Spring Break
The Daily OrangeJordan's 'Space Jam' dunk tops list of best sports movie moments
By Nate Mattise
Posted: 3/17/08, 11:53 PM EST Section: Feature
These highlights are on the brink of success, but the bottom line with is that we're dealing with kids. They need another film before they become pseudo-Olympians.
Regardless of how old you are, it's unbelievable if you can hit a baseball so accurately that a kid with a large brimmed fish hat can catch it.
As for the other highlight, picture how unreal it would be for a goalie to come off the bench in game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals then stone the other team's best shooter. Julie "The Cat" does that, just change the location to the Junior Goodwill Games.
International competition at its finest. It's hard to imagine Rocky not coming out on top in a sports movie-moment competition. You have the genre's ultimate underdog turned champion in a hostile communist environment and a 'roided-up, robotic machine for his Soviet opponent. Yet in one slow motion moment of glory, Rocky lands the shot that takes down Drago and a decade's worth of Cold War tension.
No contest, this is the winner. The game is on the line, the Toon Squad is down a basket, and the fate of the planet rests in the hands of our generation's greatest athlete. Gigantic Monstars gang tackle MJ at mid-court as the clock winds down. It looks hopeless. Think the second half of our Big East tournament game.
Yet, like he's proven again and again, Michael Jordan is clutch. He hits the trademark tongue waggle, allows his arm to become part cartoon and literally dunks from half court. This isn't jumping from the free throw line - this is 10 to 20 feet back.
The bottom line is, when Michael Jordan puts his name in a bracket, he wins. He did it 26 years ago at UNC. But rest assured, "Space Jam" is next in my Netflix queue so I can watch number 23 do it again.
Nathan Mattise is a weekly pop-culture columnist for The Daily Orange where his columns appear on Tuesdays. He has tried to hit a 7-10 split by spinning the ball with one finger and pushing it. Apparently Disney lies when it comes to sports and basic physics. He can be reached at nzmattis@syr.edu.
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