Glory Road

Glory Road (2006) is a sports drama based on a true story you can watch online on iFILM — directed by James Gartner with Josh Lucas as Don Haskins, the coach who took over Texas Western College's basketball program in 1966 and made a decision that upended college sports: he started five Black players in the NCAA championship game against Adolph Rupp's all-white Kentucky squad. No head coach had done it before.

Haskins recruited players the major programs had ignored, mostly from the urban North and Midwest. John Voight plays Rupp as a figure of the old order. While the team kept winning on the court, life off it was rougher — the Deep South in 1966 meant threats, vandalism, and worse, right in the middle of the civil rights years. Haskins' players had to be twice as tough just to stay in the tournament.

Walt Disney Pictures produced it as a straightforward inspirational drama, and it works in that register. The facts are more compelling than the formula: the actual game and what it changed in college basketball needed no embellishment. Stream Glory Road (2006) online on iFILM.