History Theatre / ThatChampionshipSeason

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Coach is only ever addressed as such by the players. In the film adaptations, even the other residents of his neighbourhood address him as Coach.

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The play has been adapted for the screen twice, both using scripts written by Jason Miller; once directed by Miller for Creator/TheCannonGroup in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Paul Sorvino (reprising his role from the original stage run), Bruce Dern, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino (who also directed) now playing Coach and Creator/VincentDOnofrio, Creator/TonyShalhoub, Creator/GarySinise, and Creator/TerryKinney as the players.

In 1952, the basketball team of Fillmore High, a small Catholic high school in Scranton, staged an upset victory in the final of the Pennsylvania State High School Basketball Championship. Four of the players - George Sitkowski, Phil Romano, and brothers James and Tom Daley - have had annual reunions ever since with their coach (only ever addressed as [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Coach]]) at his house on the anniversary of their victory. The fifth player, Martin Rose, has refused to attend any of the reunions and wants nothing to do with Coach or his former teammates.

Twenty years on, George is a first-term mayor of Scranton fighting a tough re-election campaign against Norman Sharmen, who is younger, more dynamic, and, most galling of all for the bigoted George and his teammates, Jewish. A campaign publicity stunt has gone badly wrong, enhancing the view of both the voting public and his own campaign that George is a buffoon. Phil is a wealthy strip mining entrepreneur who has been donating to George's campaigns in exchange for favourable terms on the land lease for his mining operations; unbeknownst to George, he is also having an affair with his wife, Marion. James is the overworked and underpaid principal of a local junior high school and is George's campaign manager, hoping to be named superintendent of schools if George is re-elected. Tom has become an alcoholic drifter.

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''That Championship Season'' is a 1972 stage play by American playwright Jason Miller (also known for playing Father Karras in ''Film/TheExorcist'') which won both the PulitzerPrize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in its first year of performances.

The play has been adapted for the screen twice, both using scripts written by Jason Miller; once directed by Miller for Creator/TheCannonGroup in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Paul Sorvino (reprising his role from the original stage run), Bruce Dern, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino (who also directed) now playing Coach and Creator/VincentDOnofrio, Creator/TonyShalhoub, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney as the players.

The play has been adapted for the screen twice, both using scripts written by Jason Miller; once directed by Miller for Creator/TheCannonGroup in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Paul Sorvino (reprising his role from the original stage run), Bruce Dern, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino (who also directed) now playing Coach and Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney as the players.

The play has been adapted for the screen twice, both using scripts written by Jason Miller; once directed by Miller for Creator/TheCannonGroup in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Bruce Dern, Paul Sorvino, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino (who also directed) now playing Coach and Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney as the players.

''That Championship Season'' is a 1972 stage play by American playwright Jason Miller (also known for playing Father Karras in ''Film/TheExorcist'') which won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for Best Play in its first year of performances.

* TheAlcoholic: Tom's drinking problem has prevented him from holding down a steady job, and he simply drifts from place to place. He spends the entire play drinking heavily, at one point being so unsteady on his feet that he falls down the stairs of Coach's house (he is uninjured). [[InVinoVeritas When drunk, he becomes increasingly candid]], calling out the other four for their various self-deceptions. Here got this trait from their father.

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Tom and James, respectively. Tom drinks heavily and has never held down a steady job or even a steady address, while James has become a junior high school principal. James deconstructs TheDutifulSon in that his father never deserved his devotion but he kept at it, but then the old man died so James will do anything to get ''someone's'' respect.

* TheAlcoholic: Tom's drinking problem has prevented him from holding down a steady job, and he simply drifts from place to place. He spends the entire play drinking heavily, at one point being so unsteady on his feet that he falls down the stairs of Coach's house (he is uninjured). [[InVinoVeritas When drunk, he becomes increasingly candid]], calling out the other four for their various self-deceptions.

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Tom and James, respectively. James deconstructs TheDutifulSon in that his father never deserved his devotion but he kept at it, but then the old man died so James will do anything to get ''someone's'' respect.

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Tom and James, respectively. James deconstructs TheDutifulSon in that his father never deserved his devotion but he kept at it, but there old man died so James will do anything to get ''someone's'' respect.
* FormerlyFit
-->'''George''': "I used to be the most popular kid in school. I used to have a six inch waist. Everything about me is in the past tense."

