A very good sports related drama. Kenny Williams(James McDaniel), a black educator from Texas leaves a past behind and takes a position teaching English at Three Nations High School in a small Native American community in Utah. Williams not only has problems fitting into the close knit society...he faces obstacles accepting coaching the girl's basketball team. He struggles with turning around a losing team and preparing them to hold their own against a rivaling nearby all-white high school.Some interesting sub-plots and a strong cast featuring: Wes Studi, Tim Daly, Irene Bedard, Fraya Aspaas-Montoya, Eddie Spears, Trini King and most impressive Delanna Studi. Some very contrasting scenery filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of my favorite scenes is when the black coach is called a 'white man'. This project had a very successful premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004.

Another viewer wrote: "Killer premise: Black male teacher is recruited suddenly to teach English at an Indian reservation high school and takes over as coach of the hapless girls basketball team." Actually, it wasn't an original premise at all, but a true story.Just enough details were changed by the producers to avoid having to pay for the rights to the life of coach Jerry Richardson and the young women of the Shiprock, New Mexico Lady Chieftains high school basketball team. An award-winning documentary ("Rocks With Wings") about Coach Richardson, the team, and their profound influence upon life on the Navajo Reservation had already played across the country and aired on PBS before Chris Eyre and Willy Holtzman attempted their awkward adaptation-- "Rocks With Wings" tells the same story, but with far greater insight and subtlety, as well as a few more plot twists. I would recommend that documentary over "Edge of America" to anyone interested in this story.

Chris Eyre has done a wonderful job of presenting Indian life in America today. The reality of the reservation was presented in a wonderful way - not as victims or heros but as real people just trying to live their lives.I especially liked the fact that this movie avoided typical Pan Indian Images that plague so much of what is presented in the media about Native Americans and their culture.Bravo!

Killer premise: Black male teacher is recruited suddenly to teach English at an Indian reservation high school and takes over as coach of the hapless girls basketball team. Chris Eyre is a talented director. (He actually reprises the reservation DJ commentary that was so funny in Smoke Signals.) This is Hoosiers on the Rez. I love Eyre's movies because they are thoughtful, funny and compassionate, and always force us to consider people in a new light. He does an extraordinary job of exposing us to the good and the bad in Indian country, and I walk away from his films both enlightened and uplifted.