Quantum Hoops: How Failure Inspires More Than Success
Not every project timeline follows the traditional Hollywood story arc. Teams don't always pull together just as the project seems to be falling apart, and the manager doesn't always figure out how to get through to his team just in time to lead them to success. That's why movies like Quantum Hoops can be so damn inspiring for anyone slogging through a demanding task.
The documentary, in select theaters now, is about a ragtag team of basketball players at a school more renowned for producing Nobel Prize winners than shot-blockers. The players that suit up at Caltech are not heavily recruited types, they don't live for the task of taking the ball to the bucket. They come in to the program showing little to no promise and they don't usually leave having bucked the odds. In other words, in this aspect of their lives (if not in others) they look a whole hell of a lot like the average person.
At the time the documentary was filmed, the Caltech Beavers (named after nature's engineers!) hadn't won a single NCAA Division III game in 10 years. At one point in the losing streak, they were being beaten by an average of more than 60 points per game. Granted, students come and go every four years, but you can't help but ask yourself, how do players suit up day in and day out in the face of such monumental adversity?
And if you think you have a tough time attracting top talent at your company, try having more valedictorians than high-school varsity athletes on your basketball squad. Most every guard, forward or center that has donned the Caltech uniform over the past few decades has been a walk-on, due to extremely lofty and inflexible admissions standards.
The coach of this team, currently Roy Dow, has a task unlike that of any other college basketball coach in the country. Not only is he facing an extreme lack of resources, and the relative disinterest of university officials, he must also find a way to prepare the equivalent of an intramural team to take on a varsity squad 27 times a year. At the time of the filming in 2006, he also had to show his face around campus knowing that he hadn't once achieved the most basic measure of success in his profession, the win.
What keeps a coach focused through such a long and fruitless struggle? As becomes evident in the film's interviews with Coach Dow, who is, this year, entering his sixth season coaching the Beavers, the answer is commitment, adherence to long-term goals, and a faith in the importance of intangible progress. If any movie can speak to the honor and character-building fruits of that labor, it is Quantum Hoops â€" a must-see for any team feeling down on their luck.