The perception exists that women’s sports still have a purity to them, an emphasis on teamwork and fundamentals that is lacking from the individualistic, highlight reel-driven world of men’s competition. The Heart of the Game, a documentary that follows a Seattle-area girl’s high school basketball program, punctures a hole in that myth. Selfishness, trash-talking, clashing egos – it’s all here, just on a less publicized level. As its title implies, The Heart of the Game would rather buy into that feel-good, women’s-sports myth. And director Ward Serrill finds a myth-ready figure in Bill Resler, the college tax professor who takes over the Roosevelt High School varsity team and uses a combination of crazed passion for the sport and a laid-back personal approach toward the players to lead them to unprecedented success. Resler is a fascinating contradiction: a soft-spoken confidante off the court who screams “Sink your teeth in their necks! Draw blood!” during the games. Yet by the time a star player begins questioning Resler’s coaching decisions and a freshman phenom only agrees to join the varsity club on her terms, it becomes clear that he has to deal with the same sort of me-first pettiness that plagues the NBA.
