Aim for the top and see if anything comes back.
That's what I'm doing here.
Have you noticed the recent wave of sports-themed movies over the past few years? Many were off true stories (We Are Marshall, Glory Road) and done very well. Sports movies have become mainstream, just not for people like myself, who can rattle off every line from Bull Durham, Tin Cup or White Men Can't Jump.
Oh, wait, what about those three, quite possibly The Holy Trinity of Sports Movies 1987 to 1997? (There are others that could be argued in that realm, such as Blue Chips (1994) or Major League (1989), but I will exclude the lovable Major League because, the entire movie, we knew Cleveland would beat the Yankees. Jerry Maguire (1996) always sticks with me because of the realism of the action, as the NFL gave its blessing, but it was much more along the later lines of For Love of The Game (1999), another movie with top-shelf sports scenes but stuck within a dragging relationship storyline).
Ron Shelton directed those three epics.
What I appreciate is that, in each case, the star isn't always carried off in a glory of victory. Sure, he finds some morsel of satisfaction by the end of the film but it is often seen away from the cheering crowds at a sporting event. I have written both The Interim and Gotcha Down with that angle, where the true solution of a character's conflict is found, say, underneath the bleachers instead of at the 50-yard line or maybe weeks after the last game was played.
Shelton's three sports movies still work, even 10-20 years later. The storylines are simple but the situation is complex. Crash Davis trying to hang on for another 10 days "in The Show" or, in Tin Cup, Roy McAvoy catching fire for the first time in his woeful golf career. The comedy within never washes out the underlying plot or lesson, although I'll admit in White Men Can't Jump, it got so funny, at times, that switching to why Billy was down with Rosie Perez did keep WMCJ from Absolute Movie Immortality.
I'm no Hollywood screenwriter but I hope I always have that passion for churning out realistic sports fiction, based on my years covering it. That's why I appreciate his cinematic contributions. Now come on back, Mr. Shelton, and save the sports movie genre from a sappy ending every time. And if you need a writer to "do the little work", I'm easy to find.
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