Maybe the cast was all they could afford. The plot is pockmarked with huge holes and filled with unnecessary events. If the leads were 10 when the story kick off, chronologically they would be in their 30s when they get married making it impossible to be "empty-nesters" then unless they also started parenting at 10. Not to mention the leads at 30 look 50!
The story incorporates a myriad of unnecessary events which should have been cut short. Maybe 10 mins for that before moving on to his role as coach, subsequent events related to it, his loss of job and the ensuing court trial which is what the movie was supposed to be about. Jumping from foster home to foster home, his life in the military, his love life - losing and gaining, marriage, all unnecessarily occupy a lions share of the already meandering plot. Or it could have started with the trial cutting back for a while to his childhood but only to introduce the character to the audience, and flashbacks of the events that directly led him to this point. There was a multitude of possibilities to not make this movie a yawner.