McFarland, USA
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40 free McFarland, USA trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
McFarland, USA turned a small farm town's high school running squad into one of the best-loved sports dramas of the 2010s. Released in 2015 and based on real events from 1987, it follows a coach who arrives as an outsider and a group of teenagers who work long hours before and after school, and it shows how a group with almost no money learned to beat far richer programs. This quiz covers the whole film: the plot from the opening scene to the state final, the runners and their families, the actors who play them, and the director, writers, producers and musicians behind the camera. It also looks at the true story, including the places where the screenplay changed what really happened. It is written for fans who have just watched the movie, for teachers and coaches who show it to a class or a squad, and for anyone who enjoys an underdog sports story. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a group.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor plays Jim White, the hot-tempered coach who builds a running team in McFarland, USA?
Kevin Costner
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.
Q 02In McFarland, USA, which sport is Jim White coaching when he is fired from his job in Idaho?
Football
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.
Q 03Which McFarland, USA runner does Jim White talk down from a highway overpass after trouble at the boy's home?
Thomas Valles
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.
Q 04Which Spanish nickname do the students give their new coach in McFarland, USA?
Blanco
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.
Q 05Which coming-of-age party does Jim White throw for his daughter Julie in McFarland, USA?
Quinceañera
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.
Q 06Where does Jim White take his runners to celebrate qualifying for the state meet in McFarland, USA?
The beach
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.
Q 07How does Jim White win over the father who pulls his three sons off the team in McFarland, USA?
By picking crops himself
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.
Q 08Which food does Cheryl White's fundraiser sell, alongside car washes, to buy uniforms in McFarland, USA?
Tamales
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.
Q 09Which wealthier California school's job offer does Jim White turn down after the state final in McFarland, USA?
Palo Alto
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.
Q 10Which real people appear on screen in the sequence that closes the true-story drama McFarland, USA?
The original runners
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.
Q 11In McFarland, USA, which larger city 25 miles away do the Whites lament being unable to afford?
Bakersfield
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.
Q 12From which Idaho city does Jim White move his family to California at the start of McFarland, USA?
Boise
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.
Q 13Which family supplies three brothers, David, Damacio and Danny, to Jim White's team in McFarland, USA?
Diaz
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.
Q 21Elsie Fisher, the younger White daughter in McFarland, USA, voiced little Agnes in which animated film series?
Despicable Me
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.
Q 22Which New Zealand filmmaker directed McFarland, USA, a decade after making North Country with Charlize Theron?
Niki Caro
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.
Q 23Which 2002 drama about a Māori girl was the breakthrough film for the director of McFarland, USA?
Whale Rider
Q 14What does Jim White hurl in a locker room, cutting a player's cheek and getting himself fired in McFarland, USA?
A cleat
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.
Q 15What does Jim White forget to collect for his daughter Julie while absorbed in coaching in McFarland, USA?
Her birthday cake
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.
Q 16How does Jim White, never a runner himself, keep up with his team on training runs in McFarland, USA?
On a bicycle
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.
Q 17McFarland has no natural hills, so what do Jim White's runners climb in training in McFarland, USA?
Almond husk mounds
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.
Q 18What stands close to the high school in McFarland, USA, a reminder to students of how limited their options are?
A prison
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.
Q 19Which ER and NCIS actress plays Cheryl White, the coach's wife, in McFarland, USA?
Maria Bello
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.
Q 20Morgan Saylor, who plays Julie White in McFarland, USA, was already known as Dana Brody in which spy drama?
Homeland
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.
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.
Q 24Which 2020 live-action remake, budgeted above $100 million, did the director of McFarland, USA go on to make?
Mulan
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.
Q 25Which Colombian rock star co-wrote and recorded Juntos, the end-title song of McFarland, USA?
Juanes
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.
Q 26Two McFarland, USA writers earlier scripted which 2006 film about Texas Western's basketball champions?
Glory Road
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.
Q 27Which film about the 1980 US Olympic ice hockey team came from McFarland, USA producers Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray?
Miracle
Miracle belongs to a run of true-story sports dramas from their company, Mayhem Pictures, which also made The Rookie, Invincible and Secretariat.
Q 28Which 2014 film cast McFarland, USA's leading man as the general manager of the Cleveland Browns?
Draft Day
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.
Q 29Which youth-voted ceremony nominated McFarland, USA for its best drama movie prize in 2015?
Teen Choice Awards
Teen Choice Awards voters picked If I Stay instead, from a field that also included Fury and The Theory of Everything.
Q 30In which country was McFarland, USA released under its shorter working title, McFarland?
Canada
Canada kept the original name after the studio retitled the film elsewhere and moved its release from November 2014 to February 2015.