Hulu’s ‘Algiers, America: The Relentless Pursuit’ Shows the Hardship of High School Football (VIDEO)
“There’s no other public school and no other African American coach having the level of success that Brice Brown is having,” but in TV Insider’s exclusive extended trailer for the Hulu docuseries, it takes more than success for the high school football team at Edna Karr to survive the streets of New Orleans.
Andscape’s five-part documentary Algiers, America: The Relentless Pursuit follows the high school football team at Edna Karr in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans. The program produces numerous top athletes, with dozens of seniors awarded full scholarships to play football at D1 colleges annually. Furthermore, it is also crucial to save young lives from the devastating gun violence that plagues their community. The team’s top running back is even said to have played a game despite having a bullet lodged in his leg.
“The Edna Karr High School football team is the pride of the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, earning four state championships in the last five years,” according to the official synopsis. “The predominantly Black team and coaching staff are among the nation’s best. Every year at least a dozen seniors from the school receive full scholarships to play football at division one colleges. And then there is the most important distinction: almost all the players have lost teammates, friends, and family to gun violence or prison.”
Coach Brice Brown doesn’t consider winning the most important aspect of his job. He plays the role of a father figure for many players who are missing that support, especially considering that his own father was murdered on the streets of Algiers. His top priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of his players until they graduate.
In the footage above, he says, “We care more about the kid than the player, we care more about the young man than the athlete, we care more about the pillow at home than the football on the field.”
Directed and produced by Jackson Fager (HBO’s Fighting ISIS), Words + Pictures, and Fager Films, Algiers, America is the first multi-series documentary by The Walt Disney Company’s Black-led platform.
Executive Producer and Andscape’s Editor-in-Chief Raina Kelley stated: “The story of Coach Brice, his Edna Karr Cougars, and their families in Algiers paints an unflinching but always loving portrait of daily life in a community battered by race-based urban neglect and their relentless pursuit to save their children. We are pleased the Edna Karr Cougars family and community trusted us to tell their inspiring story in this series.”
Check out the extended three-minute trailer above.
Algiers, America: The Relentless Pursuit, Series Premiere, Wednesday, April 19, Hulu
