When someone sends you an email asking if you’d like to catch dinner and the game, courtside, the answer is “Yes, please.”

Following are a few short clips from television intermixed with video from my camera phone. At the beginning you can see us taking our seats in the lower-left corner of the screen (I’m in the purple shirt). A few scenes are shown both from my phone and the TV.

The director/creator of the film started it as a college project (the original assignment was a 10 minute short).  He was from Akron and had heard about this local group of kids who started playing together at a young age and decided to all play for the same highschool.  The coach and highschool administrators allowed him to follow the team their junior and senior year as a fly-on-wall cameraman.  He does an excellent job of capturing the essence of the team as a unit, each player’s story (not just LeBron), and their mentor coach (the point guard’s father).

I purchased the movie on Amazon.com and expected to learn a lot about LeBron James intermixed with a highlight reel of game footage.  What I got instead was a wholesome story of friendship, family, and sports as a catalyst for something greater than “the game”.

While we weren’t state champions or anything, some of my fondest memories and closest friends were made on my highschool basketball team (and thanks to Facebook, I can stay in touch with them).  I think Tia liked the film as well, she also played sports in highschool (and college).  ”More Than a Game” highlights many of the character-building aspects of sports which makes me hope our kids enjoy athletics as much as their parents do.

Starring KRS-One as Santa Claus, and Lupe Fiasco as Blitzen.

The best is the 3rd — “Dunkin’ on that reindeer” (watch them in order for full effect).

Santa Diss (by Blitzen)

Blitzen Diss (by Santa)

The Game (w/ Kobe and LeBron)