This zany basketball comedy features Welcome Back, Kotter star Gabe Kaplan in the starring role as a New York basketball coach who is recruited to start a new college powerhouse in desolate Nevada
FASTBREAK (1979) – An uproarious sports comedy, Fastbreak follows the ups and downs of coach David Greene (Gabe Kaplan), who departs his home and steady job at a local delicatessen in New York City to start a fledgling program in Nevada. Despite the early objections of his wife Jan (played by Randee Heller) and his semi-paranoid mother, Greene makes a cross-country journey with four basketball players whom he recruits from all different aspects of life in the Big Apple. Among this mismatched, motley crew were a pool hustler, an evangelical minister, a wanted criminal, and a woman posing as a man.
Needless to say, the ride from the East Coast to the desert has plenty of hijinks involved, but they don’t end when the group ends up enrolled at the college, Cadwallader University. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a mostly white student body, the foursome struggles to adjust as they attempt to build a winning team. They are soon joined by Sam Newton (Reb Brown), a white, former football player who chose to play hoops because the school didn’t field a gridiron squad. Their unique skills and personalities mesh together, and they put it all on the line when they face regional powerhouse Nevada State in the film’s climax.
Featuring real-life players Bernard King (University of Tennessee, NBA) and Michael Warren (UCLA), the starting five also included Mavis Washington and Harold Sylvester, who went on to fame as Al Bundy’s close friend on the Fox TV series Married with Children.