are different now. But transferring schools used to be harder because they were afraid people would try to game the system. But there were certain reasons which you could transfer schools, and one of them, very 70s issue, was integration. We still had many cities fighting the concept of busing to have schools not be segregated. And so him saying, you know what, I want to be, I want to help integrate that school was enough for him to get it okay. Which 1978, absolutely how it worked.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Absolutely how it worked. And who was all for this? Was Joan Pringle, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

She was like, hey, this is his gives him out, he gets him a better education, gets him this. But then I think we get a little bit, even at that time, a little bit of racism where they say he goes when Reese, when those buddies come up to him and said, Reese says, Man, I can't play with you. I got too much this school gives me too much homework compared to to Carver. And uh so it was so that's a little bit of a and maybe true, I don't know, but it's something that I'm trying to doesn't sit well.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Think of the reasons why I just like the one of them was in the Reese's first practice, he says, We're not gonna be playing that ghetto ball here.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

And it's like, wow. Oh, you don't even there's no dog whistle needed, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

That's right. And there is the time when he when Reese's freelancing during practice is I made the shot because that's not how we do it here. I've heard that before in practice.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

The other element that is important towards the end of the show is there's the assistant coach.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

Or this coach. And that coach has win the championship this year. I move up, the spot is ready for you. And I'm basically saying, Hey, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, everybody'll be good.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

And that's it becomes important at the very end of the episode.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

The guy has a moral compass.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Yeah. What Reese finds out is this is not a good fit for him.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

And the problem is he is told by that coach, the head coach, yeah, too late, sorry. You can leave, but you can't play basketball at Harper.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

You can't retransfer. And so he's like really stuck because he's not happy. And but he wants to play basketball.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

So two things about that. Why didn't Reese know the rules? Or Jill and all these ones, why did the Sybil know the rules? Yeah. Which was a little left mean.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Why did the assistant basketball coach But ultimately we learn at the end that Ken Reeves didn't know the frickin' rules either?

SPEAKER_00 27:27

So I thought that was interesting. And Ken, of course, went to talk to the coach, cut cub hats fur firmly on his head when he's talking to them.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

And then at the behest of Larissa's father, who name is Harry Rhodes as the actor, played in I recognize that guy from something because his face was very recognizable.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

He was in the Conquest for the Planet of the Apes, which was a he played some, I can't remember if he played the governor or something of California, but he that's what I remembered him from, and I was like, and then he was also in this show, Carlos, I never heard of 85 episodes on a show called A Dakari.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

I've never heard of that show.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

66 to 69. Game thieves, diamond smugglers, and big game hunters and danger animals in the African bush. Wow. So he was a little bit bigger earlier, and then after this, he pretty much guest stars and things.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

Random idea just hit my head. How fun would it be to do a rewatch podcast of every Planet of the Apes movie beginning today?

SPEAKER_00 28:26

I would love it because I think that I've never I've watched them all except for the modern ones. I've watched the I've watched the older ones.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

The original ones, but they're so fun.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah, and I like and they have some really great scenes in those too that we can save it for the podcast. But yeah. And then you'll see on the social media pages too, folks, that at some point in time I'll post this when I'm back in the saddle. We had a guest star on this episode.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Our good I shouldn't say our good friend, but a famous uh ESPN analyst, former University of Duke basketball player Jay Billis. Jay Billis played this is when he was in high school. I think he was only sixteen or seventeen. Played the tall kid who was smirking. During the during the one of the coach's tirades. That's a nice poll. Nice poll. And uh there's I'll post a picture of him as a young man in his current picture and but he obviously was in high school at the time over there. I thought that was interesting. And then Carlos, my last thought would be is remember when Reese is at the school, two African American football players come up and start talking to Reese. Do you remember that part?

SPEAKER_03 29:35

I don't.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

So Reese is on the bench for lunch and two African Americans.

SPEAKER_03 29:40

Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, and they talk oh yeah, they do talk to him about what it's like being the recruits, if you will. The fish out of water.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

And Reese was talking to the one guy saying, Hey man, you were at Crenshaw, you had just this fantastic arm. And then the other guy started, and then the other then he started talking, he said, but I'm not that here because uh we can't be goes into the brain, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Basically, here quarterbacks aren't smart enough to or blacks aren't smart enough to be quarterbacks is what people believed well into my young adulthood.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Doug Williams, I was an adult with the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

So it was yeah, I think Doug was like in the 80s, right? And then but even back then, though, there was just the beginnings of that that was breaking because James Harris, do you remember him? He played for Tampa Bay. He was another Grambling quarterback who was one of the very first to start. And it happened just slightly after this episode. Not that I'm giving this episode credit.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

It was after this era that former Dodger executive Al Campanis on Nightline with Ted Coppel said, The reason we don't have black coaches is they just don't have the attributes necessary to be a manager. And then Ted Koppels, hold on, I'm gonna give you a chance to think about what you just said and maybe change it. And he just nope, he just kept digging. And and so that that was the mindset that existed nationally, you know what I mean? It wasn't a hundred percent of the people, but that if you had to say consensus was that African Americans couldn't be quarterbacks, they couldn't be coaches, managers, and things like that. And so that's the lens you have to look at a show like this about it's not just about high school recruiting, it's high school recruiting in race. If you want to see a modern version of it, if you have not watched this is another top five Carlos show, uh Friday Night Lights, where there's a big plot point where they recruit they rec they recruit the kid from Louisiana post Katrina, and it's very much or you don't even have to do that. What was that that basketball movie?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Hoop Dreams. Hoop Dreams, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

