(FADEIN to a dirt driveway somewhere in the outskirts of Gary, Indiana. The man we’ve come to know as Eddie Patton is dribbling a basketball and trying to get past a slightly taller man who appears to be slightly older, but extremely similar looking, both in mannerisms and physical appearance.
Eddie tries to drive past the other man, and goes up for a layup, but the larger man swats it away.)
MAN: “Get that amateur stuff outta here, lil’ bro!”
(Eddie Patton scrambles after the blocked shot, picking up the dribble again and trying to penetrate his apparently older brother’s stifling defense. He backs up a bit and speaks.)
EDDIE: “Yeah, you got some nice D there, Scott, but y’know me… I ain’t walkin’ away that easily.”
(He once again drives to the hoop, but this time, Scott Patton, his older, bigger brother, steals the ball and lays it in laughing, before passing it back to Eddie.)
SCOTT: “I know you won’t, kid, but let’s face it… you don’t have the height, you don’t have the power, and you DEFINITELY don’t have the skills… “
EDDIE: “People keep sayin’ that, and I keep comin’ back for more. Like my buddy Bobby Jack. He sure don’t seem concerned with my SKILLS.”
(Once again he tries to drive past his brother with the ball, and once again, his older brother manages to move into the lane to defend the hoop. Eddie backs away once again, still dribbling.)
EDDIE: “You got the height, the talent, the power… all that. Just like Bobby Jack. But I got something else, bro… somethin’ electric… “
(He goes to fake left, but at the last second he bounces the ball right between his younger brother’s legs and moves around to the right, grabbing the ball on the upbounce and laying it into the old, run-down wooden basket. He pumps his fist in victory as his brother shakes his head and laughs at him.)
SCOTT: “You just don’t ever stop, do you. You keep pushin’ and pushin’ and pushin’ and nobody is gonna tell you how things are. I remember when you first told Mom’n’Dad about the wrestlin’, man oh man, that was rich.
“Little Eddie tryin’ to be a fighter. A CHAMP.”
EDDIE: “And I did. Don’t forget that. Like Lombardi said, it ain’t the size of the dog in the fight… or how many NCAA titles he’s won, or where he went to school, or what his last name was.”
SCOTT: “Lombardi said all that?”
(They both laugh. Eddie passes the ball back to Scott as he goes back to defense.)
EDDIE: “Don’t matter what you do, what you say. They can call me a no-talent fool and a nobody and a punk kid. I’m still gonna do my thing. Gonna leave it all out there in the ring, like I do here with you every chance I get, big brother.
“Cause I’m not here to make you look good, or to spread the Gospel, or any of that other ham-fisted stuff.
“Someday, people are gonna KNOW my name. They’re gonna say, I saw Eddie Patton way back when, back when nobody believed, when nobody saw the energy f’real…
“Men like Bobby Jack can go out there and promise victories and talk about bein’ a superstar all they want. Don’t change nothin’ for me.
“I happen to think that a man should worship privately and not concern himself with what others are doin’, and that it’s okay to hold a door out for a lady, and that sometimes, just sometimes, if you feel it, really feel it, you can beat anybody, cause you got somethin’ inside you that can’t be measured by a scale or a measurin’ tape or a NCAA victory count…
“I got that current runnin’ through my veins, and just like against you, Scott, I’ll find a way, cause it only takes one second, one slip, one moment of weakness… “
(Scott tries to drive past him, but Eddie knocks the ball out of his hands.)
EDDIE: “… and the whole world knows your name.
“I can be that champion NLW needs. I can be the one who rises up and gives those kids at home somethin’ to believe in when nobody else will.
“And I think you and I and everybody else knows.. that sometimes… just believing… well…
“It’s enough.”
(He smiles and continues playing defense against his older brother in the makeshift basketball court as we FADEOUT.)