* ICouldaBeenAContender: James thinks he could have been a successful congressman by now has her not been so busy taking care of his father, despite having no political experience.

* TheGhost: The fifth member of the 1952 championship-winning team, Martin Rose, was the team's star player, but he refuses to have anything to do with Coach or the other four players, and he is conspicuous by his absence at the reunion. In the first half of the play, the other characters wistfully comment on what a talented player he was, and how sorry they are that he has never attended a reunion, but Tom eventually reveals the dark truth behind Martin's animosity toward all of them, especially Coach.

The play has been adapted for the screen twice, both using scripts written by Jason Miller; once directed by Miller for Creator/CannonFilms in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Bruce Dern, Paul Sorvino, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino (who also directed) now playing Coach and Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney as the players.

The play has been adapted for the screen twice, both using scripts written by Jason Miller; once directed by Miller by Creator/CannonFilms in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Bruce Dern, Paul Sorvino, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino (who also directed) now playing Coach and Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney as the players.

* RedScare: George reveals that he and Coach have discovered that Norman Sharmen had an uncle who was put on trial for being a Communist in 1951, and they plan to use this information to discredit him. The other characters point out that the [=McCarthy=] era was long ago, and no-one cares about Communists in the family anymore. When Phil phones Sharmen to offer him a campaign bribe and is turned down, he tries blackmailing him with the knowledge of his uncle's political inclinations, but Sharmen just laughs and says it was his cousin, not his uncle, and hangs up.

The play has been adapted for the screen twice; once directed by Jason Miller by Creator/CannonFilms in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Bruce Dern, Paul Sorvino, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino (who also directed) now playing Coach and Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney as the players.

In 1952, the basketball team of Fillmore High, a small Catholic high school in Scranton, staged an upset victory in the final of the Pennsylvania State High School Basketball Championship. Four of the players - George Sikowski, Phil Romano, and brothers James and Tom Daley - have had annual reunions ever since with their coach (only ever addressed as [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Coach]]) at his house on the anniversary of their victory. The fifth player, Martin Rose, has refused to attend any of the reunions and wants nothing to do with Coach or his former teammates.

* GloryDays: Though George, James, and especially Phil have ostensibly achieved professional success, none of them are truly happy, and none have really measured up to their moment of glory in the 1952 state basketball championship, a moment they have been re-living as often as they possibly can. George and James even remark that they are prouder of their heroics on the basketball court twenty years earlier than they are of anything they have done since.

The play has been adapted for the screen twice; once by Creator/CannonFilms in 1982 with Creator/RobertMitchum as Coach and Bruce Dern, Paul Sorvino, Stacy Keach, and Martin Sheen as the players, and once for television in 1999 with Sorvino now playing Coach and Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney as the players.

Twenty years on. George is a first-term mayor of Scranton fighting a tough re-election campaign against Norman Sharmen, who is younger, more dynamic, and, most galling of all for the bigoted George and his teammates, Jewish. A campaign publicity stunt has gone badly wrong, enhancing the view of both the voting public and his own campaign that George is a buffoon. Phil is a wealthy strip mining entrepreneur who has been donating to George's campaigns in exchange for favourable terms on the land lease for his mining operations; unbeknownst to George, he is also having an affair with his wife, Marion. James is the overworked and underpaid principal of a local junior high school and is George's campaign manager, hoping to be named superintendent of schools if George is re-elected. Tom has become an alcoholic drifter.

At the reunion, the tensions between the former basketball players quickly simmer to the surface. Coach hates dissent in the ranks, feeling it weakens the team dynamic, and tries to rally them as he has done for twenty years, but he can only speak in pep talk platitudes, addressing them as though they are still a basketball team in the middle of the big game, and it is clear that the players' overreliance on his trite guidance is a significant cause of their current unhappiness. James tells George about Phil's affair with Marion, while Phil tries unsuccessfully to abandon the sinking ship of George's campaign by calling Sharmen to offer a donation in exchange for preserving the favourable terms of his lease. James is also outraged to discover that George is bringing in a new campaign team from Philadelphia to salvage his chances for re-election. Tom spends the evening getting more and more drunk and lashing out at everyone in turn, culminating in revealing just why the absent Martin Rose hates Coach and has never attended a reunion.