Eternal Coach: Remembering Gene Hackman for his role in ‘Hoosiers’

Like many of his fans across the land, I dialed up “Hoosiers,” the 1985 film about small-town Indiana basketball, to honor the film’s star, Gene Hackman, and to remember him after his passing at 95 in his acting glory.

He comes into the story right away, during opening credits, arriving at Hickory High School in a gray Chevy Styleline after a long drive across wide, flat farm country in the autumn of 1951. Immediately, we understand Hackman’s Norman Dale as The Man From Somewhere Else, taking the tough job as basketball coach in a town where basketball rules and strangers are suspect.

The genius of Hackman in “Hoosiers” rests in the same powerful talent we came to expect in all of his movies — his range as an actor. He could be Everyman, reacting to experiences and displaying emotions in a way that moviegoers found instantly relatable. At the same time, Hackman’s physical manner and his way with words evoked a character more complex and mysterious, as if there was always something simmering inside. That comes across in “Hoosiers,” where he played an outsider trying to break back into coaching after a long hiatus from the sport. (He was banned for hitting one of his own players and went into self-imposed exile in the U.S. Navy.)

Hackman, as Dale, is tough, demanding, stubborn and afflicted with a bad temper. During the course of the film, he displays some soft spots — he’s quietly in love with a teacher, played by Barbara Hershey, and he tries to help an alcoholic, played by Dennis Hopper — but never really breaks from the hard-nosed coach persona he first brought into the Hickory gymnasium, and his players respond to his tough love.

“Hoosiers” is one of the best sports movies ever made; it’s a great period piece, an authentic portrait of a time and place in America. And, while that authenticity comes from the physical settings and Indiana vistas, the old cars, the small gyms, the Hickory players’ uniforms and high-top sneakers, it’s Gene Hackman’s convincing performance that brings home the trophy.