September 24, 2026
Spiritually Speaking in the Movies review Sept. 24, 2025 “When the Game Stands Tall.” PG. 1h55m, 2014, featuring Jim Caviezel (Person of Interest, Frequency, Passion of the Christ). Should you see “When the Game Stands Tall.”? Yes! It is impossible to come away from this movie without being thankful such “Men of Faith” (the De La Salle High School motto) exist to inspire young men to excellence on an off the field.
The Quick Review:
Caviezel is the iconic football coach Bob Ladouceur, who coached the De La Salle High School football team from “unknown” status to a 151-game win streak, surpassing all win records for any American sport, professional or collegiate. Impressive!
NFL Superstar Coach John Madden said, “I’ll say this about Bob Ladouceur, that he’s a better coach than our big-time college coaches, and he’s a better coach than our big-time pro coaches.”
Even if you are not a fan of football — and maybe more impactful if you are not — there is a message here for you. It’s a story transferable to other facets of life, other venues. You’re venue, your facet and story. “When the Game Stands Tall” is a story that can accomplish it.
And the particular power of this story-with-a-spiritual center is that it’s true. This is not the fiction of “The Natural” or a “Field of Dreams” fantasy. These are real people, in real places at a real time, answering hard questions when the unimaginable happens. Life is shattered on many levels in many ways. We see some players living life with a broken spirit. Can they bear it?
The story contends, if the young players can navigate the unimaginable, you could too, on your own field, in your own element. Even now. Even today. It’s not too late. If you are alive and still kicking, your time has not passed.
“When the Game Stands Tall” is not about football, personal records or stats. It’s not about what the movie calls, “The Streak.” It’s about identity — where it comes from, how you get it, preserve it, nourish and cherish it. And if you do that right, you’re a true winner, a real victor.
And that’s worth the 150 minutes to come away with inspiration on that level.
A Deeper Dive into “When the Game Stands Tall.”
When the movie opens, Coach Bob “Lad” (Ladouceur), has led his high school football team in 12 seasons to a 150-game winning streak. This accomplishment is unheard of in any level of sports, professional or amateur, we are told.
But I’d see this movie just because of NFL Coach John Madden’s insight of Ladouceur’s character (see above).
Madden led the Oakland Raiders to eight playoff appearances, seven division titles, seven AFL/AFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl title. He was a long time football TV commentator. Countless Xbox games bear his name. There is a movie in the works (featuring Nicholas Cage) about his incredible career, to be released in November 2026.
If anyone knows excellence, it’s John Madden. His comment in the film is superlative and significant. When the best of the best says, “He’s the best,” it means something
Yet, Mr. Ladouceur has a tough assignment: taking kids from the tough East Bay Area of San Francisco and giving them something solid to live for. He’s a coach at parochial school, so there is a message, spiritually speaking, beyond what is seen on the surface.
Coach Lad even teaches a class on Luke 6:38, and the filmmakers linger on it and give it time. The school’s motto is “Men of Faith.” But listening to the players react to Lad’s teaching, real faith seems hard to come by. He does not press them hard or demand results. He lets them think. The exchange between players and teacher shows this is not a “gimme” field of life, so easy to tend too. It’s one full of rocks and stones, and we get to see it up close.
In fact, much of the time, the story seems to indicate the opposite of genuine faith : There is pride, arrogance, even self glorification among these football students. Worse, the “winners” are simply adored by their school-mates and that helps inflate the egos of the team. Simultaneously it’s reinforcing a false identity to students, i.e., “The Streak!” which is theirs by proximity to greatness. To lose is unthinkable for everyone. There is too much at stake. The pressure to win is immense. No one wants to be responsible for breaking The Streak.
Coach Lad seems grieved when he sees this played out in front of him, but quietly goes about his business of teaching young men how to think, via sports. De Le Salle is his field, and why he won’t respond to the clamor of college football teams across the nation who plead — and throw buckets of money at him — to come lead their programs to victory stats.
The story shows the players of De Le Salle sifted like wheat before our eyes. Death stalks some. Ladocueur speaks at a church, a funeral, when one of his players die. The Coffin is draped in a flag with the school’s motto, “Men of Faith.” There it is. When you die, the worldly victories will mean little. The most important question becomes “Did you have faith?” The scene with the flag is so brief, you could miss it. But director John Tom Carter put it there for a reason.
Pause and consider.
Yet, the teams spiritual foundation still seems to be in their tradition — “undefeated” — and that’s going to come crashing down on them with devastating results. Like a flash-flood, life suddenly, irrevocably, washes away that built on sand.
