Movie critics have assessed "Coach Carter" as just another feel-good high-school hoops story for the big screen.

Some even have said that the film, packed with the essential discourse of team play and the maturation of teenage boys to young men, could have been cut by a half-hour.

However, those who grasped the captivating theme of the story of Ken Carter, a coach dedicated to making students out of athletes, know this film cannot be casually tossed into the general sports flick pile.

Unlike other basketball films accenting the hardships young black males encounter in the inner city, such as Spike Lee's 1998 movie "He Got Game," "Coach Carter" is invigorating because a man who refuses to let his players become victims of their environment challenges the substandard academic system.

"He Got Game" barely touched upon the importance of academics; instead, the film highlighted many of the things that corrupt high-school sports, such as under-the-table deals and crooked agents. The plot is drawn from a shady deal that the governor of New York makes with a state-prison inmate. The inmate's son is the top basketball prospect in the nation, and the governor promises a reduced sentence if the son signs with the governor's alma mater. The boy does, but the governor reneges. While the gifted player opted for college over the pros, viewers could conclude that in a real-life situation, he would probably succumb to the vices that surround big-time college athletics.

The recently-released "Coach Carter," on the other hand, shows how the lives of kids who statistically had a better chance of being incarcerated rather than attending college could be saved when an educator dares to raise the scholastic bar.

Samuel L. Jackson portrays the fearless Carter, who in 1999 required his players at Richmond High School in tough section of the San Francisco Bay Area, to sign a contract promising to sit in the front row of all their classes and to maintain a 2.3 grade- point average. The players' parents and the school principal ardently opposed Carter's standards, claiming they were too stringent for boys whose lives revolved around the court.

The climax comes when Carter locks the team out of the gym because several players failed to maintain the solid C average. As he draws the fury of the community, his players begin to comprehend the life-skills lessons Carter has been trying to teach them when he breaks down graduation and prison statistics during one of their library sessions.

Finally seeing that Carter is for real, the team decides to hit the books and they continue the lockout after the school board votes to end it.

If we had more Ken Carters in our high schools, more black males would be prepared for the rigors of college and not look to the NBA or NFL as the sole exodus out of the hood. Furthermore, they would know the odds of them making it to the professional level are very slim: NCAA research shows that 2.9 percent of high-school basketball players compete in college and of those who stay for their senior year, only 1.3 percent make it to the NBA.

NBA team rosters can fluctuate between 12 and 17 players; that's stiff competition for roughly 440 spots. Overall, blacks comprise only nine percent of people who make their living playing professional sports. That's stiff competition for fewer than 5,000 jobs that are to be found in the big-league sports.

"Coach Carter" prepared his kids for plan B in case their hoop dreams did not materialize. All 15 players from the '99 team went to college and selected majors ranging from business to communications.

This film shows that accomplishments in the classroom matter and that kids locked in a system designed for them to fail can succeed when challenged appropriately.

Hopefully, student athletes in Richmond-like schools who see "Coach Carter" will remember the most important lesson of the movie: The stats they put up in the game of life are the ones that really count, long after season wins and losses are forgotten.