Big Sticks

Veteran club field hockey player and schoolteacher, Aneet Patel finally got his shot to represent India at the Asian Games and wear the blue he dreamed of. An unfortunate bicycle accident leaves him with a smashed ankle and his dream is lost forever. His surgeon wife Riya suggests that the couple and their daughter Drea take a sabbatical from their current life to give Aneet's spirit time to heal. A change of pace may just be what he needs as the good doctor Riya has received an offer from a faraway land... The sun rises over vast American farmlands and a rusty old road sign leads us to Graindale, a fictional small town in the grain farming district, somewhere forgotten in Arizona. The sports comedy Big Sticks depicts Aneet Patel's unlikely journey with Jimmy Becker, a Senior in a conservative and football-crazy school and community. Jimmy is not your average, run-of-the-mill high school kid. Highly intelligent, yet a first-class slacker, a smart-mouthed smart ass, and not at all ambitious or involved in sports or school activities. He refers to himself as “not socially retarded but trying to keep a low profile.” During assembly, at the end of his Junior year, he sincerely and on stage rejected his selection as a student council member. He never said he wanted the job, why should he do any work just because others think he'd be good at it? This act of defiance of such a prestigious honor made the state press. "The boy to cool for school!" After being pulled aside by every teacher, bitched at by half the students, and branded rebellious and not a team player, payback became Jimmy’s all-consuming hobby. Day one of his Senior year, he dumps a load of Viagra into the coffee urn in the faculty lounge, with hilarious, public boner-fest consequences. Jimmy is the only one suspected and according to Principal Richard “Big Dick” Johnson, “heads have got to roll.” Circumstantial evidence, paid tuition, and an agreement with Big Dick that he will do a “big thing to show that he values the traditions of his school” is the only reason Jimmy is not expelled. Feeling guilty about how his actions affected his new immigrant English teacher, Mr. Patel, Jimmy agrees to help him unpack the boxes at his new home. When Jimmy discovers that Mr. Patel was an Indian hockey star, he suggests to both his teacher and principal that starting a boy’s field hockey team would be great for student morale and school spirit, as American Football is the only Fall sport for boys. According to Big Dick and pretty much everyone else in school and town: “Hockey is for city boys and sissies! This is man's country! We play football.” But slack-happy Jimmy has a mastermind and a master plan. With his keen powers of persuasion, Jimmy convinces the principal that boy’s hockey is a “good thing” and that this is his “big thing.” He even convinces his two best buds, “Tall” Tony and “Big” Van, that they should join him, despite their firm belief that being a "hockey honey" is total social suicide. This is the general consensus, and as a result, the three best buds have to go shopping for players. They will be a private club that does not represent the school officially but uses the school grounds and maybe only students from the school. The result? A rag-tag team of the biggest rejects, weirdoes, and social outcasts the little-known league has ever seen. As if nicknames like Violence, Rehab, Dapper, Speedy, Fence Jumper, Sexy, and Slick aren't enough to keep us all cracking up, Jimmy recruits at the local boy’s juvi. There he finds the crazy "allegedly killed their parents in their sleep" twins, Nuts and Guts to complete his outfit. And Jimmy’s master plan? “We suck ass for a few games and then it will all just fall apart. Can’t say I didn’t try.” The miss-matched and strangely attired “Graindale Boys Field Hockey Club” is something the sport has never seen. They literally don't give a shit or a straight face. The boys play hard and dirty to the amusement of the audience, getting even with all the condescending city boys at every turn. However, the sport, and the sense of belonging begin to impact the boys on a deeper level. The team soon becomes the embodiment of the word, sticking together against the onslaughts on and off the field. Teased and laughed at at every turn, being a “hockey honey” is indeed social suicide. Jimmy befriends Mr. Patel's daughter, skater-rocker, and avid hockey player, Andrea "Drea" Patel. As he becomes more infatuated with the feisty Indian beauty and her mouthy worldly wisdom, Jimmy inevitably begins to push himself and the team to be better at the sport, and at life. Like stealing the school bus for a first victory run, beating the living hell out of their biggest rivals, the Phoenix Preps in a bar fight at their strip club, or spending some time in jail, all as a team. Ultimately Jimmy discovers just how much he loves the sport, his new friends and learns how to be a team player on and off the field. When the team discovers the reason for their existence, tempers flare and loyalty is tested. Jimmy makes the “big” sacrifice for the greater good and steps off the team. With Drea’s inspiration, his old tricks, and the new lessons he has learned, Jimmy may yet “rise” to the challenge set by Big Dick and do a “big thing” for his school. In a final ploy, he mends the fences and teams up with his much-loathed rival, thrice concussed and "can never play football again" former quarterback captain, Jack Gable. With an official Sunset Strip sponsorship and undesirable new team uniforms, Jimmy is back to lead the Graindale High “Big Sticks” in a hilarious and historic clash against the Phoenix Preps. Their entourage of stripper fans and witty freshman sportscasters, Tim and Tom, cause many laughs and antics on the sidelines. Lose, and field hockey will be lost forever. Win, and Jimmy and his Big Sticks leave a legacy of boy’s field hockey at Graindale High. The stakes are high, and all bets are off. The battle to rise to victory, both for his team and within himself, left Mr. Patel to accept that glory may yet be in his bright future as a coach. As he said to Jimmy on the day they met: “Once you've tasted the glory of victory in sport, the payoff of all your hard work, it is something that stays with a man, and no one can ever take it away.”