Spiritually speaking, it is fascinating to see, in a true story, how the coaches will navigate their kids through the darkness of depression, doubt and despair. You don’t need a pro sports psychiatrist to know that when doubt sets in, victory goes out. From a movie production standpoint — and a real-life one — this could be fumbled in so many ways. Thankfully, through skill and tact, it isn’t.
This is because false hope can be even worse. Grasping at platitudes is in vain. And once false hope is exposed, the temptation is to never “believe” again? So, what to do? For those who’ve experienced this, watch and see what they did and how they did it.
This is why little knowledge of football, I think, works better than being very familiar with it. As the story’s solution unfolds, you can hear the chords, so to speak, see the endgame, grasp the concepts more easily. Flashy and exciting sports window-dressing doesn’t exist in your thinking, so it’s does not distract from the point.
About the action scenes : For those who want to see intense sports action, like a blow-by-blow fight similar to innumerable boxing films, they may come away thinking, “I’ve seen better.” And they would be right. “When the Game Stands Tall” is not a bad sports pic at all. The on-field football action is good enough to get the point across. But it’s only a part of the story. It can’t stand alone on its own.
Former players, or fans who know the game inside and out, may be critical. My advice is to focus on what the film is about, not the “back up singers and the band” so to speak, but the words of the song.
And for those who already speak the spiritual language of Coach Lad — the tens of millions of Americans who base their very lives on that language — will find, by the time the credits roll, a real life-affirming shot in the arm they can use when the get up the next morning.
This is a true high school football story, and life lessons, and so much more. To all the football coaches who lived and prepared the way for Coach Bob Ladouceur, men of whom there will be no movie or book, who are known only to “insiders,” the athletes that played for them and families affected by them, this movie should be dedicated in gratitude.
Watch it and be prepared to be encouraged after all is said and done.
Epilogue for Football Fans:
Full Disclosure : I am a Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Wash) alumni who was there at PLU in 1997 when coach Frosty Westering joined the Top Ten “most winning” coaches in the country.
This movie could easily have been called, “When the Man Stands Tall!” a good John Wayne title, tempting, perhaps, for a better box office. But I think Coach Bob might object to it. He would say, “It’s not about me. It’s about the team, about life.” And football, the game, is the analogy to life itself.
Accepting this, the question then becomes, who did Bob Ladouceur learn from? It’s easy to say, “the Bible,” and I’m sure that’s true. But did Ladouceur have people who showed him the way? Other coaches? Who were they? People he read about, listened or looked up to? Who was on “his team”? Men of whom there will be no movie?
Before “The Streak” even started for De Le Salle in 1992, there was legendary Pacific Lutheran University coach Frosty Westering, a contemporary of Ladouceur in the 1980’s. Westering is one of only 11 college football coaches who have won at least 300 games, and he’s in the Top Ten. PLU is in Tacoma, Washington, just 777 miles north on I-5 from De Le Salle High School.
Scenes in “When the Game Stands Tall” of a team-centered, hand-holding, emotion-sharing, song-singing football program were incorporated by Westering at PLU.
Among them: PLU preseason practices starting with a three-day "Breakaway" where footballs and pads were left behind in favor of team-building games, skits and songs; team "Attaway" cheers for a laundry list of things including Mt. Rainier, football alums and other PLU athletic teams; "Afterglows" following all games where love, hugs, compliments, food, laughter and tears were shared in equal portions among players, family and friends; and teaching his players to offer an opponent a hand up after having knocked them to the ground.
You see all this in the film about Ladouceur and the De Le Salle Spartans. It is inconceivable Ladouceur was not aware of Westering, this “one in 11” record holder with a “family” approach, to football, right in his backyard.
The point is, no man exists in a vacuum. Take another look at where the influences came from. There are other coaches who have latched onto these ideas and “run with it” to score. It’s not a “Catholic thing,” if you’re wondering. It’s a Christian thing. And more of it exists than we may realize.
It’s good that Tom Carter’s film was made. “When the Game Stands Tall” could — and should be — for all of those coaches, only the few on earth will ever know.
- No AI was used in the writing of this review.
- Full Disclosure : I was there at PLU in ’97 and spoken with Westering in his office. He was pretty impressive.
PS: more on Frosty Westering
Frosty's overall record in 32 seasons at Pacific Lutheran was a staggering 261–70–5 (.784 winning percentage) the school’s Website says. No PLU team under his guidance suffered a losing record, He coached 26 NAIA and NCAA First Team All-Americans. Pacific Lutheran appeared in 15 NAIA Division II national playoffs from 1979–97. In addition, his teams advanced to the Division III playoffs in each of the school's first four years as a NCAA member.
