40 Fun Facts About McFarland, USA

Which actor plays Jim White, the hot-tempered coach who builds a running team in McFarland, USA?

Kevin Costner was no stranger to sports films, having led the baseball classics Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. Negotiations for him to star were finalized in July 2013.

In McFarland, USA, which sport is Jim White coaching when he is fired from his job in Idaho?

Football is also his first assignment in McFarland, where he is dropped as an assistant coach for pulling an injured player out of a game. Only then does he notice how fast his students run.

Which McFarland, USA runner does Jim White talk down from a highway overpass after trouble at the boy's home?

Thomas Valles really did stand on an overpass above Highway 99 one night after his parents fought. He later recalled headlights pulling up: it was his coach, in a 1959 Chevy.

Which Spanish nickname do the students give their new coach in McFarland, USA?

Blanco is simply Spanish for white, a joke on his surname that the real McFarland families used as well. By the end of the film it is a term of affection.

Which coming-of-age party does Jim White throw for his daughter Julie in McFarland, USA?

Quinceañera celebrations mark a girl turning fifteen in Latin American tradition. The whole neighborhood pitches in, and the party shows how fully the town has adopted the White family.

Where does Jim White take his runners to celebrate qualifying for the state meet in McFarland, USA?

The beach trip echoes a real one: the coach drove his teams to the coast at Cayucos, where many of the kids saw the ocean for the first time.

How does Jim White win over the father who pulls his three sons off the team in McFarland, USA?

By picking crops himself for a Saturday, he earns the family's trust, then shifts practices around field work. The real coach sometimes held two practices a day for working boys.

Which food does Cheryl White's fundraiser sell, alongside car washes, to buy uniforms in McFarland, USA?

Tamales funded the real team too: one runner's mother once made 200 dozen of them to help send the team to Asia, with the coach taking and delivering the orders.

Which wealthier California school's job offer does Jim White turn down after the state final in McFarland, USA?

Palo Alto serves as the film's rival, but that was invented for the plot: the two schools are about four hours apart and never raced each other.

Which real people appear on screen in the sequence that closes the true-story drama McFarland, USA?

The original runners appear beside their real coach, who stayed in McFarland after retiring in 2003. Under him the school won nine state titles in fourteen years.

In McFarland, USA, which larger city 25 miles away do the Whites lament being unable to afford?

Bakersfield lies to the southeast of McFarland. By the film's end, the family chooses to stay in the small town they once hoped to escape.

From which Idaho city does Jim White move his family to California at the start of McFarland, USA?

Boise is a screenwriter's touch. The real Jim White had taught in McFarland schools since 1964, back when the town's population was mostly white.

Which family supplies three brothers, David, Damacio and Danny, to Jim White's team in McFarland, USA?

Diaz was a famous name in McFarland running: seven children from the real family ran for the school, and all seven went on to college.

What does Jim White hurl in a locker room, cutting a player's cheek and getting himself fired in McFarland, USA?

A cleat thrown in anger opens the film, but the real coach had no such record: he was never fired from earlier jobs, and he says Hollywood took liberties with his story.

What does Jim White forget to collect for his daughter Julie while absorbed in coaching in McFarland, USA?

Her birthday cake goes uncollected as he pours himself into the team, a low point that pushes him to make amends with a party the whole town helps to throw.

How does Jim White, never a runner himself, keep up with his team on training runs in McFarland, USA?

On a bicycle, just as the real coach did; a 1997 newspaper profile described his as rickety and worn. On screen it is a girl's bike.

McFarland has no natural hills, so what do Jim White's runners climb in training in McFarland, USA?

Almond husk mounds, covered over, stand in for hills on the flat farmland. Hill and speed work are new to the boys, who at first only know how to run fast.

What stands close to the high school in McFarland, USA, a reminder to students of how limited their options are?

A prison sits across the street in the film. The real one is just down the road, with a street of homes between it and the school's athletic fields.

Which ER and NCIS actress plays Cheryl White, the coach's wife, in McFarland, USA?

Maria Bello plays the character who rallies the neighborhood and persuades her husband that McFarland has become home. In 2009 The Guardian named her among the best actors never nominated for an Oscar.

Morgan Saylor, who plays Julie White in McFarland, USA, was already known as Dana Brody in which spy drama?

Homeland brought her Screen Actors Guild ensemble nominations in 2013 and 2014, just before she traded Showtime's spy world for a California farm town.

