Tag: Will Smith

Fun facts about the golf movie ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’

“The Legend of Bagger Vance” was released Nov. 3, 2000.

It’s the fourth highest grossing golf movie of all-time. It’s ranks seventh on IMDB among the best golf movies. It features three huge Hollywood actors – Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and Will Smith – and a big-time director, Robert Redford.

And on Nov. 3, 2024, “The Legend of Bagger Vance” turns 24.

Released in theaters just after Halloween in 2000, the movie got 3 ½ stars from movie critic Roger Ebert, who wrote:

Robert Redford’s “The Legend of Bagger Vance” could be a movie about prayer, music or mathematics because it is really about finding yourself at peace with the thing you do best. Most of the movie is about an epic golf tournament, but it is not a sports movie in any conventional sense. It is the first zen movie about golf.

When and where does the movie take place?

The movie is set in Savannah, Georgia, in 1931, two years into the Depression that was gripping the country. Theron plays Adele, the daughter of a man who built a golf course but then goes broke and commits suicide. Facing financial hardship herself, Adele stages a $10,000 golf tournament and invites Bobby Jones (played by Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (portrayed by Bruce McGill). She also talks local golf legend Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon’s character) into competing. He was the best golfer in the Savannah area before going off to World War I and coming back a broken man.

Where was the movie filmed?

The Legend of Bagger Vance was shot at Colleton River Club in South Carolina. The golf course’s website notes that “Colleton River was scouted for its classic and iconic courses and Lowcountry scenery.” The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island was also used in the movie.

Legend of Bagger Vance trivia

According to IMDB:

Matt Damon did not have any previous experience playing golf; he spent a month with golf pro Tim Moss in Hilton Head, South Carolina, to prepare for the role.

The film cast includes four Oscar winners: Will Smith, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and Jack Lemmon. It was also the last film Lemmon appeared in. He died June 27, 2001, about eight months after the movie’s release.

The last hole is actually not real. At the cost of $200,000, it was temporary, as filmmakers were trying not to disturb club activities.

How much money did The Legend of Bagger Vance make?

The highest-grossing golf movies according to box office earnings:

  1. Tin Cup (1996) – $54 million
  2. Happy Gilmore (1996) – $41 million
  3. Caddyshack (1980) – $39 million
  4. The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) – $30 million
  5. The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) – $15 million

The World Series featured a Will Smith on the winning team for a fifth straight year

The World Series has been good to people named Will Smith lately.

The World Series has been good to MLB players named Will Smith over the last five years.

After the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2024 World Series on Wednesday night in Game 5 over the New York Yankees, catcher Will Smith once again became a champion.

L.A.’s Smith won the World Series in 2020 with the Dodgers, and the other MLB’s Will Smith, a pitcher, won the World Series in 2021 (Atlanta Braves), 2022 (Houston Astros) and 2023 (Texas Rangers), as MLB’s Sarah Langs observed on Twitter (X).

Like, c’mon, that’s wild. If you want your favorite MLB team to win a World Series next year, get one of the two MLB Will Smiths.

This seems to be a good plan!

Man who shot Will Smith convicted of manslaughter

Man who shot Will Smith charged with manslaughter. #GoBucks

Ohio State fans will remember Will Smith from his All-American play during his days wearing the Scarlet and Gray from 2000 to 2003. During that time the four-year letter-winner earned All-Big Ten honors twice as well as All-American honors his last season. In addition to being named All-American, Smith also earned Big Ten Defensive Lineman of the Year and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. Smith was a vital art of the 2002 BCS National Championship team.

Smith was drafted in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft by the New Orleans Saints and had a great NFL career. He spent ten seasons in New Orleans and a cup of coffee with the New England Patriots before walking away. During his NFL career, Smith was named to the All-Rookie team as well as a Pro Bowl.

In 2016, Will Smith was shot and killed after a car accident and Cardell Hayes has been found guilty of manslaughter eight years after the incident. Hayes will serve up to 40 years in prison after a retrial was completed finding him guilty of manslaughter on Will Smith and attempted manslaughter on his wife.

Smith’s son, Will Smith Jr., just completed his freshman season at Ohio State and is looking to compete for time in 2024 on the defensive line.

Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes, and opinion. Follow Josh Keatley on X.

Rangers reliever Will Smith has astonishingly won 3 straight World Series titles with different teams

Rangers reliever Will Smith is one lucky guy.

Texas Rangers reliever Will Smith might be the luckiest athlete in all of professional sports right now.

After his team topped the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday night, Smith officially became the first MLB player to win three consecutive World Series titles with three different teams.

That startling achievement that Smith can now claim for his own started when he helped the Atlanta Braves win the World Series back in 2021. When Atlanta traded him to the Houston Astros in August 2022, he wound up winning yet another World Series that October.

Well, signing with the Rangers in March as a free agent gave Smith an unexpected advantage to win a third straight World Series this fall.

MLB teams might be lining up to contend for Smith’s services once he reaches free agency since his deal with Texas is about to expire, just for the World Series luck alone.

He seems to have all the good baseball vibes in the world right now, and we wouldn’t be shocked if he found himself celebrating one of these again with a new team next year.

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17 Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith photos over the years

A look at the couple over the years.

Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have been married since 1997, but as her memoir Worthy is set to come out, Pinkett Smith revealed this week that she and the fellow actor have been separated since 2016.

It doesn’t mean they’re divorced, and Pinkett Smith has made that very clear. But they’ve been living separately for seven years, despite the fact that we’ve seen them together on red carpets, including in 2021 when Will slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards after the comedian made a joke about Jada.

