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Hoosiers and the Slow Clap Dilemma

If You Build It, Will They Clap?

It’s hard to overstate what Hoosiers means to a certain breed of sports movie fan. But do Ocean and Jim buy the hype? This week, Ocean, making his rookie appearance with the film, and Jim, decades removed from his last viewing, take the full-court press to Indiana’s mythic hardwood, looking for answers in small-town dust and the echo of slow claps. Is this the David and Goliath story you remember, or just a fairy tale draped in team colors and nostalgia? Turns out, for all the talk of underdogs, the real Goliath here might be the memory of watching sports movies when you were a kid.

Ocean’s never seen the film—Jim practically grew up with it—and that split leads to a conversation about how Hoosiers lands (or doesn’t) in 2024. They dig into the oddities: Gene Hackman’s “perpetually 80” aura, Dennis Hopper’s perhaps-unnecessary Oscar-nominated town drunk, the inexplicable lack of credit for military service in small-town Indiana, and, yes, the slow clap—Hoosiers or Lucas, which came first? There’s real warmth for the film’s spirit of community and second chances, but also an honest accounting for the ways time, distance, and real-life history have left some of the “true story” on the cutting room floor. Ocean and Jim ask: when you strip away the mythology, what are you really rooting for? And is that enough?

If you’ve ever wondered why sports movies are less about the game and more about who’s sitting in the stands—or if you just want to argue about who invented the slow clap—this is your episode.

Links & Notes

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The crowd roars. The impossible shot sinks through the net as the buzzer sounds. We live for these epic sports moments on the big screen—even if we’ve never laced up cleats or set foot on a field.
Why do sports films captivate us? How do they speak to the competitor deep inside? Can a great sports flick make you fall in love with a game you never cared for?
Join lifelong friends and film fanatics Ocean Murff and Jim Pullen as they go deep into the psychology, storytelling, and raw emotional power of the greatest sports movies ever made.
Laugh and cry with them as they re-live the agonizing defeats, underdog triumphs, coaching miracles, and adrenaline-soaked championship glory only the big screen can deliver. From tales of individual perseverance to the bonds of teamwork, Ocean and Jim break down just how sports films distill the human experience like no other genre.
Strap in for a cinematic thrill ride covering everything from boxing to baseball, hockey to horse racing. You’ll never see sports—or sports movies—the same way again. The whistle blows on The Adrian Moment.
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