Leadership and racial integration in Remember the Titans

¶ … Titans

"In Greek mythology, the Titans were greater even than the gods. They ruled their universe with absolute power. Well, that football field out there is our universe. Let's rule it like titans." ~ Herman Boone, Remember the Titans

The film chosen is Remember the Titans. The movie was released in the year 2000 and distributed by Jerry Bruckheimer's production company as well as Disney. The film was directed by Boaz Yakin and starred Denzel Washington. This movie is based on the true story of a group of formerly racially-divided football players in the American South who are forced to deal with the racial tensions surrounding them, brought about by the attitudes of their community. The film portrays how the desegregation of a football team led to a winning season and the eventual acceptance of desegregation in the rest of the town as well. What makes the film so powerful is the way that the head football coach, portrayed by Denzel Washington, and his coaching staff, are able not only to effectively lead their team to victory, but also to use the unification of this team to change the racial perceptions of the people around them. Coach Boone, played by Washington, is the embodiment of a strong leader both on and off of the football field. The speeches Coach Boone makes in Remember the Titans can be taken out of the context of the film and applied to other aspects of the world other than football. This is the point of the movie, that the skills on the field are really life lessons. The lessons that a coach imparts to his players are intended for real-world application as much as they are to instruct the players in their sport of choice.

Remember the Titans is based on a true story, which means that the main events of the story are true, although certain aspects of the tale of the T.C. Titans were changed to enhance dramatic effect. Of the events that would inspire Remember the Titans, the real Coach Herman Boone stated:

The town decided to follow the team rather than those who wanted to tear the town and the team down. I believe the team did play a great role in keeping the city calm, focused, positive towards these young men who'd shown the city that you can get along if you just talk to each other. It was a powerful message that they passed on for generations, and it will be passed on for generations…At a time when the city was ready to burn itself to the ground, these kids stepped out and changed attitudes among themselves and their community (Maxwell 31).

There have been many who criticize the film, stating that Remember the Titans is nothing more than a Disney feel-good football movie. This is simply not the case. The story of the T.C. Titans and how these boys changed the perceptions of their town is inspirational as a tale of leadership and the lessons learned from the film can be used to instill ideas of cooperation and teamwork in today's world.

In the film Remember the Titans, three schools in and around the southern United States town of Alexandria, Virginia are combined at the end of segregation in 1971, forming the now- unified T.C. Williams High School. After the Supreme Court ruling of Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education determined that bussing was a potential solution to the problem of integrating schools where diverse groups have difficulty accessing the location, the city of Alexandria was ordered to use bussing to bring more African-American students in from the further parts of town (71 Original). When the viewer first meets Herman Boone, he has arrived at T.C. Williams to serve as Assistant Coach, something then-head coach Bill Yost is not pleased with. Boone replies to this by saying, "Well, I came up here to coach at G.W. I didn't ask the schools to redistrict. I didn't ask to be assigned to your staff. So I guess we're both in a situation we don't want to be in" (Remember). Both coaches are to be further upset when the school reassigns the roles.

Further animosity between the team is incensed when Coach Herman Boone replaces former head coach Bill Yoast, a man on the way to the High School Football Coaching Hall of Fame, for the position of Head Coach. This adds a severe complication to the film. In order to placate the black community, Boone has been given the head coaching job over Yost, despite the fact that Yost has seniority and merits the job. Although Coach Boone is fully aware that Yost is being given unfair treatment, he still takes the promotion. This stops the character from being a cliche and gives the film more depth and more honesty. For the first time, the all-white football team in town, including the Titan's only All-American Gerry Bertier, had to play alongside the African-American players. If that weren't enough of a culture clash, they are also being coached by an African-American man, something they also have never had to experience. For the black players, they initially believe being led by an African-American coach will mean that they will get plenty of play time. This is immediately shut down when the players learn that Coach Boone has no intention of choosing players because of race, but will place them in terms of their athletic ability.

When the Titan players head to Gettysburg University for two weeks of practice, the boys initially segregate themselves, all the black students going on one bus and all the white students getting onto the other. When Coach Boone sees what is going on, he forces the buses to segregate, assigning each boy a seat mate of the other race. The real Coach Boone reports that he actually did this when he saw the boys segregating themselves from one another. "I forced them on each other. I forced them to learn each other's culture. I forced them to be a part of each other's lives" (Merron). All this happened very quickly. When Coach Boone saw what was happening, he immediately made a plan and took action to solve the problem. This is an important characteristic in an effective leader.

At camp, the black and white players are mostly still reluctant to cooperate and are far more concerned with their positions on the football team than in rectifying their prejudicial attitudes. In one of the film's most famous scenes, Coach Boone awakes all the players before dawn and forces them to run to Gettysburg, to the site of the battle during the Civil War. Coach Boone says:

Anybody knows what this place is? This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fightin' the same fight that we're still fightin' amongst ourselves today. This green field right here was painted red, bubblin' with the blood of young boys, smoke and hot lead pourin' right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men: 'I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.' You listen. And take a lesson from the dead. If we don't come together, right now, on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed -- just like they were. I don't care if you like each other or not. But you will respect each other. And maybe -- I don't know -- maybe we'll learn to play this game like men (Remember).

Through the influence of Coach Herman Boone, many of the players did reach out to their fellow players. They themselves became instrumental when they arrived at school in prohibiting racial attitudes and behaviors against their classmates. This shows how important a strong leader is in the formation of young minds. Those that are led by a strong individual will then themselves learn to become strong leaders.

