Basketball coach Ken Carter demands his players be winners. But for him, the definition of winner has more to do with what happens off the courts than on.

Carter, the inspiration for Paramount Pictures’ new film “Coach Carter,” also demanded this same ideal from the movie about his life.

“I was there every single day of shooting,” Carter said in a recent interview. “I was there every step of the way. I made sure we had integrity on the set.”

The film was inspired by the controversial actions Carter took during the 1997 Richmond High School basketball season when he benched the undefeated team and locked them out of the gym after they failed to make the grades needed to play.

“The situation got a lot of publicity because of the lockout,” he said. “We got a lot of national exposure for it, but it was the right thing to do.”

The community was very involved in the team and invested much in the games. The community thus was in an uproar over the lockout, he said.

“I was the most hated man in the community,” Carter said. “I really was prepared to just forget about the whole season.”

The coach eventually inspired his players to become determined to score high in classes as well as on the court. Instead of going to practice drills, they went to the library to study, so they could make the grades needed to re-open the gym and finish the season.

“We made the library a cool place to be,” Carter said. “Every senior on that team went on to college.”

The four months of filming became a school and community project. A number of the real players and their family members appear in the film as extras, Carter said.

“Everyone was really excited about this,” he said. “It was a real community project. All the extras and the moms (in the film) were real people. And all my seven sisters are in the film. It became like a partnership with the community.”

Carter made sure he was involved with the entire filming process, from the writing to picking the actors, to ensure that his story was told as accurately, truthfully and respectfully as possible.

It was this concept of respectability that led to the casting of Samuel L. Jackson as the lead character, he said.

“We picked a great lead actor,” he said. “(Jackson) made everybody just rise. He was always so well prepared. He was never late and he was so engaging. But he never acted. He just played himself.”

The events that take place in the film are all true, although names were changed out of respect, he said. The issues the characters dealt with, however, were all true and everything happened in real life just as it happened on film, he said.

“It is a life story, and it deals with serious issues,” he said. “Drug use, teen pregnancy, it is all serious stuff. But these are issues teens deal with everyday, and this is how it happened.”

Although the film may not have a fairy tale ending, Carter said all the athletes that go through his basketball program are winners.

“Believe the message,” he said. “In the end, we really did win. I believe if they see it, they can be it.”

Carter coached the Richmond High School basketball team from 1997 – 2002. He is currently writing study guides and is the head coach of the Rumble Team on Spike TV’s “SlamBall.”