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Six years into his professional basketball career, LeBron James has done the unthinkable: surpassed everyone's expectations.

Coach Dru Joyce

But once upon a time the reigning NBA MVP played with high schoolers, and the documentary More Than a Game—which opens in limited release this week—tells the story of how James and his teammates at St. Vincent–St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, won a national championship in the midst of LeBron Mania.

The film started out as a 10-minute class project for college student Kristopher Belman, but after several years' worth of follow-up work, it's grown into a feature-length account of the bond between these five young men and their coach, Dru Joyce II.

Joyce first started coaching when he had the chance to coach his son, Dru Joyce III, on the Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars, a traveling youth basketball team. That squad nurtured four of the five future St. Vincent–St. Mary stars featured in More Than a Game—including a prepubescent LeBron James. Coach Joyce was able to rejoin his players midway through their high school careers and, as a first-time high school coach, lead them through the trials and triumphs that followed.

Joyce, who is a Christian, spoke with CT Movies about his experience during and after the making of More Than a Game.

How did you feel about having someone film your team?

Dru Joyce: At the time it was just a class project, so it seemed very innocent, just an opportunity to help out a young guy [Belman] from Akron. So we gave him access even though, because of the celebrity of LeBron and the whole team, we had closed off practices from the media by then.

Director Kris Belman with LeBron James

And Kris was very good. He seemed like he was here more than he was in California [at college], and I wondered how he was getting his schoolwork done. But he stayed in the background, didn't put the camera in anyone's face, and respected what we were trying to do and the enormity of it.

What do you hope to teach your players, and how does your faith influence that?

Joyce: As a Christian, I don't believe that you can separate your faith from anything you do. When I got the opportunity to do the travel team, I saw its purpose as using basketball to teach life skills. And as time moved on and I became a better coach, seven principles developed as the foundation for everything we did: humility, unity, discipline, thankfulness, servanthood, integrity, and passion. So now I hope to grow young men that exemplify those qualities and will carry them into life, whether it includes basketball or not.

Also, I've tried over time to emphasize the relationships. When it's all said and done, the relationships are all the players are going to take out of here. I want them to understand that basketball is a vehicle to help them get from Point A to Point B. It's not the be-all and end-all. They should use basketball and not let it use them.

One of your players was your own son. Did you try to separate your roles as father and coach?

Joyce: Honestly, I failed a lot, because I didn't separate them. For a long time it was more of a coach-player relationship than father-son. And it was tough, because you always hear the whispers like "Oh, Little Dru's playing cuz his dad's the coach," so I was always much harder on him. If he made a mistake, it was ten times worse than if someone else made the same mistake. Then as we got into high school, and we were a nationally ranked team playing other nationally ranked teams, it intensified some of those things. Basketball was all we had.

Coach Joyce leads his team in prayer before a game

I credit a lot of the turnaround to my pastor. I finally asked my son the question, "Am I being too hard on you?" He said, "Yes." And from that point forward, we talked about it. I wanted him to understand that, while I still had set the bar set extremely high for him, I loved him regardless of basketball.

Once LeBron started becoming a big deal, what was the hardest thing for you as a coach?

Joyce: Focus. How do we keep these kids focused on the goal we set forth as a team, and not let all the hoopla and cameras and newspapers become a distraction? That first year was very tough. We were winning, their celebrity was growing, and the guys were getting full of themselves. I tried to warn them, to tell them they weren't attending to the details like they should have been. But you know, it's the same way with a lot of people and their parents. After a certain point, you stop hearing them, even if they're saying the right things, because it's a voice you've gotten used to hearing.

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