Few prisons hold a larger place in the popular psyche than California’s San Quentin State Prison. For more than 150 years the forbidding facility, perched on a crop of California coastline north of San Francisco, has served as a final stop for some of society’s most notorious figures, including serial killers Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez, tabloid-fodder murderer Scott Peterson, and Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan. It served as the setting for one of Johnny Cash’s most iconic live performances. There’s little to live for inside its walls, and little chance for redemption. But there is basketball, and that’s the focus of Q Ball, a stirring 2019 documentary film currently available on Netflix.
The film, executive produced by NBA superstar Kevin Durant, follows the San Quentin Warriors, a competitive basketball team made up of inmates in the prison and supported as an outreach program by Durant’s former team, the Golden State Warriors. Coached by fellow inmate Rafael Cuevas, the squad plays games against teams from outside the prison’s walls, culminating their season with a “championship” game against members of the Golden State coaching staff. (One inmate hilariously notes, over a picture of players posing with the Warriors’ NBA championship trophy, that “we got to do something Charles Barkley never did!”)
This isn’t some scrub prison-yard team, either. “For a lot of people, they could’ve gone in the NBA, at least gotten college scholarships,” one inmate notes. “And for those dreams to be derailed, then come in here and have an opportunity to prove to themselves that I could’ve made it, that I was that good — it’s huge, that’s what they’re really playing for.” Another inmate concurs: “Some of these guys missed their calling. They should’ve been on a Division I basketball team, but for whatever reason they didn’t make it. Then they come in here and they find out there’s a legitimate basketball team? You can look at yourself in the mirror and say ‘I can make it.'”
The team’s current best player is Harry “ATL” Smith, known as “The Phenom.” 31 years old, he once had dreams of playing in the NBA. He describes a healthy upbringing, and recounts high-level high school games against future NBA stars Dwight Howard and JR Smith. A Division 1 college basketball recruitment went awry, and he entered a spiral that earned him an eight-year prison sentence at age 24. Now only a year away from his expected release date, he still harbors dreams, talking of his desire to be the first convicted felon to play in an NBA game. He’s got the talent but bristles against the coaching, even as head coach Cuevas sees him as his best chance at a winning team.
Others on the team don’t have the same things to look forward to, the same hopes. Teammate Anthony “Ant” Ammons recounts a rough upbringing leading him to gang life and eventually involvement in a murder that earned him a sentence 102 years to life. Cuevas, the coach, describes in unsparing detail the well-publicized crime that landed him in San Quentin — the brutal stabbing murder of Timothy Griffith outside a San Francisco Giants baseball game in 2004.
The filmmakers wisely make sure not to minimize the gravity of these crimes or sweep them into a simple redemption narrative, as sports media unfortunately can be prone to do — the Griffith murder is retold not only from Cuevas’ perspective, but also by Griffith’s grieving mother in an on-screen interview. It’s understood that sports cannot heal the wounds or undo the damage these men have done, but the hope is that it can still be a vehicle for positive change.
“It’s the easiest way to embrace guys that are the furthest from growth,” Cuevas notes. “The toughest, meanest guys in the yard, the ones who are never going to go to therapy, but might play basketball.” Being forced to be a part of a team, to work together toward a common goal, can be the beginning of restitution if not redemption.
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The storytelling in Q Ball is deft, weaving the person narratives of the players and coaches with highlights as their season progresses. Volunteer community teams of free men venture into the walls of San Quentin to play against the Warriors, and the games are hard-fought and competitive, even if one side is walking out after the final buzzer. “You can’t judge a book by a cover,” one Warriors player laughs. “These guys come to play, they want to beat us.”
As the Warriors’ season progresses, they struggle to come together as a team. Can they harness their talent, and play like a team worthy of their namesake dynasty? I won’t spoil that. With this year’s NBA season on indefinite hold, we’re all in need of some compelling basketball drama right now. Q Ball offers plenty of that, along with a look into a world many of us will never see. The setting might be imposing, but between the baselines, the game looks the same.
Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and internet user who lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, two young children, and a small, loud dog.
- Netflix
- Prison
- Q Ball (2019)
