Double Teamed is a 2002 Disney Channel Original Movie based on the life stories of professional basketball players Heather and Heidi Burge. The film aired on the Disney Channel on January 18, 2002 and was released on VHS, which is now out of print.
Plot
The Burge sisters were, according to their father, forced to leave their former school and attend a different school in order that they would have better chances at college scholarships. Heidi tended to think that she was second best. In an attempt to get out of Heather's shadow, she joined in a school play.
Heather was involved mainly in volleyball rather than in basketball, until a coach noticed her because of her height. She seized this opportunity to play basketball because it would help her train for the coming volleyball season. Heather met Nicky, the star of the Palos Verdes High School Sea Kings. Heidi did not know she could play basketball until her father told her that he told the same coach that both of the twins would play for the school.
Heather did not like that her father wanted Heidi to play. Heidi, of course, initially opposed her father's decision because she wanted to be independent of Heather. However, she later accepted it and decided to play. She also thought that Heather told her father to do it.
When the twins first started playing for the Sea Kings, they left a bad impression on the team by lying and implying to their teammates that they were rich. Heather and Nicky formed a rivalry and Nicky even tried to run the Burge twins out of school by telling the school about the Burges' living situation.
They both eventually befriended Nicky, as they saw that her father was too preoccupied with business to attend her basketball games and decided to make peace. At their first tournament in New York, they won second, and Heather won MVP. However, in another one of their games, Heidi was the star, as she was selected to take the game winning free throws. This made Heather, the usual star, jealous, so she played basketball, with Galen, a male player also living in their apartment complex Sandy Shores.
While playing Heather falls and twists her ankle preventing her from playing their next game, which they nearly lost. Right then, Heather decided to start playing again for the sake of the team, despite being injured. Her effort was rewarded, and they went on to win a championship.
After the game, their coach approaches the twins and their parents, Mary and Larry Burge, and tells Mr. and Mrs. Burge they should consider putting the girls in summer basketball camps, saying they have a great, very bright future and they are going to play college ball - "maybe more", he says. "There's talk of a women's pro-league."
A clip of the future is then shown, and both Burge twins are playing on professional WNBA teams. Heidi played for the Los Angeles Sparks and Heather played for the Sacramento Monarchs. As usual Heather talks to Heidi and says; "Once second best always second best." And then comes tip off and they both jump for the ball. In reality, the sisters' time in the WNBA did not overlap and they never faced each other in a WNBA game.
Cast
- Poppi Monroe as Heather Burge
- Annie McElwain as Heidi Burge
- Teal Redmann as Nicky Williams
- Nick Searcy as Larry Burge
- Tanya Goott as Madison Stricklin
- Joey Miyashima as Wendall Yoshida
- Mackenzie Phillips as Mary Burge
- Chris Olivero as Galen Alderman
- Tammi Reiss as Volleyball coach (Reiss was the Burge twins' teammate at University of Virginia)
Reception
A reviewer for the Sun-Sentinel gave a mixed review for Double Teamed, saying it was "paint-by-the-numbers," but that the "happy, Disney-style ending is a slam-dunk."
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This page uses content from the English Wikipedia page Double Teamed. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. Text from Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. |
