Introduction
In McFarland USA, Mr. White, the new football coach, receives the opportunity to start a
cross country team, but is brand new to a mostly Mexican town in California. The students call
him white and do not connect with him for a portion of the film. Mr. White experienced many
culturally new events and atmosphere that took a while for him to understand. When creating and
maintaining the cross-country team the most critical elements that allowed the student runners to
create genuine friendships with White across the language and cultural line was his respect,
commitment, and partnership to know he is trying to understand their cultural norms and beliefs.
As coach displayed these three characteristics, the runners became more comfortable and willing
to help him understand and eventually fit into their town.
Showing Respect
The student runners responded to White showing respect to their culture and its norms
which grew their relationships with him by the end. During one of the practices, a mom drives up
and yells for her two sons on the team to come to the car because they have to go to work with
their dad. In the Mexican culture, respecting your parents, especially your mom, is very
important. Many kids in this culture do not try and talk back or tell at their mom to wait they
respond immediately with no question. As this was happening White was very confused and told
the boys to stay and to tell their mom to wait a few more minutes until practice was over and one
of the brothers stops and tells him to tell their mom that. In this moment you could tell the boys
knew exactly what their mom wanted and so they did it, but White has not been introduced to
that so he was put off and confused but let the boys go because he saw the change in the brothers
that their mom was being serious. Another moment in the movie when White showed respect to
the youth was when he got invited to have dinner at one of his students houses. White was at the
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table and the mother kept filling up his plate every time he took a bite and he was a little annoyed
by that but felt it would be disrespectful to say he was full and did not need any more food. The
mother thought it was respectful to keep her guest eating and fill him up. The student runner
turns to White and says you can say you don’t want any more food because if you keep going
like this you are going to throw up and that is going to be more disrespectful than saying no. In
this moment we saw the two different ideas of respect. White started to learn and understand
more about their culture and the idea of respect in this scene.
Being Committed
When trying to put together the cross-country team White showed great commitment in
getting the boys to join the team. White especially showed interest and commitment to Valles.
Coach White got Sammy to believe in the team and go and tell his friends and brothers to join
but White specified Valles. Once many of the boys said no, White kept pushing and doing
anything to gain their trust and join the team. In this recruiting process he showed the boys great
commitment. Valles was the toughest kid on the team and also the most talented. There were
many scenes that Valles got mad at White for good reason but White kept perusing him and
eventually became his greatest friend and captain of the team. One scene that I believe changed
Valles’ heart toward White was when Valles was on the bridge and White pulled over and just
listened to what Valles had to say. He just sat and tried to understand what Valles had going on in
his life and the true struggle in his family and in his relationship with his dad. White told him
about missing his daughter’s birthday and that created a time of laughter and connection that
brought the two together even more.
Allowing Partnership
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By the end of the movie White grew greatly in his relationships with the boys, but still
had a lot of work to do because up until about the middle of the movie he still did not have a full
understanding of what the boys went through on a regular basis, work wise and tradition wise.
White decided to go to work with his runners for one day after talking with their father who was
not 100% on letting his boys run cross-country because it took away from their work time with
him which took away income for the household. White being a middle aged and white male who
has been privileged all his life did not understand that concern until he had the opportunity to
work a day out in the fields. White made a promise, that he would help the boys by making a
schedule to where they could still help out in the fields and to still be on the cross-country team.
Another example of White showing partnership to his runners was when he said yes to their help
to plan a quinceanera for his daughter. He took a step out of his comfort zone to partner with his
athletes’ families to plan this party and was able to show he wanted to learn more about their
traditions and culture.
Conclusion
Coach White was able to show respect, commitment, and partnership to the youth of
his town to build genuine relationships even with a language barrier and cultural line that he had
never been exposed to. The youth in McFarland, USA just wanted to feel like they were cared
about and trusted and through that were able to except their elders’ differences from them and
create a relationship that is not normal, but beautiful.
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