St. Anthony had its documentary.
Now it’s St. Patrick’s turn.
One year after The Street Stops Here chronicled Bob Hurley and St. Anthony’s run to a perfect season (2007-8), Prayer For A Perfect Season will appear on HBO Oct. 25.
This feature-length documentary chronicles the effort of then-coach Kevin Boyle and his players, whose journey ends in a winner-take-all showdown for the mythical national championship with St. Anthony. (Boyle left after the season to become head coach at Montverde Academy.)
Both teams were undefeated entering the game, and St. Patrick was a heavy favorite, yet the Friars pulled the upset and won the mythical national championship.
Prayer For A Perfect Season captures the intersection of two forces – the soaring media interest in the big game, and the decline of Catholic school programs – while illuminating the real-life issues players and coaches confront during the season.
The Celtics were loaded with talent and plagued by distractions. Star player Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (now a freshman at the University of Kentucky) was one of the nation’s top performers and his elite skills had cast him in an unrelenting spotlight since grade school.
When Kidd-Gilchrist was just two and a half years old, his father was murdered, and he also lost his surrogate father at the beginning of his senior year of high school.
Complementing Kidd-Gilchrist, senior shooting guard Derrick Gordon (ticketed for Western Kentucky University) must live with his twin brother’s incarceration for aggravated assault.
Prayer For A Perfect Season follows the roller-coaster ride of a team on the brink of history, at a school on the verge of becoming insolvent, where the journey to the top of the polls is inspiring, but the future is filled with uncertainty.
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