Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, June 5:
COACH JAKE
Director:
ian Phillips
Premiere:
Urbanworld 2017
Select Festivals:
Heartland, Bushwick, Yonkers, Reel Recovery
About:
A portrait of NYC’s winningest coach as he contemplates mortality and his legacy.
Martin Jacobson, known affectionately by his soccer players at Manhattan’s Martin Luther King Jr High School as Coach Jake, joined the troubled school in 1994. During his long tenure he has logged more wins than any other high school soccer coach in the city. As recounted in Phillips primarily congratulatory profile, he did so after beating a decade-long addiction to heroin which left him with hepatitis C, seemingly replacing one addiction for the thrill of winning. As the affable but imperfect septuagenarian hopes to bring his latest team to the championships, he reflects on the good and bad parts of his life – from mentoring his largely immigrant-background players to perhaps dropping the ball with his own kids – and how he keeps on going.
what (not) to doc 