Here’s what Pinkett Smith said to the Today show, and below the video, you can see photos of them over the years:

MLB fans can’t believe the Dodgers are on the brink of elimination vs. the surprising Diamondbacks

The Dodgers are on the brink.

Holy bad baseball, Batman. It’s ugly! Cover your eyes, Los Angeles Dodgers fans.

The Dodgers have a loaded roster filled with absolutely filthy baseball players. It’s hard not to like the talent they have: Clayton Kershaw, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, Will Smith, and the list goes on. (Seriously, this team is unfair!)

The team has won ten division titles in a row dating back to 2013 and won a World Series in 2020. However, the Dodgers often cannot get out of their way. Meltdowns and the Dodgers are nearly synonymous.

For example, after winning a franchise-record 111 games, they were eliminated in the 2022 National League Division Series (NLDS) by the San Diego Padres, a team they went 14-5 against during the regular season.

It’s deja vu, as the Arizona Diamondbacks have surprised the Dodgers (we tried to tell you) and the baseball world in the 2023 NLDS with a commanding 2-0 lead as the series heads back to Arizona.

Dodgers and MLB fans expect greatness, but they’re all getting sadness. Rightfully so, they are tweeting through it, even though the Dodgers could still come back.

I am sending thoughts and good vibes and highlighting reels of better days to fans everywhere.

Sharks’ NHL Draft pick Will Smith awkwardly ‘sang’ the Fresh Prince theme song after his selection

Sharks pick Will Smith honored the Fresh Prince during the 2023 NHL Draft.

The Fresh Prince made his way into the 2023 NHL Draft…kind of.

San Jose Sharks fourth-overall draft pick Will Smith honored his namesake by playing the theme song for the beloved sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as he walked out during his selection.

As he talked with ESPN’s Emily Kaplan after the pick, the reporter got Smith to actually try his hand at singing along to the theme song’s opening stanzas.

Being a good sport, Smith jumped in and did a pretty fun (if definitely stilted) little rendition of the tune.

Y’know, for a draft that might not see a lot of these players get NHL minutes for the next few years, this is a good way to keep things entertaining.

We’re sure that once Smith gets called up to the NHL in San Jose, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to hear the Fresh Prince theme song.

Maybe that’ll be the song that plays when he scores a goal?

Top five true freshman defensive tackles in the Big Ten for 2023

Top five true freshman defensive tackles in the Big Ten for 2023 #GoBucks

It is always fun to look at recruiting rankings. The recruiting landscape receives more coverage every year because recruiting is a very important aspect of building a program. Still, it is important to remember these players and prospects are not defined by these rankings.

I was diving into the most recent class and trying to figure out which future Buckeye is going to shine brightest and fastest but noticed the Big Ten as a whole was pretty interesting recruiting-wise this cycle. We already dived into the quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, offensive tackles, interior offensive linemen and edge rushers. Now, we dive into the top defensive tackles.

The Dodgers’ Will Smith called out Marcell Ozuna who keeps hitting catchers with his backswing

He’s hit Will Smith multiple times.

It takes a special kind of toughness to be a Major League catcher. Aside from willingly jumping in front of triple-digit pitches with limited protective equipment, catchers know they can get hit with a bat on a backswing. It’s a risk of the position.

But one player, in particular, had Dodgers catcher Will Smith upset on Monday. During a fourth inning at-bat, Atlanta Braves designated hitter Marcell Ozuna struck Smith on the side of the head with his backswing. As Ozuna was making his way down the first-base line to jog out the fly out, he stopped when Smith had words for him. Bullpens cleared, but the incident didn’t escalate.

Now, a player never intentionally hits a catcher with a backswing — that’s just simply not how it works. But Ozuna finishes his swing notably long, which often leads to the kind of contact that we saw on Monday. Smith basically had enough, so he reacted.

This wasn’t an isolated incident with Ozuna. Last season, Ozuna hit Smith across the face with a backswing on a grounder.

MLB Network also put together a montage of Ozuna’s backswing making contact with catchers. It happens that often with him.

Smith had also just returned from the concussion IL, so he was especially upset to have a bat hit him on the head so soon after an earlier head injury. Yet, his beef was also specific to Ozuna. He mentioned after the game that it was a common occurrence for Ozuna, and that he couldn’t believe that something hadn’t been done to fix the backswing.

That’s easier said than done, though. Ozuna’s swing has always been like that, and he’s not the kind of player to revamp an entire swing to placate the concerns of opposing catchers. Ozuna said that he didn’t mean to hit Smith and suggested that the Dodgers catcher position himself further back next time.

Ozuna is in the lineup again for Tuesday’s game in Atlanta. So, we’ll have to see how the Dodgers respond or if another backswing incident occurs.

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel cracks jokes about Will Smith-Chris Rock slap

Kimmel didn’t shy away from the jokes.

Will Smith wasn’t in attendance at the Oscars this year after the actor slapped presenter Chris Rock last year. The slap followed a joke made about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s expense. That didn’t stop Will Smith’s name from coming up. A lot. Jimmy Kimmel, hosting his third Academy Awards ceremony, made several cracks about the incident in his opening monologue.

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Kimmel covered everything from telling the crowd that there was an incident response team to saying that any would-be attacker would have to get through actors like The Rock, Michelle Yeoh and Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield).

He also made reference to it again before the award for Best Documentary — which was when the slap happened in the show last year. Here’s his opening monologue segment:

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