Blue Chips

Blue Chips is a 1994 basketball drama film, directed by William Friedkin, written by Ron Shelton and starring Nick Nolte as a college coach and reallife basketball stars Shaquille ONeal and Anfernee Penny Hardaway as talented finds. It features cameos from noted basketball figures Bob Knight, Rick Pitino, Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Jerry Tarkanian, Matt Painter, Allan Houston, Dick Vitale and Jim Boeheim, as well as Oscarwinning actor Louis Gossett, Jr.

This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate after a losing season. A school booster, greedy friend of the program Happy J. T. Walsh, will stop at nothing to land these star high school players for Westerns next season and gets the OK from the coach to do so. This includes giving a Lexus to the gigantic Neon Boudeaux ONeal, a house and job to the mother of Butch McRae Hardaway and a tractor to the father of farmboy Ricky Roe Matt Nover, as well as a bag filled with cash.With sportswriter Ed Ed ONeill suspecting a scandal, Pete continues to be contaminated by selfish demands from the players and a dirty association with the booster. His estranged wife Mary McDonnell, a former guidance counselor, agrees to tutor Neon, who has below average grades, but she feels betrayed when Pete lies to her about the new athletes receiving illegal inducements to attend the school. ........

Source: Wikipedia