Extracurricular Activities

I will give this one extra credit for a pretty unusual and fun premise. Nikki Deloach plays Cassidy, a tightly wound new president of a small Ohio university trying to save The Arts program from being cut. Warren Christie does a nice job as the new college football coach trying to lead his struggling team to its first win. When the pipes burst in the dorm flooding out 21 members of the football team, the only solution is to put 5 of them up in the 10+ bedroom mansion that functions as the home of the President of the University. Of course they act like barbarians destroying Cassidy’s peace and quiet and her flower pots. They also drink her oat milk and don’t use coasters. In order to corral the savage beasts (a.k.a. teenage boys and football players to boot) Nikki insists that Logan move into the room above the garage to keep his guys in line. The whole set up was jam packed full of all sorts of opportunities for romance and humor. It makes one wonder why it’s never been used before (to my knowledge).

Back story time! Cassidy is one of Hallmark’s highly organized very busy, busy, busy but closed off  (but enthusiastic!) personalities who feels like she can’t depend on anyone but herself. This is because of her ex-husband. He did the usual “let his wife put him through school but when it was his turn to return the favor, he bails.” The President before Cassidy had handled the school’s budget irresponsibly leaving a big mess on her hands. Logan is the son of a legendary coach of “Buckeye State” University whose shadow he has always struggled in. He had been one of his dad’s assistant coaches at the Division I school, but had to leave despite his success due to charges of nepotism. Cuz that never happens in Football. That is why he has landed at Whittendale College. Together they formulate a plan to get a very rich alumnus to donate money to build a new football stadium in order to save the Arts program (!!!???). You may well be scratching your heads over this plan, but it turns out the millionaire they have set their sights on loves The Arts but loves football more. And as everyone knows football brings in a lot of revenue which will trickle down to The Arts. Yeah.

Now don’t ask me why the parsimonious board would target The Arts program in the first place rather than some other program (like football?). After all, it is The Arts program that the small college is known for and presumably attracts more aspiring The Arts students than student-athletes. “The cost of instruments” is thrown out there as justification but that doesn’t fly because according to my research, usually student musicians provide their own instruments. Do Student Athletes provide their own helmets and pads? I don’t think so. I guess we will just have to go with the well known fact that it is always The Arts program, no matter what, that is sacrificed when there is a budget shortfall in school-based movies.

Warren Christie and Nikki DeLoach were a nice match. They were age appropriate for each other and for their characters. It was not their first movie together and they had a good rapport. Nikki kind of over-did her character’s initially jittery personality in my view, but I’ll give her a pass on this one because she is usually one of Hallmark’s most exceptional actresses. After their coffee-spillage meet cute, the romance proceeded smoothly and believably with a kiss in the middle of the movie like mature adults. The almost break up at the end was for good reason as Logan did a really bad thing. They both had good character arcs with Cassidy learning how to loosen up, become a team player, and embrace her little ersatz family. Logan learned that there is more to building a good team than good discipline and to be his own man not a carbon copy of his famous Dad. And of course the young men learned many many things from “Mommy and Daddy”. “Respect the Wood!” 7 1/2 stars.