Bobby Plump -– the real-life Jimmy Chitwood –- said Gene Hackman deserves as much credit as anyone for taking his small-town Hoosier state basketball story beyond Indiana to the rest of the world.
Hackman’s dazzling acting career stands out for sports fans for a single reason: His unforgettable role as Hickory Huskers coach Norman Dale in “Hoosiers,” the 1986 movie loosely based on tiny Milan’s run to the 1954 Indiana state title.
Plump was the star of that Milan team. He said Hackman and the late Dennis Hopper, who played the role of Wilbur “Shooter” Flatch, are two of the main reasons people still want to talk to him when they visit Plump’s Last Shot, his Indianapolis sports bar. A day after Hackman was found dead at the age of 95 in his New Mexico home, Plump reflected on the late star and the “Hoosiers” phenomenon.
“How important was his role? I think it was the key to the whole thing — he and Dennis,” said Plump, now 88. “It came out so well, basically because those two were just excellent.”
Hackman’s roles were often remarkable for their intensity, from Oscar-winning turns in “The French Connection” and “Unforgiven” to another coach, Jimmy McGinty, in the 2000 NFL-themed film “The Replacements.” Coach Dale was no different, though his softening with his team and his love interest, played by Barbara Hershey, is one of the key themes in “Hoosiers.”
“It’s about change,” Hackman once said of the movie. “It’s about what happens with change, how we deal with it, where we learn to give up our ideas about who we are as people.”
Hackman and ‘Hoosiers’
