Blue Chips

Blue Chips is a 1994 American sports drama film, directed by William Friedkin, written by Ron Shelton and starring Nick Nolte as a college coach trying to recruit a winning team. His players were portrayed by actors as well as real-life basketball stars Shaquille O'Neal and Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway and cameos include noted basketball figures Bob Knight, Rick Pitino, George Raveling, Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Jerry Tarkanian, Matt Painter, Allan Houston, Dick Vitale, Jim Boeheim, Dan Dakich and Bobby Hurley, as well as actor Louis Gossett Jr. Plot Pete Bell, a college basketball coach for the Western University Dolphins in Los Angeles, is under a lot of pressure. His team is not winning as often as it once did and his successful program needs to attract new star players. But the brightest stars of the future—the so-called "blue-chip" prospects—are secretly being paid by other schools. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate after a losing season. A school booster, greedy "friend of the program" Happy, will stop at nothing to land these star high school players for Western's next season and gets the okay from the coach to do so. This includes offering a new car to the gigantic Neon Boudeaux (Shaq), a house and job to the mother of Butch McRae, and a tractor to the father of farmboy Ricky Roe, as well as a bag filled with cash. With sportswriter Ed suspecting a scandal, Pete continues to be contaminated by demands from the players and a dirty association with the booster. His estranged wife, a former guidance counselor, agrees to tutor Neon, who has below average grades, but she feels betrayed when Pete lies to her about the new athletes receiving illegal inducements to attend the school.