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And then theres the pandemic.
What inspired the shows shift from football to basketball?
There was not a Were done with football.
Lets move on to basketball.
It was more that we finally found a basketball school where we wanted to go to next.
It really didnt feel like a shift in sports.
And the person that you have on the line here is the main reason for that.
This is somebodys story thats worth telling.
How do you cast a school?We have a set of criteria.
Everything from: How good is the marching band?
How interesting is the town?
It helps if theyre really good, but thats not necessary.
It just made it easy to choose.
We were pursuing him.
We were wooing him.
Coach, Id be curious to hear your thoughts on this.
My memory of it was we had to persuade you.
You werent onboard initially with being filmed.
John Mosley:Yeah.
Initially, I wasnt onboard.
I just didnt think I could be as entertaining.
I thought my story was boring, just because of the life I lead.
Some of the kids say, Coach Mosley, hes a little crazy.
But for the most part, I was like,Theres no way Im doing that.
Coach, did you have a lot of concerns going in?
Youre dealing with players who are very vulnerable.
You bring cameras into a situation that could already be combustible in certain ways.
Were you concerned about the impact that would have on your team?
I feel like theres a camera on me all the time.
Theres a certain accountability that I have in terms of the way that I carry myself.
I think it took maybe a couple shoots and it was normal.
Plus, everybodys on social media, on Instagram anyway.
They struggle with injuries, with academics, with behavioral problems.
As I said before, theres a tremendous amount of vulnerability at the core of these men.
How do you handle those vulnerabilities as a filmmaker?
I just think the first step is to build a relationship with the young men.
Ive taken on the fact that theyre going to respond in those ways that you just mentioned.
Theyre going to have poor responses to adversity because of their background or their environment.
And as I state in the film, I can see me in all of them.
I know why theyre responding that way.
So its up to me to say, Let me just calm them down.
Let me find out whats going on so they know that I understand.
To me, rules without relationship equals rebellion.
You have to have a relationship before you’re free to even dig in.
I think thats the mistake that we can make sometimes.
If we dont build that relationship, then of course we get a bad response.
Theyre here for that reason.
Now we need to teach them how to respond.
I like to see it play out.
I want to see them respond.
Let me see what you got.
Let me see your best punch.
Now let me help you change that and turn that.
Youre there because of some misstep, whether its grades or some other thing that happened.
Whats true about all of them is this flame of hope thats refusing to be extinguished.
As a storyteller, as a filmmaker, that is inspiring.
We see him skip practices.
We see him blow up on the court and in the locker room.
Theres 15 guys there.
They all have a story.
They all have responses, but I dont think they had enough film for all 15 guys.
They have the same baggage, and you take a stab at manage all of that.
If youre still there and you take it, youre going to make it.
Nobodys going to fail; nobody fails on my watch.
If youre here, if youre in the gym, nobody fails.
You got to give up on yourself in order for us to give up on you.
We see a lot of really emotional scenes this season.
I shed a tear watching how they put the story together.
I shed a tear throughout the show but had a lot of moments off-camera that were very impactful.
I just remember a moment, man, and it almost brings tears to my eyes right now.
We had just won a game in San Diego, and Deshaun … We were on this run.
We just went on an eight-game win streak and then we were all in the van.
Were getting ready to go eat.
We were going to drive back to L.A.
Were all in the van, and Deshaun is just walking outside by himself and he starts crying.
Im like,Oh, shoot.
I was like, You all right, man?
He was like, I just want to talk to her, Coach.
Im like, Who?
He was like, I just want to talk to my mom, man.
I said, Dude, youre mine forever.
And he is mine forever.
Im like,Shoot, I got another son.[Laughs.]
He calls me for advice and all that.
Just so many moments, but that epitomizes what its all about at the junior-college level.
Im sure both of you wanted to see what happened when these guys went to state.
Joe didnt just drop everything and say, There it goes again.
I was all-in and everything failed.
To me, that was more successful than anything else that they all handled it well.
Theyve done phenomenal, and Im just really disappointed in leadership in terms of handling the pandemic.
Our community-college kids are like stepchildren now.
Nobody is talking about them.
You have not heard one thing about it in the media.
Youve heard high school.
Youve heard youth sports.
You have not heard one person talk about community-college students.
Its hard to blame them.
How about you, Greg?Whiteley:From a human standpoint, it broke all of our hearts.
We were monitoring things in real time.
When that was taken, it was devastating.
From a storytelling standpoint, it was incredible.
I couldnt believe what just happened.
Then because of forces, again, beyond their control, its taken from them.
It is so heartbreaking.
