DVD offers 1st season of 'White Shadow'

SACRAMENTO BEE
Sports has triumphed on television, but TV series about sports seldom make the playoffs -- or even get renewed. (Does anyone remember "Bay City Blues" or "Ball Four"?)
One of the few exceptions is "The White Shadow," which starred Ken Howard as a white former NBA player who becomes the coach of the boy's basketball team at an inner-city high school after injuries force his retirement from pro ball. Part of the stable of excellent TV series produced by MTM Enterprises in the 1970s and '80s ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Hill Street Blues," "St. Elsewhere," "Lou Grant"), "The White Shadow" aired on CBS from 1978-81.
A new DVD out this week, "The White Shadow: Season One" (four discs, Fox Home Entertainment, $39.98, not rated), presents all 15 episodes from the first season, including the pilot, several audio commentaries and a short documentary, "More Than Basketball."
The series went into issues facing black teenagers who were seldom discussed on television at the time. In the course of just its first season, "The White Shadow" explored teen pregnancy, alcoholism, drug abuse, homosexuality and homophobia, gang violence and racism.
But none of this would have worked, say Howard and producer Grant Tinker on the DVD, if the basketball part of the show weren't portrayed realistically. Tinker says the series was the first on network television "to accurately portray a sport."