Elsie Fisher, the younger White daughter in McFarland, USA, voiced little Agnes in which animated film series?

Despicable Me made her a voice star at seven, and she left the series after its 2013 sequel. Three years after McFarland she led Eighth Grade and earned a Golden Globe nomination.

Which New Zealand filmmaker directed McFarland, USA, a decade after making North Country with Charlize Theron?

Niki Caro wanted more family on screen, so the script swapped a real runner for a teammate's older brother. Reviewers singled out her sensitive direction.

Which 2002 drama about a Māori girl was the breakthrough film for the director of McFarland, USA?

Whale Rider made 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes the youngest Best Actress nominee the Oscars had then seen, and it was shot in the village where the original novel is set.

Which 2020 live-action remake, budgeted above $100 million, did the director of McFarland, USA go on to make?

Mulan made her only the second woman Disney had hired to direct a live-action film budgeted above $100 million. Parts of the Chinese epic were filmed in her native New Zealand.

Which Colombian rock star co-wrote and recorded Juntos, the end-title song of McFarland, USA?

Juanes performed the song at the 57th Grammy Awards in February 2015, days before the film opened. Its music video was shot by the film's own director.

Two McFarland, USA writers earlier scripted which 2006 film about Texas Western's basketball champions?

Glory Road, written by Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois, follows coach Don Haskins, who started five Black players in the 1966 NCAA title game, a first for a championship final.

Which film about the 1980 US Olympic ice hockey team came from McFarland, USA producers Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray?

Miracle belongs to a run of true-story sports dramas from their company, Mayhem Pictures, which also made The Rookie, Invincible and Secretariat.

Which 2014 film cast McFarland, USA's leading man as the general manager of the Cleveland Browns?

Draft Day reached cinemas in April 2014, ten months before the McFarland release, with Jennifer Garner co-starring and Ivan Reitman directing his final film.

Which youth-voted ceremony nominated McFarland, USA for its best drama movie prize in 2015?

Teen Choice Awards voters picked If I Stay instead, from a field that also included Fury and The Theory of Everything.

In which country was McFarland, USA released under its shorter working title, McFarland?

Canada kept the original name after the studio retitled the film elsewhere and moved its release from November 2014 to February 2015.

McFarland, the farm town at the heart of McFarland, USA, lies in which California valley?

San Joaquin is the drier southern stretch of the Central Valley. Highway 99, the main corridor, split McFarland into east and west sides when it was built in 1950.

The real Jim White of McFarland, USA began teaching in the town after graduating from which university in 1964?

Pepperdine sent him straight to McFarland, where he taught fifth graders and middle schoolers before coaching runners from 1980, seven years earlier than the film suggests.

Which actor plays the fastest, most troubled runner on Jim White's team in McFarland, USA?

Carlos Pratts was a professional among castmates who included newcomers discovered around McFarland. Critics praised the intensity he brought to the team's angriest member.

Valente Rodriguez, the skeptical principal in McFarland, USA, is best known as Ernie on which sitcom?

George Lopez gave the Texas-born actor his signature role. In McFarland he is the principal who must be talked into letting the school field a running team.

Antônio Pinto, who scored McFarland, USA after City of God, comes from which country?

Brazil is also home to his famous family: his father was the cartoonist Ziraldo and his sister is a film-maker. Reviewers noted his guitar-based score for the film.

The McFarland, USA end-title song Juntos takes its title from the Spanish word for what?

Together is the song's English subtitle, and it suits a film about a team and a town pulling as one. The single came out a month before the film itself.

Besides P.E., which subject is Jim White hired to teach at McFarland High in McFarland, USA?

Science was the real coach's first subject too: he taught it to fifth graders for nine years before he ever coached a runner.

How does Jim White's team fare at the early meet where better-funded rivals sneer in McFarland, USA?

It finishes last: the boys know how to run fast but nothing yet about pacing or hills. Their coach is winging it too, having never led the sport before.

Why does the fastest runner in McFarland, USA reluctantly agree to join Jim White's brand-new team?

To avoid suspension, he signs up as the team's most unwilling member, though he can already run a mile in close to five minutes.

Who does the team's fastest runner fall for during the season in the true-story drama McFarland, USA?

The coach's daughter Julie and the runner flirt, dance and kiss on screen. In reality the timelines differ: the real Julie was already at college when the team won in 1987.