Kevin Costner paves the way for athletes in McFarland USA

McFarland, USA was released in February 2015 and still makes people smile.

It is a family-friendly movie about a man named Jim White (played by Kevin Costner) who lost his job as a football coach. After losing his job, Jim and his family moved to the small town of McFarland, Texas where he starts working as a PE teacher and track coach.

Mr. White notices that this high school full of Mexicans and he soon learns that the hysterical teenage boys that are in his physical education class can run faster than the other students in their class. He’s confident that these boys are the right fit to be a cross country team. He believes this team will impact the boys’ lives so that they will be successful, and maybe this experience will change his own life.

This movie is important because it shows how reality actually is for Mexicans and their families. My favorite scene in the movie is when the boys invite Mr. White home for dinner so that the parents can meet him before they actually join the team. After dinner, Mr. White asks one of the boys, Danny, if he could translate “It was an honor being in your home,” thinking that Danny’s dad didn’t speak English. So Danny tells his dad what Mr. White said, but in English and not Spanish. Danny’s dad responds to his son while looking directly at Mr. White and says, “Tell him I said ‘Thanks’.”