As Hanukkah comes to a close, I wanted to celebrate the Festival of Lights by counting down the Eight Craziest Nights of the WNBA season. Even though Adam Sadler’s song inspired the theme of this article and I celebrate Christmas, the story of Hanukkah as told in a Disney Channel Original Movie helped inspire my love of basketball.
In November 2003, my basketball fandom was at a low point as the Miami Sol had folded the year before, the Heat had just finished 2002 at the bottom of NBA, and Dwyane Wade’s first year with the Heat started off atrociously. Then, Disney Channel debuted the DCOM Full Court Miracle.
The movie tells the true-ish story of Lamont Carr coaching the Philadelphia Hebrew School basketball team to success after a long losing streak. It’s an absurd movie. At one point, the team does a dance to a “rap” song about basketball and Hanukkah.
Watch this movie. I promise that you will be entertained. Despite its flaws, the movie taught me about Hanukkah and the power of basketball to bring people together. More importantly to 10-year old me, the Heat started to turn it around after I watched Full Court Miracle. They went 39-29 the rest of the season and won a playoff series.
The Heat’s resurgence in 2003 sparked my lifelong love of the game and it all started with this very silly movie about Hanukkah and basketball. The movie didn’t bring back the Miami Sol though, but one miracle at a time I guess…
Gabe Ibrahim 