COACH CARTER

In brief Coach Carter is phenomenal film. Its plot is; a successful business man called Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to his old high school to get the basketball team into shape by using tough rules and academic discipline. He is determined to to get the players to excel in class as well as on the court.

When i first watched the film i watched it as i normally would, sometimes i wouldn't pay attention to the details of the movie. For example how Coach Carter incorporated his management skills onto the players. Baring in mind i watched this in 2007, two years after the release. I was 8 at the time.

Of course i had to watch the film again to see the leadership and management skills Carter has and how it effected the mentality of his team. Throughout the film we see Coach Carter as a ruthless man who takes no rubbish from the players. For example at one point in the film we notice that the players have to sign a contract, this contract states that they are only allowed to play on the team if they attend all classes and all of the classes whilst maintaining an average of a grade C in each class as well as wearing a suit and tie to game days and respecting all teammates and all coaches including teachers. They have to abide by this or they wont play, to some people this may be seen as going too far however to me is a very good idea as it makes sure that the players are not spending their time focusing solely on the sport rather than managing their lives in both fitness and academics which they need to progress to the next stage if that's where they want to be.

Since this amazing show of leadership Coach Carter was able to view all the academic grades of the student athletes. And he noticed something. Something that meant every player had breached the contract they signed. What he saw was that each player was performing poorly in their academics. Why would they break the contract?That was my first thought, but then looking more closely towards the town they lived in it wasn't hard to see the influences they could get off other people.In some serious cases these influences can affect how people perform mentally and it showed from the poor academic grades they received.

As a leader, as a coach and as a father to one of the athletes Coach Carter decided to lock the gym and cancel every upcoming game for Richmond high. The reason he did this is easy to understand, they broke the contract they signed so therefore they do not play any games. Carter wanted to make sure they took control of their lives with doing well in school rather going out and forgetting grades do actually matter if they want to get far. As everyone, including myself, thought the community was up in arms about it so Carter stuck by his guns and told them that he anted to guide the athletes to success in the future as he didn't want to see them end up like most kids in Richmond. He then quit his job but came back after he noticed he changed the mentality of the athletes, each one of them started getting over the C grade they were told to get and so they were able to play basketball. Although they didn't win the championship they won the hearts of the community and 6 of the players ended up in college with 5 winning a scholarship for basketball. You see, doing what he did proved that being a strong leader can create repercussions as I have said about the community being angry, but it can also make the people below you work harder to try and impress. It ends up working perfectly in terms of helping out his team. In my opinion Coach Carter is a very strong man and an even stronger leader he can bring a run down team up to be loved by everyone. Although I do feel it was a bit harsh locking the gym it meant that the team will have to work harder in their academics in order to do their sport.

Leaders are ruthless and this film showed that. Although sometimes putting hard work into one thing it doesn't necessarily mean that you will succeed. Coach Carter made the team feel like they were getting better both on the court and in their academics. All they needed was a little discipline and they got that from the coach. Even though some parts of Carters plan were harsh the players needed to learn he wasn't doing it for himself or the school, he was doing it for them.

There are different types of leadership styles and Coach Carter possesses one of them. This is the Autocratic style of leadership. This style is when the leader/manager makes decisions that are best for the company by themselves this means they don't accept input from other people. Which is what Carter does as he makes decisions that impact the team in different ways. At one point he closes the gym as I've stated before. This was his decision and his decision alone and so his autocratic style of leadership was frowned upon until it showed positives as players got better grades. As I have said throughout, the way Coach Carter takes control of his team is great, although he goes too far sometimes, he is a manager who likes to get things done and done correctly the first time around. He seems like the type of leader and manager I would one day wish to work under as he knows what is best for business.