More at Stake Than the Final Score

The scene is surreal: a high school gym in New Orleans in 1965, two basketball teams on the court. There are no cheering crowds, just two groups of parents in the bleachers, looking on. An aisle, and a tortured history, divides them--white on the right, black on the left. As the teams collide, the black team is tentative, the white team is playing to destroy.

“Timeout,” yells Father Joseph Verrett, the Jesuit priest played by Andre Braugher, whose unflinching determination to fight discrimination is at the center of “Passing Glory,” an original Turner Network Television film premiering Sunday at 8 p.m.

It has all come down to this moment, a test of talent, not race. And with the quiet force that director Steve James (“Hoop Dreams” and “Prefontaine”) brings to this film, he and Braugher expose the more subtle legacy of racism as Father Verrett forces his players, for the first time in their lives, to truly think of themselves as equals.

The game itself broke the color barrier and put a then 2-year-old Civil Rights Bill to the test. It also marked the beginning of the end of athletic segregation in Louisiana. The story begins with Father Verrett’s return to his hometown after a Jesuit education and several years as a priest in Baltimore. For most of the film’s two hours, Verrett is searching for ways to bring together the top-ranked black basketball team in the city to play the top-ranked white team. It was a game that no one--except the players--sanctioned, and it was ultimately played in virtual secrecy.

It is not surprising that the story drew the interest of legendary L.A. Laker Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who teamed with Quincy Jones and David Salzman to produce the film based on Harold Sylvester’s experience as a player on the black St. Augustine team. Sylvester, who wrote the screenplay and is a veteran actor with credits including “Corrina, Corrina” and “Married . . . With Children,” was just 15 when he played for St. Augustine.

The story “transcends sports, but it’s also more than a movie about race,” Johnson says. “It hits at all levels.”

Noticeably absent in this civil rights drama are burning crosses, fire hoses, tear gas or police-battered protesters that typify many films of that era. Ever present are subtle and blatant prejudices endemic to the ‘60s South, played out between the black and white teams, their communities and the entrenched hatred and fears that the fathers passed on to their defiant sons.

The emotional resonance of the story led Braugher, who left a starring role on the NBC series “Homicide: Life on the Street” last season to concentrate on a film career, to return to television for this project. It will likely be just a brief stop, as Braugher next appears in October Films’ “Thick as Thieves” opposite Alec Baldwin and is currently in Vancouver filming “Duet” with Gwyneth Paltrow. But Braugher liked what he saw on the page in “Passing Glory.”

“It’s not preachy, and it’s certainly no tear-jerker. It’s meant to elevate the human spirit through several stories folded into one,” Braugher says. “Civil rights is almost a backdrop used to play off personal relationships between father and son, between my character, Verrett, and Father Grant [Rip Torn], between Verrett and Travis Porter [Sean Squire], the star of the team who Verrett sees as a younger version of himself.”

Travis is a fictional character but very much drawn from Sylvester’s own life: The actor was the first black to attend Tulane University on an athletic scholarship, a dream Travis holds on to throughout the film.

“This movie deals with sensitive issues, rooted in authenticity through genuine relationships,” Braugher continues. “It’s told in such a personal way--that is what makes it believable.”

In some ways, Verrett echoes Braugher’s Emmy-winning portrayal of “Homicide” Det. Frank Pembleton--a flawed but decent, committed man. But Braugher ultimately creates a very different character, as Verrett’s struggles with his own impatience, and his anger at the pace of change, are far more internal than Pembleton’s. By Braugher’s design, anyone tuning in expecting a reprise of Det. Pembleton won’t find him in “Passing Glory.”

Despite the involvement of Braugher, Johnson and Quincy Jones, director James was still hesitant to take on the project.

“My first impulse was ‘Oh no, not another sports movie,’ much less basketball,” James says. His feature “Prefontaine,” which he wrote and directed for Disney, followed his critically acclaimed two-hour, 49-minute documentary “Hoop Dreams.” That five-year endeavor followed the lives of two inner-city Chicago basketball players and won Sundance, Directors Guild and MTV awards. It also brought James an Oscar nomination for editing.

“Both ‘Passing Glory’ and ‘Hoop Dreams’ use the setting of basketball to explore a much deeper story,” James says. “In ‘Passing Glory,’ the major story arc is about equality, through the individual view of fighting for the right to compete. ‘Hoop Dreams’ is really about pursuing the American dream.”

No Milking, Just Straight Storytelling

James said he made a conscious decision not to “milk the moment” in “Passing Glory,” declining to play to the standard Southern racist stereotypes. When the team members’ families file into the gym for the big game, James chose to play it straight.

“The whites come from one side, the blacks from the other, meeting in the middle. The shot is purposely static and formal,” he explains. “They sit and look at each other on either side of that [aisle] divide. Without a word, it shows how people were so profoundly uncomfortable with the situation. They never had to deal with this before.”

For writer Sylvester, the game meant “storming the walls of apartheid” to his fellow teammates. Sylvester was a starter that day, and the second leading scorer in his first year on the varsity team. His athletic ability took him to Tulane, where he ended up majoring in theater and psychology.

Although Travis Porter--”Passing Glory’s” most talented player--is fictional, “the house in the projects, the parents . . . all of that is based on my reality,” Sylvester says. “Father Grant, who died last year, and Father Verrett, who really is a combination of three characters, are very real. Father Verrett has seen the film and loved it.”

True light also meant reflecting the true perspectives of the game for both communities.

“For us, this game was everything,” Sylvester recalls. “If we didn’t challenge the whites, did nothing like our parents, we knew our reality would never change. That said, I don’t know if I would have had the courage my parents had to let my kids do this.”

“Passing Glory” represents an understated return to television for Magic Johnson after a painful, two-month run as the host of the syndicated talk show “The Magic Hour” last year.

“It’s a nice way to come back to TV,” he says. “I was disappointed that my show was pulled, and I thought it should have been given a little more time.” And Johnson doesn’t rule out the prospect of other television projects, “if it was the right thing to do. . . . But it’s like this film, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to do a cameo or attempt to act in it. I’d rather just sit back and drool over somebody else’s great performance--like Andre’s.”

For TNT, the film is part of the cable network’s strategy of producing movie projects that can compete with the fare on premium channels like HBO and Showtime.

“In the last two years, we have [tried] to create an environment that attracts top talent,” says Julie Weitz, executive vice president of TNT Original Pictures. “We raised the bar a long time ago. . . . Filmmakers and writers know they can get their passion projects made here. This is another film that speaks to that.”

For Sylvester, “Passing Glory” is the chance to finally tell his story. He still recalls a newspaper headline about the game at the time, which read: “Basketball is the Negro Boy’s Very Special Sport.”

“[That] really says it all, doesn’t it?” he says. “Later that year, there was the first public integrated game, and it was a sellout. But it took another two years to end segregation in athletics.

“The message in this film is that racism is designed into the system. It’s no accident, and it still very much exists.”

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* “Passing Glory” premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. on TNT, with encores throughout the week. The network has rated it TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14, with a special advisory for coarse language).