Last Chance U

[healthnut]

I really enjoyed this season. Coach Beam was nowhere near the dysfunction of the previous two coaches. I don’t feel like we got to know as many players this season but I enjoyed following the ones we did. I liked Nu and I’m glad they had a lot of his family life. Dior was heartbreaking both by living in his car and his relationship with his dad. I was really invested in their games, it’s too bad they couldn’t make the playoffs but they had really bad luck at the QB position. It did not help Dior’s scholarship chances that he had to play QB for a stretch. I hope he gets a shot at Hawaii, again bad luck for him with the head coach leaving. 

[chabelisaywow]

On 8/4/2020 at 3:36 PM, Oregonrain said:

I finally had a chance to watch this and enjoyed it. I graduated from Laney and proud to have done so. I was especially happy to see them smack DVC so hard.I went to both schools and hated DVC. DVC had a lot of upper income kids who only went to school because their parents made them do so. Laney had older students who chose to go there because they needed a change in their life. I was one of those people. In my early twenties, I partied and didn't take school seriously. I dropped out, worked for a while, and realized I had to go back in order to not have a life of dead end restaurant jobs. It is small and had limited resources but everybody wanted to be there from teachers to students. 

Laney is right off a BART station so I think they got a lot of older students who live in the East Bay that work in the City.

I took a summer class at DVC and was surprised to see a lot of my classmates were Carondelet and De La Salle students (30 years ago).  My daughter took a class at DVC in high school and I had to sign her concurrent enrollment papers - now DVC is full of international students. They all drive sports cars and wear Gucci and Balenciaga to class! Seeing that at least the year this was filmed that CSM was the number one team was surprising as well - since that is kind of considered the catch all of the Canada College District. 

[Uncle JUICE]

Wow. This season was SO MUCH BETTER than the first four, largely because Coach Beam has exactly the right perspective on what his role in the football landscape is, and it's really just a guy who wants to help those KIDS,, whatever that might mean, not aggrandize himself. NEver once do either of those other asshole coaches tell a kid "You know you're not really D1 material, right? Let's see what we can figure out." That's a hard discussion, and so many of these kids never had that sort of hard talk with their own fathers. He genuinely loved the kids, he was ACTUALLY coaching (not just yelling to run faster or want it more). He seemed 100% perfectly suited for what he was doing, where he was doing it. 

[Bastet]

When this popped up as a Netflix recommendation recently, it sounded right up my alley, but I couldn't make it through more than four episodes of the first season thanks to getting so angry with the counselor and, especially, the coach, both of which were terrible at their jobs.  So I decided to try season three, instead, with a different school.  Holy balls.  I didn't even make it through two full episodes before I had to bow out due to that fucking horrible motherfucking fuck of a fucking coach.  What a delusional jerk.

Thankfully, I gave the Laney season a try, and finally the show was what I'd been hoping for.  The coach isn't perfect (but he's an absolute dream compared to the first two), but he's committed and realistic. 

I never went to community college, but a couple of friends did and a friend's sister coaches at one (all in the Los Angeles area), so the first two schools were so weird to me, with dorms and meal plans and stuff -- that's not what "JuCo" is in CA.  So Laney had the bonus of being familiar, with people commuting and working.

Nu'u seems like a good guy, but I'm not sure how much he can actually learn in a classroom.  I worry he's going to come out of his four-year school (which, if he makes it through, will only be because he gets coddled as a football player) without any better job prospects than he went to school to get away from. 

Which brings me to RJ.  I laughed out loud when the coach said "his brain is so limited" and "he's so weird", because, seriously.  I could train my cat to run that route, and for TWO YEARS he's been running to the sideline instead.

Poor Dior.  His dad is downright sadistic.  He's trying to cope with school and being forced to play a position that is going to hurt his chances of getting on the team, let alone a scholarship, at a D-1 school (the only major issue I had with the coach was how he kept downplaying what Dior spending however many weeks at QB was going to do to his reel), and now he's supposed to deal with the man who delighted in fucking up his life?!

[Rlb8031]

Is anyone watching the BB version of this show? I like Coach Mosley and the kids much better than the FB programs. 

[Uncle JUICE]

On 12/20/2022 at 3:55 PM, Rlb8031 said:

Is anyone watching the BB version of this show? I like Coach Mosley and the kids much better than the FB programs. 

Watched it, loved it. So much better than the initial iterations of this program (the California football school notwithstanding). I like Mosley, too, he seems to have a grip on what he's up to and what role he plays for the kids. He's never once told a kid "you'll be playing in the NBA if you play for me," he is more focused on getting them to listen and succeed and grow. 

[Rlb8031]

Just now, Uncle JUICE said:

Watched it, loved it. So much better than the initial iterations of this program (the California football school notwithstanding). I like Mosley, too, he seems to have a grip on what he's up to and what role he plays for the kids. He's never once told a kid "you'll be playing in the NBA if you play for me," he is more focused on getting them to listen and succeed and grow. 

Yes, and while many of the kids still harbor unrealistic expectations, it's nice that he's talking about ALL their options (D2, D1AA, and D1 schools are all in the mix for his kids) and not just trying to get them into a few schools that he's got connections to. I loved that he wanted to put his autistic player in a school that would coach to his needs and not simply one that was looking for a big man. And it was great seeing Coach Rob, a man who was literally living off of gigs so he could coach at the college level, finally getting his own team - and one that pays him to work! While I was still scared about how out of touch some of the kids were with the reality of their circumstances, overall, this version doesn't make you feel dirty for watching it.