That Championsip Season (1982) is Jason Miller's screen version of his 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play of the same name. For a number of years Miller attempted to bring the play to the big screen and, finally in 1982, he succeeded. As both writer and director, Miller utilized headline talent of the time and insisted on filming the exteriors on-location in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the story takes place.

Scranton, as other major cities in the 1980s, was suffering from a high degree of downtown urban blight. Miller was raised and educated there and his intent was to showcase the city and its people. The first quarter of the film does just that as the characters and situations unfold. Scranton locations used included Nay Aug Park (featuring a political rally using the townspeople as extras), the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad headquarters, the Martz Trailways terminal, Lackawanna Avenue, the city council chambers and more.

The blunt locker room-style dialogue and mature themes remove the film from what would be considered mainstream. With little marketing and an abbreviated theatre run, it was relegated to television cable outlets for a number of years.

Soundtrack by score master Bill Conti (Rocky, The Right Stuff, For Your Eyes Only) was supplanted by the West Scranton High School Band.

In 2004, the film was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment.

Plot

Set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, it has been 25 years since the 1957 Scranton High School basketball team won the state championship. Every year the coach and four of the victors gather to relive the glory of their shining moment. This year is different. As teenage team members together they could read each others moves on the court without fail. As middle-age men each facing their own different mid-life crisis, with a former coach that still addresses their problems as if they are having a bad game, their loyalty to one another comes under fire. There isn't a single social issue or taboo imaginable that doesn't arise in the course of their evening together testing their friendship like nothing else ever has.

Featured cast

Trivia

• The theatrical trailer for the film was narrated by Jason Miller.
• In 1999, Miller assisted friend Paul Sorvino direct and again star in (albeit playing a diferent role) a lower-budget TV version of That Championship Season.
• So minimal is the musical soundtrack in this film, no CD soundtrack was ever produced.

External links

• NNDB / Jason Miller

1982 films