Frank Deford

Athletes and fans explore the impact of sports on the lives of Americans.

Schooled: The Price of College Sports is a comprehensive look at the business, history and culture of big-time college football and basketball in America. It is an adaptation of “The Cartel” by Pulitzer Prize Winning civil rights scholar Taylor Branch, and his October 2011 article in The Atlantic, “The Shame of College Sports.” Schooled presents a hard-hitting examination of the NCAA’s treatment of its athletes and amateurism in collegiate athletics; weaving interviews, archival and verité footage to tell a story of how college sports became a billion dollar industry built on the backs of athletes who are deprived of numerous rights.

A father, who has trained his son all his life to play football, pauses when his son turns twelve and is about to play tackle football. Journalist Sean Pamphilon went out on a mission to decide when it was appropriate to let his son play the game he's loved all his life.

"The Team that Changed the World," investigates the Globetrotters' impact socially and culturally, as well as their lasting effect on the NBA. Featuring interviews with basketball players, celebrities, politicians, and more, the documentary also shows how the Globetrotters continue to serve as "Ambassadors of Goodwill" and touch audiences around the world today.

"As soon as you hear the title to this new one, you know exactly what it's about and why it's likely to be good, especially if you were a sports fan growing up in the 1970s. Even to good boys all the way across the country in New Hampshire, the authority-flouting baseball A's and football Raiders were magical. Not only did they win championships, they did it amid clubhouse brawls, feuds with an owner and a general embrace of the 1960s aesthetic. Filmmakers Rick Bernstein and Ross Greenburg tell the stories of these turbulent, talented teams and show how they perfectly fit their city. Oakland was blue collar and home to hardcore hard-core 1960s rebellion, exemplified by the Black Panthers. Oakland, especially, was not San Francisco, the effete, world-class city across the bay."

Documentary about NBA star Bill Russell

HBO (in association with the American Film Institute) presents this 1997 anthology, narrated by Liev Schreiber, which looks at sports in cinema from the earliest silent films until the nineties. Watch not for dramatic scenes but for the glimpse of historical figures shown both cinematic and athletic- in this tribute to the merging of sports and Hollywood.

Louisiana football star Gavin Grey had it all. He was an All-American champion who married his high-school sweetheart, homecoming queen Babs Rogers, and who was a hero to his hometown. Yet after a failed professional career, Gavin realizes that fame and success have passed him by and that he no longer is the hero everyone keeps reminding him he should still be. His dissatisfaction with his life leads to strains in his marriage, and Gavin begins to wonder who he is, if he's not a hero anymore.

A baseball-loving small girl decides to hook up her favorite down-on-his-luck baseball player and her mom, a down-on-her-luck lounge singer. Then her controlling rich granddad tries to force her mother to send the girl to live with him.

A baseball-loving small girl decides to hook up her favorite down-on-his-luck baseball player and her mom, a down-on-her-luck lounge singer. Then her controlling rich granddad tries to force her mother to send the girl to live with him.

Based on true events, 'Alex: The Life of a Child' follows former 'Sports Illustrated' writer Frank Deford and his wife Carole when their happy, all-American family is rocked to the core when their baby daughter Alex is diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. While CF sufferers were almost certainly doomed to an early death in the Seventies, Alex grew into a child who showed remarkable courage and strength in face of her illness. Her loving family were quick to rally around her, determined to show the same bravery as the little girl as they supported and cherished her through life and struggled to move on after her death at the tragically young age of eight.