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The White Shadow is an American drama television series that ran on the CBS network from November 27 1978, to March 16 1981.
“Can a straight shooter cut it with this bunch of rough, razor-sharp kids from the street?”
1978
Ken Reeves, a forward with the Chicago Bulls, is forced to retire after suffering a serious knee injury. His old friend and high school teammate, Jim Willis, who is principal of Carver High near L.A., drops by to offer him a job as basketball coach. Reeves is reluctant, but agrees. Among the challenges he faces with the school and the team include a female vice principal who doesn't like him and a player, James Hayward, who has a lot of potential, but also is fatherless and may have to drop out of school to go to work and take care of his mom and little brother.
Coach Reeves and the team discover liquor in Jackson's locker, and fear he may have a drinking problem.
College scouts are impressed with Reese and believe he has a good shot at a scholarship. However, Reese's plans are put on hold when his girlfriend, a Carver cheerleader, tells him she's pregnant. Coach Reeves and the team discover her attending cheerleader practices and believe she may be lying about the pregnancy to trap Reese into marrying her.
after gomez gets knocked off the carver high basketball team he joins a street gang he onced belonged to
Reeves deals with a new player, Raymond Collins, who was forced to transfer from his old school because of rumors about his being gay.
The team's excitement over being invited to compete in a basketball tournament is overshadowed when the plane they're on develops mechanical trouble.
When the team goes to Las Vegas to play in a tournament, they secretly take a pool of money collected from the students so they can gamble and return home with a fortune.
Coach Reeves substitute-teaches a P.E. class, loses his temper, and hits a student, Lucius Robinson, who refuses to participate. Reeves feels guilty about the incident, learns of Lucius' troubles, and offers to help him in any way. Reeves then quickly learns that some students can't be helped when Lucius tries to rape Mrs. Buchanan.
Mac Wade, a tall, white, ""can't miss"" college basketball prospect, transfers to Carver for his senior year due to re-zoning, which excites Reeves. However, Reeves discovers that Mac can't read and has been allowed a free ride through school because of his basketball skills. The problem is further compounded when Mac, who has never had to take a test in school, is caught cheating on a test and has to be suspended.
Goldstein's grandmother is hospitalized and his grandfather stays at the hospital with her, so Coach Reeves asks the team to check in on him at home every so often. The other guys aren't too keen on this because Goldstein really doesn't fit in with them, but they agree to check on him and, in the process, take advantage of him and his hospitality. Goldstein threatens to quit the team, and Coach Reeves gives him a lecture on standing up for himself.
The team wants to form a singing group, but elect not to include Thorpe, who begins a dating interest with Karen LeGrand, a white girl with an unsavory reputation around school.
1980
The third season begins with Coach Reeves visiting the town where he grew up and reuniting with old friends, including an old high school teammate, an old girlfriend, and his father, whose health is failing.
Coach Reeves heals his strained relationship with his dying father, breaks things off once and for all with Paula, and returns to Carver for the new school year, where some new players have joined the team: Wardell Stone, Mitchell, Rutherford, Paddy Falahey, and Eddie Franklin
getting fed up with high school coolidge tries out for the harlem globetrotters
Salami faces possible jail time after breaking an opposing team's player's jaw during an on court brawl.
Stone saves an elderly woman's life by rescuing her from a burning car, and the experience goes to his head after he appears on the TV news and sensationalizes the story.
Coolidge starts having problems stemming from his abnormal height and size, such as normal clothes not fitting. He gets self-conscious and defensive until Coach Reeves, who has dealt with the same problems, takes him under his wing and tries to let him know he's not alone. NBA Hall-of-Famer Bill Russell guest stars.
Coach Reeves threatens to kick Falahey off the team when he suspects that he is missing practices and faking injuries. However, the coach himself looks like a hypocrite when he is summoned for jury duty and he tries to lie his way out of it.
Salami and Vitaglia take on a part-time job reposessing cars, but the ungodly work hours and the harassments from the car owners affect both their performances in school and on the basketball court.
A female teacher with a past history of mental illness and nervous breakdowns is tormented by a psychotic student.
An elderly woman is mugged on the street at night by two big, tall black men, and the description she gives the police matches both Coolidge and Franklin, who happen to be out on the town that night. The police apprehend the two with Thorpe looking on. Thorpe observes what appears to be police brutality, reaches into his pocket to get a pen to write the cops' car number, and is shot by one of them.
Carver's baseball coach, who also teaches English, begins to experience teacher burnout. He begins handing out free grades, which hurts Rutherford, who works hard in his class. Vitaglia, too, is disappointed in his attitude because he wants to try out for the baseball team.
Goldstein, Gomez, Hayward, and Reese all return for an ""alumni"" exhibition game, amid all the troubles the four have encountered in ""real life"" since graduating. Hayward is in college and wants to go to law school, but doesn't believe he'll be given the chance because of his skin color. Goldstein, after a year in the Marines, now believes he has the confidence to ask out a girl he admired while at Carver. Gomez is struggling to make ends meet as a car mechanic with a pregnant wife. And, finally, Reese is bouncing from job to job until he finally finds his niche as a phone counselor at a suicide prevention center.
Ken Howard
Ken Reeves
Kevin Hooks
Morris Thorpe
Byron Stewart
Warren Coolidge
Tim Van Patten
Mario 'Salami' Pettrino
Stoney Jackson
Jesse B. Mitchell
Ed Bernard
Jim Willis
Erik Kilpatrick
Curtis Jackson
Nathan Cook
Milton Reese
Ira Angustain
Ricky Gomez
Ken Michelman
Abner Goldstein
1979
The second season begins with Jackson, wanting to make some extra money, gets unknowingly involved with sports bookies. Things get especially difficult when they start offering him big money to shave points at Carver's games.
Coach Reeves begins teaching a class on sex education, but comes under fire when he makes joking comments that Albert Hodges, a new black student who is very racially sensitive, interprets as insulting to blacks. Hodges then tries to rally the black players on the team against Reeves.
A rival coach from a predominantly white high school in the area tries to convince Reese to transfer.
after a rookie basketball player dies of an anerism coach reeves goes blaming himself for his death
after coolidges apartment house burns down coolidge and coach reeves become roommates
The basketball team is on a winning streak and proceeds to showboat and run up the score on their latest opponent, prompting a tongue-lashing from Reeves. With their newfound success gone to their head, the team gets cocky with the workers at a local car wash and challenges them to a pickup game at the Carver gym. The boys are unaware that the car wash workers are really members of the Harlem Globetrotters doing a benefit and Reeves has arranged for them to show the team they're really not as good as they think.
Thorpe contracts a sexually transmitted disease and has passed it onto Coolidge's girlfriend. The two of them must now tell Warren that he too must get tested.
a former girlfreind a jacksons comes to los angeles saying that shes fashion model but is really a hooker
Salami sprains a knee during a pickup basketball game, and his doctor prescribes amphetamines, which he unwittingly shares with the team.
a nagging art teacher thinks that thorpe should go to art school but thorpe has no interest in it what so ever
Carver holds a school 'turnabout' dance for Sadie Hawkins Day, and a young female teacher has her thoughts on asking Salami and going further.
Deciding that some of the players could use a dose of class, Coach Reeves takes Coolidge, Thorpe, and Salami to an exclusive country club for a day of golfing.
a teacher who moonlights as a exotic dancer teaching career is on the line
A touring high school team from the then-Soviet Union comes to Carver. The players have trouble relating to the Russian players, with the exception of one Russian, whom Hayward befriends, and later wants to defect to the U.S.
Coach Reeves suspects that Gomez is being physically abused at home by his father, but has trouble getting him to admit it.
