Cory Maxson

I thought Larenz Tate would play a perfect Cory, he has the ability to act like a teenager, and yet become a man in the end.  Cory, the youngest son of Troy and only son of Rose.  His life is that of a teenager struggling with school, working part-time at the A&P and an overbearing father and a docile mother.  He’s on the football team and a recruiter wants to sign him up for college but his father does not want to sign any papers for him because his thinking is that football is not going to bring in the food on the table and that it will not get him anywhere as a black man.  "I get good grades, Pop.  That's why the recruiter wants to talk with you.  You got to keep up your grades to get recruited.  This way I'll be going to college.  I'll get a chance. . ."  He is a good student, but would love for his father to come to at least one of his games and watch how good he really is.  Once he leaves the house, (Troy actually kicks him out of the house), he enlists in the military and becomes a U.S. Marine.  It is not until many years later that he comes home only because his father dies and he really does not want to go the funeral.  He has grown up and believes that he has become a better man.