Sunday Notebook, Part 2: "Last Chance U," "Mamma Mia 2," more
More notes .... "Last Chance U." While the current, third season of "Last Chance U" has been mainly about the Independence Community College head football coach, Jason Brown, and his team of players trying to find their way to Division I and other kinds of self-fulfillment, the hero of the piece is an English teacher, LaTonya Pinkard. More than anyone else, Pinkard -- pictured above -- demonstrates not only the determination to move her students toward academic success but a mission to help young black men understand their place in the world, on and off the football field. We saw a similar figure in Brittany Wagner, an academic advisor at East Mississippi Community College in the first two seasons of "Last Chance U," but the contrast here between coach and teacher is even stronger. Brown has an appallingly limited vocabulary consisting mainly of variations on the f-word, and a fury that is so hard to control that he not only gets into disputes wi...