That came out in the late 80s, early 90s, which is basically some of these recruiting deals. They're treating human beings like chattel.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Yeah. And then I think too, for this episode, it was yeah, it was just I think they're dealing with that race, and I think too, you talked about Al Campanis. Do you remember Jimmy the Greek? Yes. It was right around that same time, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Yeah, he yeah, he he started expounding his theories of race, and uh, he shouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Well, it's probably and he would disappear from the scene. So some of these things all started back in in those. I don't know, I don't I can't remember the time frame of Jimmy the Greek, but it had to be maybe a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 32:15

It was right in that era. It was we were either teenagers or young adults. It was in that era, and I feel like Jimmy the Greek, we were probably in high school, junior high when that happened. But once again, I to me, I'm not even talking about who's right or wrong. I'm just saying these conversations happening in the 70s was it was headlined, yeah. It was very much related to it. And the idea of recruiting a high school player was something that was not was happening all the time.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yeah. So and then this I don't want to disappoint you here, Carlos, but I read some trivia on IMD about this. This was you know who Carter's not in this episode at all. Heywood. Heywood. So yeah, Hayward, Thomas Carter, the actor. It's on my it's no, you have that's on your list. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Oh, it's the fact he's not there. It's like where's Hayward? Because at the very so let's just finish up the plot and then get to Hayward. So turns out they're gonna play the it's turns out the very next, the first game for Reese on his news team is at Carver High.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

And the assistant coach of the rival team skips the bus ride and leaves a note on Reeves' desk, just an envelope that says Ken Reeves. And the game's about to start, and the the assistant coach goes, Hey, did you look at that envelope? And Reeves is like, What envelope? He goes, You might want to look at it before the game. So Reeves tells the ref, hold on, runs to the locker room, picks up this note, which apparently says, Reese isn't disqualified until after he's played a game.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Which why didn't they know? But go ahead, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Yeah, exactly. So he gets, is it Goldstein to Salami? Salami to go out. He whispers in Salami's ear, and then Salami goes out to tie his shoe and then unties Reese's shoe and says, Hey, coach says, if you don't play, you're not ineligible. You never play in the suit up. And so he goes and reads, is that true? Yeah, it's and he takes off his jersey, throws it, and runs off.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

And he tells all the players who are weak. Remember, he goes down the line and says, That guy can't go to his left.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

Yeah, that's yeah. He gives a scouting report, a first-hand scouting report on everybody. Yeah. Yep. And then we learn in the shower, as they're excited, that they won. And they won by a lot, and they've never beaten that school before. And they did it without Heywood or Reese. And that's what I'm like, well, where the hell's Heywood? Did they tell us where he was?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yes, he was out for fighting. He was he said that there was some sort of he was been suspended for fighting. I don't know if it was during a game. Did you remember Salami had a little thing over his eye?

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Yeah, okay. Totally miss it. You know what? It probably was something that ended up on the editing room floor.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Yeah, so it was. But the reason why this happened is because at this point, the actor Thomas Carter had lost interest in the show. He wanted to direct more than act. And the fact that his character was being succumbed by Coolidge, who is more popular. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

And by D say, I do not know. It's actually in the next episode where he says, This guy requires coaching. Coolidge doesn't require anything. I'm like, oh, now they're building up, now they're making Coolidge be a star, which in season one, not a single Coolidge centered episode. Not a Coolidge is a star episode. But that's the first seeds of yeah, he's our star.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

So it was, it was, yeah, it's uh it was this one is another episode I remember. I don't remember the dad or anything like that, but I remember the incidents of them waiting for those guys to come back to play the game quite distinctly.

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Yep. So I the very ending of this episode had me running to Google because they throw Reese in the shower and have him sing with him, and I'm like, oh, holy cow, does he sing that good? They didn't really sing. And I looked at it, and there's nothing official, but everything anecdotal says these kids did all the singing there was and no lip syncing. I'm like, damn, Reese can sing. That was really good.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yeah, I think was he the one that was 32 years old?

SPEAKER_03 35:52

I think he was Yeah, he's got a mature voice. Hey, listen, he can tuple bogeyed high school, okay? It happens.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

There you go. It was but no, that was a classic one. And the next one I'm interested in seeing too as well, because wasn't the in just to give a preview of episode four, one of the guest stars is from What's Happening, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:11

It's I was gonna say one of the guest stars on our next episode is one of the stars of one of the episodes, one of my favorite shows. A kid played Duane, who had an Afro, and as Joe can attest, even though I'm hofolically challenged at 60, when I was a teenager, I had a big old fro. And so my dad used to call me Dwayne based on this actor's fro from what's happening, which as glorious as my fro was, it never approached Dwayne's awesomeness. So, yes, we have him, and he's very it's it's his personality because I always noticed on what's happening, he was always just really super happy and light. And I'm like, that's it must be his personality because that's this player that he plays next week. But we'll discuss it next week, not to go too far into it.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah, good. Thanks, Carlos. Pleasure as always.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Next week we'll come back for episodes four or five, and however many we get through.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Yeah. We'll probably pick up the pace since this is a big season, right? Like 25.

SPEAKER_03 37:02

Yeah, we should pay. Yeah, and then season three, we may not do massive deep dive because I think season three, the quality might drop a little bit, but there's still some dramatic shots they take. Yeah. With that said, we'll post this episode here this coming Tuesday, and we look forward to talking about one of our favorite old gyms, the White Shadow.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah, and thank you all fans out there. I believe now we have someone in Paris Fans as Paris, France, I think, uh as I looked.

SPEAKER_03 37:27

Michael, can you think of anything better than stroll in the Chancelys with your AirPods in, listening to Forgotten Television?

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

But there we go. All right, Joe. It's good talking to you. We'll talk next week. Yep, have a good night.