Movie Short Review: “Untucked” (2014)
If you’ve never seen any of ESPN’s 30 for 30 Documentaries, stop what you are doing and go to Netflix to stream or Amazon to buy them. Scratch that, you don’t want to wait for these so head out to the nearest Best Buy to pick them up and clear your schedule for the next couple days to enjoy one of the best things ESPN has to offer. In 2009, ESPN writer and future Grantland founder Bill Simmons got the idea for filmmakers to document some of the most important moments in sports history. Originally planned as 30 documentaries to celebrate 30 years of ESPN’s sports coverage, the series has now doubled to 60 with it’s most recent airing, “Requiem for the Big East,” which debuted this past Sunday. While the documentaries have covered such important sporting events like Michigan’s Fab Five, the death of Len Bias, the fall of the USFL, or Steve Bartman’s role in the Cubs loss in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS.
The series has also spun off into “30 for 30 Shorts” which are 10–20 minute looks at other events that shaped the sporting world. The newest one, “Untucked” is about Marquette University’s famous untucked jerseys that were worn during the 1977 Championship season. The doc is directed by Community star and Marquette alum (also the 1strecipient of the school’s Chris Farley Scholarship) Danny Pudi. Pudi focuses on the revolutionary jerseys that were worn by MU in the 70’s under Coach Al McGuire, specifically the one of a kind untucked jersey created by player Bo Ellis. McGuire once said “My rule was I wouldn’t recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house. That’s not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk.” As you take a look back at the wild, rambunctious, and talented Warriors (now Golden Eagles), you can see that McGuire certainly did recruit players from his world, and it certainly paid off.
Overall:
This is a fun look back at a wild and eccentric team. As stated by others, in a world where Nike and Adidas rule all, to have a player design his team’s jersey and go against the grain would be pretty much unheard of. It’s a shame that the doc isn’t longer because the ’77 Marquette team was a cast full of characters: Butch Lee, Jim Boylan, Bo Ellis, along with assistant coach Rick Majerus and head coach Al McGuire. Al once said, “My rule was I wouldn’t recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house. That’s not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk.” This doc makes you wish it had more of a look back at Al’s world of “cracked sidewalks”.
My rating: 10/10
http://grantland.com/features/30-for-30-shorts-untucked/
