Nolte as his best

There’s no more compelling controversy in college sports than the money those sports accrue and who should get it. It’s funny that coaches, scouts, boosters, and so on are all staking their financial futures on finding the next young phenom, and I would suppose, the phenom is working their whole life toward being a meal ticket. Shouldn’t they be entitled to a piece of the incredibly big pie everyone else is getting?


“Blue Chips” takes a moralistic approach to the question, which doesn’t work fully, but remains interesting throughout. Director William Friedkin brings kinetic energy and realism to the tale but i’d actually say the success of the film probably hinges more on Ron Shelton, who with “Bull Durham” and “White Men Can’t Jump” already set himself up as the best sports writer in Hollywood.


Nick Nolte also deserves a huge amount of credit here, playing college coach Pete Bell. Outside of an alleged point shaving scandal that was never proven, his basketball program has remained relatively clean but he’s just had his first losing season. His players are good, not great (and some are flunking courses such as TV 101), and now that he’s on the hot seat, he questions his recruiting and the rules which hinder it.


There’s unexpected comedy in the film, especially as Bell travels to meet young prospects. Penny Hardaway plays one of them, though his mother (Alfre Woodard) makes his enrollment conditional on a house and new job for herself. When Nolte questions what sort of man her son will be if he starts life by bending the rules, she replies “A Millionaire?”.


There’s also another recruit from Indiana who so brazenly thinks he deserves $30,000, and yet another played by Shaquille O’Neal whose SAT scores are so low that Bell needs his ex-wife (Mary McDonnell) to tutor him just to score above a 700.


For most of these guys, education is a distant second to the instant gratification they can get now and being that everyone is on the same page here of “money now”, it doesn’t surprise that the head of the alumni association makes a certain degree of sense in giving to the players a fraction of the wealth that they can bring him. Does it have to be as sinister as the movie makes it- money being transferred from hand to hand in suspicious briefcases? No. But is it sleazy? Sure. Not only because he’s played by super sleazy character actor J.T. Walsh but once money becomes a motivating factor, all bets are off and there’s even a great scene where one bet is seen to seemingly affect the outcome of a particular game.


Nolte is pretty phenomenal here, in fact this might be the best he’s ever been. He begins the film in Bobby Knight-tirade mode; hurling expletives and water coolers before drop-kicking the ball into the stands. But his hard-charge is backed up by a believable acumen for the game of basketball and the idea of holding up its integrity.


One thing that feels disingenuous about him though is the ending- which is a great speech about how money is ruining the game, but it’s being delivered by a coach who has certainly benefited from the sport’s financial opportunities. You kinda wish Shelton had looked beyond the “money as a root of all evil” thing for a second and at least focused on the players, many of whom are relying on this as a meal ticket and means to a much better life.


It’s interesting to think about what a sequel to this movie could be like, with NIL deals serving as a further force for players to earn but also possibly be cheated or corrupted even further. “Blue Chips” mostly understands the game though, and even the on the court action is fast-paced, explosive, and simmering with the intensity of teams fighting for their basketball futures. It’s college basketball; where the only true madness is wasting a golden opportunity to cash in.