Go Tigers!

High school football rules in Massillon, Ohio. In this blue-collar community--dubbed "Touchdown Town" in a 1951 newsreel--passion for the Washington High Tigers is a cradle-to-grave occupation. Team boosters visit maternity wards and bestow footballs to newborn "little Tigers," while a mortician offers customers Tigers-themed caskets. Ranked by ESPN.com as among the five best sports docs of all time, Go Tigers! chronicles the Tigers' pivotal 1999 season--its 106th!--in which the team's success or failure on the field could impact an upcoming tax levy to save the town's beleaguered schools. Filmmaker and Massillon native Kenneth Carlson is no mere cheerleader: he tackles the touchy issue of priorities (some parents hold promising eighth graders back so they will be bigger and stronger in high school) and takes a hard look at the town's Stepfordian devotion to the team that put it on the map ("conform or be destroyed," states one disaffected youth). While the film garnered an R-rating for some disturbing footage of a post-victory binge-drinking bacchanal, more inspiring are the profiles of the team's three captains, in whom one can see the positive role football plays in their lives. Highly recommended. (K. Lee Benson)