You ever hear of Pele?

I was in the room here one day... watchin' the Mexican channel on TV. I don't know nothin' about Pele.

I'm watchin' what this guy can do with a ball and his feet. Next thing I know, he jumps in the air and flips into a somersault and kicks the ball in - upside down and backwards... the goddamn goalie never knew what the frick hit him.

Pele gets excited and he rips off his jersey and starts running around the stadium waving it around his head. Everybody's screaming in Spanish.

I'm here, sitting alone in my room, and I start crying.

That's right, I start crying.

Because another human being, a species that I happen to belong to, could kick a ball, and lift himself, and the rest of us sad-assed human beings, up to a better place to be, if only for a minute... let me tell ya, kid - it was pretty goddamned glorious.

It ain't the six minutes... it's what happens in that six minutes.

(damn this movie still holds up)

What a great fricking movie...way better than Karate Kid, way more real and adult...maybe even better than Hoosiers.



Dad didn't just fall off the turnip truck.