The End

We are now done with the book. Here are a few of our opinions.


1. We liked that the book was a lot like the movie so we knew what was happening.
2. One thing we didn't like about the book was that they didn't go into detail on what the characters looked like, so it was hard to picture them.


It doesn't matter who you are or where you came from. You can be successful.

This message fits in with the social class part of Cocchiarale and Emmert's questions because the Oilers came from a poor community and everybody expected them to fail. The message is telling us that it doesn't really matter because success is in yourself. If you work hard and want it bad enough you will get it no matter where you live or go to school.

Thinking Question

If you started your season out badly but in the end, your team was successful would you trade all your hard work for the lessons you learned for a few more points on a scoreboard to win a big game?

Chapters 10 and 11

Chapter 10 starts with Cruz coming to Coach Carter's house after Renny gets shot. Cruz is tremendously upset and he tells Coach Carter that he will do anything to get back on the team. Carter sees how distressed he is and lets him back on the team. The next day their is a meeting of the Board of Education and teachers, students, and irate parents came to discuss the gym lockout. All the parents and some of the teachers complained about Coach Carter and one parent made a motion to fire Coach Carter from his coaching job. The board passes a motion to end the basketball lockout and Coach Carter stands up and addresses the board, telling them that if they ended the lockout they were sending the wrong message to these kids. Also he says that if they pass the motion, he will quit. The majority of the board members voted in favor of the lockout ending and the motion passes. When Coach Carter walks into the gym, the next day, he finds the players studying instead of practicing and becomes speechless because he is so proud of them. A week later, Carter comes into the library with their progress reports. Everyone of them had reached their goals and they could start playing again. The Oilers won their game against Kennedy and were asked to play in the state tournament. But the players were dreading the game because they had to play against ST. Francis. Kenyon goes to Kyra's house to apologize to her and makes things better between then. While doing this, Kyra tells him that she got an abortion. Kenyon and Kyra get back together and planned on going to Sacramento State College together. It's the night of the game against St. Francis and the Richmond Oilers want to teach them a lesson. The game starts out with Kenyon hitting a twelve-footer and Richmond takes the lead. St. Francis and the Oilers rally back and forth, but then Carter takes a timeout and the score is St. Francis 36, Richmond 21. Coach Carter tells them to play their game and to play with confidence. In the last couple of seconds, Richmond is up by 1 point, but Ty Crane hits a twelve-footer and St. Francis wins. The Oilers were in disbelief. In the lockeroom, Coach Carter told them that he was proud of them and that they played like champions. He said he came here to coach boys and they became men. They finally had something to be proud of, including themselves.

Some of the things we discussed in our meeting were:

• The summary of the story
• 5 unknown or new words and their meanings
• 3 passages and what they meant to the person who found them
• And a lot of different questions we each came up with

Thinking Question

How would you feel as a parent if your child met the requirements to play on a team but still couldn't play because of other team member's grades??

Chapters 8 and 9

In the beginning of the chapter, Carter calls his girlfriend to tell her they won the holiday tournament. He then goes to get Damien and finds out all the players have left the hotel. He finds them all drunk at a party and they immediately pack up and go home. When they get home, Carter goes to his office to call parents when he sees their progress report. He sees that six of them are failing and eight of them have incompletes from missing class. Coach Carter then puts a lock on the door of the gym and told all players to report to the library. People start calling the principals office complaining demanding they take the lock off. The principal also thinks he should take the lock off because this may be the best thing that ever happens in their lives. That's when Coach Carter step in and explains this shouldn't be the best thing to ever happen in their lives and that's the problem. When Coach Carter gets home, he has an answering machine full of nasty complaints and threats. He realizes how mad Damien is so he shows him his scrapbook and tells him how people on his basketball team ended up and most weren't good at all. The next day he trys to explain to them that if they don't make it to the NBA they will have nothing at all unless they get their grades up and go to college. Cruz gets mad at all of this and quits the team again. There are reporters everywhere and Coach Carter says a few words and that's it. They forfeited the game which made them defeated and that's why everyone got so mad. When he went to the library all the players complained until he told them the stats of what their future without college would be like. At that moment it hit them all and they understood and offered to help each other. Cruz goes to visit his cousin after he got done selling some drugs for him. Cruz wanted to get out and trys giving his gun back to his cousin, but gets talked out of it. Cruz sees a couple of guys from the basketball team about to get in a fight so he goes over to help but before he knows it, his cousin is shot and dies.

In our meeting we:

• A summary of chapters 8 and 9 was read


• 5 unknown or interesting word were read along with their meanings


• 3 passages were read

We also discussed different questions we each came up with.

Thinking Question

If you were a coach, what would you do if one of your players quit and wanted to come back after missing weeks of games and practices?

Chapters 5-7

Damien wanted to go hang with his team, but Ken wouldn't let him go. Damien had a fight with his dad since he wouldn't let him go with his friends. Cruz got a bag of crack cocaine from his cousin, but decided he wanted to go back to Richmond to play basketball. Coach Carter told him if he wanted to be on the team, he had to do 2,500 push-ups and 1,000 suicides completed by Friday if he wanted to be back on the team. Cruz kept on running the suicides, because he wanted to show his team that he was working hard to be a better team member. On Friday, Cruz had completed only 500 push-ups and 80 suicides. He had failed. But the team came together and helped him complete his assignment. He was on the team. Many of the guys started to skip classes. During practice, Ken confronted them, causing one of the members, Junior, to leave. His mom came to Ken, saying she appreciated his way of coaching and asking if he would allow Junior to be back on he team. Ken said yes. The team played in the holiday tournament, and won.

In our meeting we:

• Heard a summary of the chapters read




• Heard 3 passages and what they meant to the person who found them




• Heard 5 new or unknown words and their meanings




• Discussed questions we all came up with and talked about important events in chapters 5-7

A Thinking Question

How would you handle this situation:

What would you do if you were good enough to play a college level sport but you either were going to have a baby or you got someone else pregnant? What would you decide??

Chapters 3 and 4

Kenyon and his girlfriend are going to have a baby, but Kenyon doesn't seem too happy about it. Damien dropped out of St. Francis and registered at Richmond High. He doesn't tell his dad until he is done. Ken is mad because he feels St. Francis will better prepare Damien for life after high school and basketball. On Damiens first day of school, some of the kids make fun of him. He is late for practice and Ken makes him run 20 suicides. He then teaches the team 2 new offenses. Richmond plays their first game with Ken as their coach. Damien sits the whole game until Maddux fouls out, leaving Damien to sub-in. The rest of the team is unhappy because they feel he doesn't deserve to play, until he scores at the end of the game, giving Richmond the victory.

Here is a summary of our meeting:

• A summary of chapters 3 and 4 was read
• 3 passages from the book and what they meant to the member who picked them
• 5 interesting or unknown words and their meanings were read from the chapter
• and we discussed questions each member came up with.