It is important to note that not all students had racially-prejudicial opinions before they began playing for the Titans. One student, a Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass would go down to the "Burg" which was the most rural part of town. "Ronnie went down (to the Burg) every day, and he related to the kids there in the ghetto. This is one of the reasons they called him 'Sunshine'" (Merron). Another who was unbothered by the racial differences was Louie Lastik (portrayed in the film by actor Ethan Suplee). The real Herman Boone described Lastik as a bridge. "Louie grew up close to the black neighborhood, and he knew all of the black kids, particularly from G.W., and they knew him. He had played with them, and related with them" (Merron). These individuals were instrumental in bridging the gap of racial intolerance between the black and white players of the newly formed T.C. Williams Titans football team. After these few boys took the lead with regard to racial cooperation, the other players were far more willing to follow suit.

As it turns out the hiring of Herman Boone was forced upon the school district in an attempt to appease the African-American community. One of the school officials tells Yost, "We had to give them something" (Remember). The demotion of Yost led to a lot of in-fighting among the coaching staff. For a while Yost felt that he had been robbed of a job he had rightfully earned (Smith 35). Just as the boys had to learn to get along despite their differences, so too did Coaches Boone and Yost learn how to set aside their own egos to do what was best for their players.

Unbeknownst to either coach, there is an under-the-table deal in the works that was designed to remove Coach Boone. If the T.C. Williams Titans lose a single game, then Boone will be fired and Bill Yost will once again become the head coach. The formulators of this plan were the white town leaders who were unhappy with the desegregation of the school in the first place. Many of those in the town of Alexandria, Virginia still had racist opinions, even after the football season started and the Titans began to win. In Remember the Titans, an angry individual throws a brick through the window of Coach Boone's home. The fear that is evident in the eyes of Boone's family members was perfectly and accurately portrayed by Washington and the other actors. In reality, someone did, in fact, throw something through the Coach Herman Boone's window. Only it was not a brick:

There wasn't a brick thrown through my window. It was something far more devastating to any human being than a brick could be. I guess Disney, being the family movie production company that it is, felt that to depict a toilet stool coming through your window was a bit much…I've never gotten over that incident that particular night, because I could never understand how anybody could feel so bad about another human being as to throw a toilet commode through a window (Merron).

Even with the threats to his home and safety, Coach Boone did not give in to the intimidation of the racist members of the town. Nor did he give in to those who wanted him terminated. Instead of being disheartened when he learned that, should the Titans lose he would be fired, Boone is angrier and pushes his team harder. Boone does not tell the boys though that his future is in their hands.

When the boys and their coaches return from training camp, newly united in the spirit of unprejudiced team spirit, they are confronted by the community who have yet to embrace the desegregation. This disharmony is symbolized when Gerry's girlfriend breaks up with him over his friendship with his black teammate Julius. It becomes the football players' responsibility to enlighten their fellow townspeople. Thanks to racial harmony and a unified determination on the part of the players to succeed, the Titans have had a perfect season. At the state semi-finals, Yoast is informed that there is another plan in the works to oust the African-American Boone and reinstate the Caucasian Yoast. The white officials have paid off the game referees and the Titans will lose. The pressure is now on Assistant Head Coach Bill Yoast to do the right thing. He informs the referees that if they do not stop cheating, he will expose the underhanded deal and they will all have to face repercussions. The Titans do go on to win the game and Yoast is informed by the racists that he will never be in the Hall of Fame. However, he is okay with this because he has done what is morally right. Not only has the experience with the Titans changed Alexandria and the players, it has brought the two coaches together and began a partnership that would last for many years (Kilmeade 30).

At the end of the film, the narrator goes on to say that the team goes on to play beyond the state game. The team is no longer a group of individuals dominated by their ideas of race. They are instead as close as brothers. The two protagonist players, Gary and Julius had at the beginning been adversaries, each leading his race. By the end, Gary has been crippled by a car accident and he tells the nurse to let Julius into the room because he is Gary's brother. The entire town of Alexandria has been united. The opposing factions, like Gary and Julius, now united behind the Titan team.

Many critics have pointed to the fact that there are many discrepancies between the film and the historical truth behind the story. Mainly, the issue these critics have is that the racial tensions as presented in the film did not exist in similar extent in real life. Although there were racist feelings in Virginia and the three high schools did come together in 1971, the individual schools were not segregated at the time. There were already some black students attending the white school before 1971. Before the schools were integrated, the three neighbor high schools were in staunch competition with one another for funds and in sports. According to the witnesses of the event:

One of the strongest, bitterest rivalries was in football. As luck would have it, football, the ultimate team sport, would be the first big test of success or failure for the new system. Little did the football team know that they would set the tone for the entire community in a time of tension, conflict, and mistrust. Under tough, uncompromising leadership the players developed a strong bond as a team through a common suffering which stripped away any prejudices based on race, economic status, or cultural beliefs. Their success and dominance on the field began to influence the rest of the school and the community. The community began to feel a bond on to itself, that together they could get through those turbulent times and make Alexandria a better place to live (71 Original).

Whether or not the film got the details of the Titans right, the filmmakers were able to recreate the feeling of harmony that was brought about by a strong football team and their even stronger leaders.

According to Michael D. Giardina in Sporting Pedagogies, the lessons about race and school programming that the film has to teach are still useful to today's educational settings. In the racially charged setting of Virginia, the message of the film is that athletics serves to color-blind the population. The claim of the film, he argues, is that "sport is colorblind, a level playing field where 'race' not only does not matter, but where the institutional structures of sport actively work to form a more perfect union of racial harmony" (83). He goes on to discuss how the film assumes that all racial diversity can be solved on the football field, which is a fairy tale. Although the film does provide a severe oversimplification of the problems of racism, there is much to be said about the unifying effect of leadership. Under a strong influence, real change can, has, and often will occur.