The Street Stops Here

“The Street Stops Here” is a documentary based on the small Catholic High School a mist the worst neighborhoods of New Jersey.  The documentary is about the basketball team at the school with a tough-loving coach who has turned the lives of hundreds of kids from crime and poverty.  Bob Hurley has been the coach of the team for 37 years transforming boys off the streets in to college bound men.  Only two players throughout his tenure failed to reach college.  The main argument of the film is taking the kids coming from difficult backgrounds and helping them to find themselves on the basketball court.  The film shows all aspects of the players and coaches lives from practices to games even their homes.  Also, Hurley’s coaching style grasps the attention of the viewer with his demanding tactics to make his players the best.  He believes he is the most demanding person every single player has come across and that’s why he has the success he does.  During the documentary Saint Anthony’s has many financial struggles compounded by the Wall Street collapse and through thick and thin Hurley is there to keep things in line the best he can with the basketball program being the main fundraising vehicle for the entire school.  Burno in the film is a young man who grew up in disaster he essentially raised himself because his mother died when he was 7 and he never has met his father.  He says that one man changed that and Hurley is the mentor with great passion and leadership. His coaching style is intense and full of swears and tirades which he believes are psychological tactics employed to keep his players grounded and to demonstrate that, in basketball and in life, every action has consequences. The story is truly remarkable, one man who has taken hundreds of adolescents off the streets brought them to Saint Anthony’s and with his demanding demeanor he has got the message across to all of his players that if they buy into his system, no matter how hard it may, be there is no limit on how far they can go.  The documentary was filmed in 2007-8 and I am familiar with the players from his program doing unbelievable things in college basketball as well as going forward.