"Hoop Dreams" Timelessly Influential

        The 1994 documentary "Hoop Dreams" influenced many children all around years after production, and still today shows kids to follow your dreams. After watching and reading about this movie I am compelled to share my feelings towards it, I highly recommend it to anyone who has not seen "Hoop Dreams". In the beginning the two young boys William and Arthur show a lot of talent and even more determination as they work on their skills of the game. My feelings throughout the whole film were very content and uplifted the kids were pursuing basketball dreams in the right direction, until one certain point in the film when William injured his knee and shortly after Arthur is forced to leave the high school both boys were attending St. Josephs, a private mostly white school. At this point I felt sympathetic for both Arthur and William struggling to over come bumps on their road to being great players. Although Williams injury was a very tough obstacle and made me feel bad for him, most of my sympathy was for Arthur now forced to attend his public inner-city high school. Arthur now has to prove his skills all over again and re-earn a playing spot on the team. The coaches like him and let him join the team, but the film still portrays Arthur as a less important player than William, because William plays varsity.
        This moving documentary also influences everyone on other important things. A huge influential section of "Hoop Dreams" is showing that kids need to understand that their biggest role model doesn't have to be you're favorite athlete or someone you know that makes the most money, it should be your parents at home the ones providing everything you have to you working as hard as they can to keep you content. Lastly, something else that I felt an influence from was not a major part in the movie, how the two boys stayed off drugs an alcohol throughout the entirety of the movie. This really showed that if you do what you love, work hard at it, and use you're favorite hobby or sport to keep you're mind off things it can also keep you off things in the streets like drugs, alcohol, or anything else that poses a threat to negatively impact you're life. "Hoop Dreams" will forever be a movie that people can use to influence, help them through hard times and show that you are never permanently "on the streets".