In the Kilpatrick juvenile detention center, the supervisor and former football player Sean Porter sees the lack of discipline, self-esteem, union and perspective in the teenage interns and proposes to prepare a football team to play in one league. He is supported by his superiors and his successful experience changes the lives of many young kids.<a
Student Leadership Blog 
The main leader in The Gridiron Gang was a inspirational head coach that worked at a juvenile detention center named Sean Porter. As a teen, Sean Porter was an unhappy teenager that found stability and sense of self worth in playing football. With the idea of starting a football team at the center Sean tried to change impact the group of juvenile who were thieves, gang-bangers, drug dealers and killers by showing them the life lessons players learn from playing football. He wanted them to put aside their gang related problems and work together for a bigger cause. Starting out the team did not fare well, they had trouble coexisting and in result suffer a lot of loses in the beginning of their season. It wasn’t until they started to be around each other every day is when they started to do well in their season. With the nature of football bring them all together their noticeable hatred for each other naturally went away. Sean Porters guidance help changed the lives of each juvenile for the better. Just about all who participated in playing for the team stayed away from the gang life and started making positive choices in their lives. If you haven’t yet watched this movie, I would recommend you do.
– Derick Chin
I agree with Derick, I think that Coach Sean Porter did a great job with not only forming a football team but also turning the lives around for a group of many troubled kids. The movie really showed how sports especially football can form a family atmosphere that most of these kid were missing and bring them together as a unit. I like how Derick mentioned that most of the players continued to stay away from the gang life as a result of playing for coach Sean Porter’s football team.
Gridiron Gang, a staring Dwayne Johnson, a movie that depicts a correctional officer’s idea to form a football team at a detention center for teenage boys. After having not such great luck working with the inmates in his past while at the detention facility he decides to use the game of football a learning and positive experience for not only himself but for the inmates of Kilpatrick Detention Center.
In this film, Dwayne Johnson’s character Sean Porter, is the epitome of a great leader. He displayed characteristics such as trust, authority, responsibility, and most importantly ambition and drive. Porter with little to no help or support from his fellow co-workers decides to create a football program within the detention center to teach delinquent teenage boys a more responsible way to use their intelligence and strength. Porter not only challenges himself by going against the grain without support from the detention center but also post a challenge with working with trouble teenagers that feel like they have nothing left but selling drugs, gangs, and fighting. Porter proves to be a leader as he displays ambition and does not give up on these juveniles when it seems like society already has. He not only leads as an example but continues to challenge them showing them that from a negative experience you can have a positive end result. Porter although struggling with the lack of support continues with a strong drive and never gives up. Porter’s motivating words and strong encouraging personality in the end prevails when the detention center adapts to his football program adding it to there facilities programing.
My view of the most significant part of the movie is not only when they began to start winning but when the team members, juvenile inmates, being to understand that its not about the game but understanding the power of motivation, encouragement, and lastly working together and communication. Porter allows them to understand the importance of teamwork and working together to fulfill a goal.
The Gridiron Gang is a great movie and I suggest anyone that likes football or any motivating/moving movie to watch this. It has so many different elements to it and has so many different meanings. This movie is about kids who go to juvy because they grow up in bad neighborhoods and are in gangs or just make stupid mistakes.
This movie really I think is about kids who don’t have a lot and don’t have a lot of hope that no matter what you can be successful and proud in what you do. In the movie these kids were dominantly black or Hispanic growing up in really tough neighborhoods. In the movie Sean Porter gives these kids a goal to do well in their football season. He told them that he doesn’t care about winning but as long as you don’t give up and you give 100%. Which is exactly what these kids weren’t doing outside of jail. They were taking the easy route and not applying themselves to the right things. I think that this movie is a lot about choosing a goal and even if you don’t accomplish it as long as you tried your best, you will come out successful. There are a lot of other things this movie shows like leadership. Sean Porter had one kid he liked to pick on because he knew of his potential. His name was Willy and he was kind of the leader of the team because at first he thought the whole football idea was stupid. Once he was successful at running the football he liked it and wanted to prove to everyone that he could make something with his life besides the gang life. In the end he became one of the leaders on the team.