Where is Jimmy Chitwood?

 

After each University of Tennessee softball game, Co-Head Coaches Ralph Weekly and Karen Weekly reward the Lady Vol Defensive and Offensive Players of the Game with the Jimmy Chitwood Award. It is named for the character in the movie "Hoosiers," who uttered the memorable phrase: "I'll make it!" leading his squad to the Indiana state basketball championship.

  The real Jimmy  Chitwood,  Maris  Valainis played on youth basketball teams through the eighth grade.  He was cut during his freshman year at Chatard High, a Catholic school of about 800 students. He was cut as a sophomore,  junior  and senior.  He was  too short and too slow.

  But he later grew to 6-2 and made his acting debut in one of the best sports movies of all time.  "Hoosiers"  grossed $30 million  in the theater and still is watched by millions on television and in video rentals.  How many coaches have shown the film or clips to their team for inspiration.

  He went to college at Purdue, but his college career came to an end early in 1986 when a casting director for Hoosiers walked into an elementary school gym and spotted Valainis draining jump shots from all over the court.

  "This guy walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to try out for a basketball movie," Valainis said. I had a job painting houses, and I had to get to work."  He didn’t think  he would end up with the part.  The championship game was filmed at halftime of a high school game involving Chatard, Valainis' alma mater.

Valainis played Bobby Plump, later an Indianapolis insurance agent who hit the winning shot for Milan in the 1954 title game.

  Who will be the Jimmy  Chitwood of the 2003-2004 basketball season in your league?   Fans and parents must remember that every Tuesday and Friday half of the teams which play basketball in Pennsylvania and across the United States lose!  That’s right half of the teams win and half of the teams lose!  Support your team, but give the players and the coach a break.  Not every team can win every night! --There is no real Hickory High School, so support your team win or lose, or as they say “if you can’t be an athlete, be an athletic supporter!”---Rodney Froth

Credits:  

-Celluloid hero http://www.journaliststoolbox.com/clips9.html

-The Jimmy Chitwood Award  http://utladyvols.ocsn.com/sports/w-softbl/spec-rel/020403aab.html