Benutzerrezensionen

Words can't do this justice. I've never seen anything like this. If I'm ever flipping through the channels and see this on, I stop what I'm doing, and watch. The story of this team is unbelievable, and the legend of Jim Valvano lives on.

So far the only thing i knew about the late Jim Valvano was that when my home basketball team CSP Limoges became European Champion under the coaching of Bozidar Maljkovic, medias said that it was the best coaching ever since this NCAA tournament 1983 won by Jim.

With this documentary, you have indeed a great resume of this NC state team winning all games in the last seconds. Beyond the athletic achievement, what's extremely good here is that you have the original footage of the games plus the gathering of the team decade later. It's just beautiful because you can touch what sports is about and especially basketball. It's an epic journey with teammates helping and believing and sharing a bond that lasts forever. They did something unique and they have this joy every day.

But, the documentary achieves greatness because it offers in parallel the biography of Jim who died from cancer at a young age. Born from Italian parents, he was proud of his roots and what a guy he was: funny, easy to talk, imaginative, caring and for sure, courageous: when cancer broke him down, he managed to get up when needed to deliver very moving speech and visiting his old players. And the big surprise was that all along, his best friend was Coach K, the best ever USA basketball coach (a winning streak of 83 winning games!) and you understand why: the duo had amazing beliefs, deep human fundamentals.

Honestly, I like Phil Jackson, Jordan and the Bulls. But Jim was like a divine shooting star and this documentary pays him an amazing homage and ranks as the best biopic ever, beyond sports and hoops. A must see to get your life back in track!

30 for 30: Survive and Advance (2013)

**** (out of 4)

The new year brings another installment to the ESPN series and it's one of the best yet. SURVIVE AND ADVANCE follows the path of the 1983 North Carolina State basketball team as they did the impossible by reaching the tournament that year but the bigger shock was to follow when they managed to win it. While this story is being told we also get to hear about their basketball coach Jimmy Valvano and his battle with cancer, which would take his life ten-years after winning the championship. I think anyone with even a limited amount of knowledge knows this story but what's so incredibly is how much director Jonathan Hock makes you feel not only for Valvano but also the nervous tension of the tournament. Everyone knows that NC State won yet you really do feel the pressure of watching this team come from behind one game after another and you get to see why Houston was such a force and favorite in that final game. Along the way we hear from the surviving members of the team as they talk about what was happening throughout this period but we also get to hear from members of the other teams as well as coaches like Mike Krzyzewski. The documentary also offers up a speaking engagement that Valvano himself would give later in life so that we can hear some of his feelings on the events. This is certainly one of the best episodes in a terrific series because there's just so much emotion going on here. It's great because people know NC State won the championship but we get to see some of the other games that aren't often discussed. We also get to see what Valvano would be most happy about and that's how his now legendary speech manages to live today as well as still earn money for cancer research. The scenes of him slowly dying are certainly hard to watch as is the pain that his players still feel to this day but at the same time you have to see this guy in a completely different way. It doesn't really matter if you know the story of that 1983 team or if you know about the speech, this is still an incredibly powerful and uplifting film.

This installment from "30 for 30" is about Jim Valvano and the NCAA champion NC State team from 1983. So, it is NOT a biography of Valvano nor is it really about any of Valvano's other teams he coached. Why is this subject THAT compelling? Because there really never has been another NCAA basketball team that kept winning in the post-season even though they were usually behind with only a minute or two to go. Yet, again and again, they pulled victory out of the blue--first at the ACC tournament and then in the subsequent NCAA tournament. This film is their story. However, because Valvano died prematurely of cancer in 1993, the film is taught mostly using the surviving members of the 1983 team.

Like so many of ESPN's "30 for 30" documentaries, this one is surprisingly good and entertaining EVEN WITH FOLKS WHO DON'T CARE FOR SPORTS! Yes, I am not much of a sports fan in general and particularly don't like basketball...yet I was fascinated by the story from start to finish because the subject matter was compelling and because it was told so well.

A fascinating look at "The Wolfpack" college team and their time under coach Jim Valvano. Rarely have i seen a documentary where you feel so ambivalent over the course of the duration; feeling so high to feeling so down and emotional. Any documentary fan should watch this, as much as it is a sports documentary, basketball is merely the medium in which the story of the characters is told. Beautiful piece of work.

This was the first ESPN 30 for 30 I watched and it was amazing, particularly learning about one of the best nicknames in sports history "Cardiac Pack". This is the ultimate underdog story and is truly inspiring, especially learning about the most unorthodox coach of all time in Jim Valvano. My love for March Madness had already been growing, but this documentary took my love for the sport to all new heights. This documentary proves that in sports, teams do not win on paper, but on the field or court. That is a valuable lesson for sports teams at all levels.

Survive and Advance remains the standard by which all other ESPN 30 for 30 episodes are measured, and how fitting that this beautiful love story takes place exactly 30 years after NC State won the national championship in a huge upset over Houston. I saw Survive and Advance when it debuted in March of 2013. I have revisited it several times over the past seven years, and I have recommended it to practically all of my family and friends. For viewers with any aspirations to coach, I strongly recommend they read Joe Ehrmann's excellent book, Inside Out Coaching, and that they see this documentary. Jim Valvano was not an old school coach who "kicked" his players by yelling and screaming and demeaning them. Conversely, he was one of the new era coaches (see Tony Dungy) who embraced his players. Perhaps, this can be traced back to Valvano's own parents who loved him unconditionally and believed in him wholeheartedly. He used that foundation of love and belief and instilled it in all the young men that he had the privilege of coaching in basketball and, as they would come to realize in later years, in life. He loved on his players and taught them to love one another. When you can successfully marry those two things in a hungry and talented group of players who buy in, great things, and in this case even sports miracles, can occur. Survive and Advance is not a basketball story per se. The over-arching theme is love-the love that a coach has for his players and the love that the players have for one another. When those players gather on a tragic occasion, they realize how much their coach transformed their lives by loving them and by using basketball as a vehicle to teach them about life. Make no mistake, at its core, Survive and Advance is a love story, so you do not have to be a basketball fan or even a sports fan, for that matter, to enjoy it. Basketball is a minor co-star in this amazing and exceptional documentary.

A wild ride to the NCAA men's basketball finals with plucky third-year coach Jim Valvano and his unlikely NC State Wolfpack. Already lead players in a dramatic, historic underdog tale, in getting to know the team on a personal basis, we're given even more reasons to pull for their seemingly-impossible victory.

The surviving members of the squad, having suffered two major personal losses in the thirty years since they were Final Four Cinderellas, now meet on an annual basis to reconnect and recount memories of that one destiny-driven ride. We sit in on one such reunion, with the former teammates' overwhelming sense of community and kinship not only providing a more colorful, entertaining narration for the action on the court, but an intense, raw shared emotion that shows us the full depth of character present in each man. By the closing credits, they feel like family and the incredible conclusion of their athletic pinnacle, thirty years gone, resonates with a new sense of vibrancy.

Stirring, motivating, emotionally-affecting stuff that swells the heart and moves the spirit.