Last Chance U season 5 is about much more than football

 Last Chance U is another one of the sports documentaries that is definitely not for sports fans only; in this instance, football is the vehicle but the show itself is about so much more than football - it's about communities, leadership, poverty, inequity, and the "collision of forces" that's inevitable in any high-pressure sports enterprise that is part of an academic setting. The show has gone on - and just concluded - w/ 5 seasons. The first two were clearly the best, a look at a small Junior College football team that has achieved top national rankings and sent many on to Div 1 and the pros, set in rural Miss. in a town that is completely devoted to the sport, so much so that there's continuous pressure on the coach to win at any cost. For some of the players, this setting is truly their "last chance" - they are almost all hoping for a pro career (which few will get) or at least div 1 offer for last 2 years of eligibility (which many will get). For seasons 1 and 2, the show caught the proverbial lighting in a bottle as we watched the progress, or lack, of several key players and the growing tension between the coach and the academic counselor. We never really warmed up to season 3/4; saw only the first few episodes, and it paled by comparison, which was perhaps not fair - we didn't really give it a chance. We were won back, however, by Season 5 - the last apparently - which focused on the state champion junior-college team in Oakland (Laney College). It's maybe not as great as the first 2 seasons - possibly because it took too much time to find its focus on 2 or 3 main players - but it's quite different from the other seasons - focused on a low-income urban setting, in which football is a minor happenstance and not the lifeblood of the (Southern) community; like the other seasons, however, it's a social documentary, and we learn about the lives of a few of the key players (one of whom lives in his car as he manages to balance school, sports and work; another is the father of 2 young girls), all of which is full of struggle and abuse (though not always a struggle w/ poverty - one of the players is from a surprisingly well-to-do and literary family). The main player is the coach - and the constant question is whether his toughness on the players is good for them or only for him; he often screams at them during the games in a way that seems abusive and demeaning ("Catch the damn ball!"). Do they need that tough love? Or is it all about his need to win? These questions are left open to a degree at the end, that brings us right up to the present and the Covid19 crisis, which is shutting down many college programs just as these young men, most of whom have little else going for them, seek their "last chance" for a football scholarship and, maybe, career.