18 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | AUGUS T 12, 2019
SCORECARD
STATE: A TEAM, A TRIUMPH,
A TRANSFORMATION
By Melissa Isaacson
The author describes the
tension between gender
discrimination and the
promise of equality through
her own experience playing
high school basketball
in the 1970s, after the
passage of Title IX.
BASKETBALL OR NOTHING
Available now on Net flix
A documentary series
from pro golfer Rickie
Fowler’s production
company follows a high
school basketball team in
Chinle, Ariz., on the Navajo
Nation reservation.
READ
MANCHESTER UNITED
VS. CHELSEA
Aug. 11, 11:30 a.m. E T on NBCSN
After joining Chelsea for
$73.1 million earlier this
year, American wunderkind
Christian Pulisic—a Man U
fan as a boy—will face
the Red Devils in his first
Premier League game.
WATCH
STREAM
AFTER A STAR HIGH SCHOOL LINEBACKER
WAS WRONGFULLY CONVICTED, HE REFUSED
TO GIVE UP HIS FOOTBALL DREAM
SECOND CHANCE
SEE
BRIAN BANKS
Now in theaters
It’s been 11 years since director Tom Shadyac’s last narrative film, and his newest one
shares little with the comedies (The Nutty Professor, Bruce Almighty) on which he made
his name. Brian Banks is a sports biopic, but it’s mostly about a deeply flawed criminal
justice system.
Banks was a top linebacker recruit—he had verbally committed to USC—until a false
accusation of rape during high school in 2002 derailed his career, with a no-contest
plea deal leading to five years in prison. He was released on parole, but he had to wear a
GPS monitoring device and remained a registered sex offender. “He could see life, but he
couldn’t access it,” Shadyac says.
The California Innocence Project took up Banks’s case after the alleged victim recanted,
and in 2012 a judge reversed his conviction while he was on parole, allowing him to again
pursue a football career and briefly join the Falcons. Banks (played in the film by Aldis
Hodge) is an executive producer and was on set every day—except when Shadyac was
shooting scenes too painful for the subject to relive. —Jacob Feldman COU
RTESY O
F BLEECKER STREET (2); ICO
NS BY M
ARTIN LAKSM
AN (3)
GAMEPLAN: THE SMART FAN’S GUIDE TO RIGHT NOW
