EDTP 635
Adolescent Development and Learning Needs
University of Maryland, University College
Movie Summary
Remember the Titans is based on a true story about the forced integration, in 1971, of two football teams and two head coaches at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA. One team and coach are African American; the other team and coach are white. The film dramatizes the the story of how the combined team found a way to break down racial barriers and in turn help a community do so as well.
The movie opens in 1981 at a funeral, and then quickly flashes back to the summer of 1971. Racial tensions at the time are running high, fueled by the impending high school merger and the recent death of a black teenager at the hands of a white shopkeeper. Black coach Herman Boone and white coach Bill Yoast meet for the first time. Both have impressive winning histories as well as strong personalities. The meeting is a strained one, to say the least.
Tensions rise higher when it is decided that Boone is to be the head coach. Recognizing the qualifications of Coach Yoast, Coach Boone is reluctant to agree, but accepts after seeing how important a symbol he is to the black community. Boone meets with Coach Yoast to encourage him to stay on as defensive coordinator, but Yoast initially declines the offer. After his players tell him they will refuse to play for Coach Boone, Yoast changes his mind and stays on as Boone’s assistant.
As the team gathers to leave for a training camp in Gettysburg, white all-star player Gerry Bertier approaches coach Boone and seeks to dictate terms for the white players. Coach Boone reacts powerfully. He makes it clear that if Bertier wants to play, he’ll recognize Coach Boone as the coach and dictator. Before the bus leaves, he breaks up the two busses into offense and defense, and assigns white and black players together as roommates. The young men are less than pleased with these arrangements.
Photo of real-life Titans, 1971. T.C. Williams High School, Alexandria, VA.
Shortly after their arrival at the camp dorm, Bertier and his roommate, Julius Campbell, begin a fistfight which rapidly turns into a team-wide, racially motivated brawl. But coach Boone uses the opportunity to tell them they are a team, one team. If they have aggressions they want to take out, they can take them out on the field. He demands perfection on the field from all players, regardless of color, and metes out equal retribution for those who perform poorly.
Coach Boone also orders each player to spend time every day with one teammate of another race and learn about him, his family, his likes and dislikes. They are to report their findings back to Coach Boone. Until such time as this happens, Coach Boone institutes thrice-daily practices. This mandated activity results in some candid conversations amongst some players, including a pivotal argument between team captain Bertier and Campbell, a star African American defensive end. Both players rightly accuse the other and their followers as not playing as a team.
Coach Boone then wakes up the team in the predawn hours and leads them on a long hard run to the Gettysburg battlefield and cemetery. There, he delivers an emotional speech about the 50,000 people who died in that battle “fighting the same fight that we’re still fighting amongst ourselves today.” He closes by advocating that they take a lesson from the dead, telling his team, “If we don’t come together…we too will be destroyed.”
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Through these experiences and their collective challenges in practice, the team slowly comes together. Bertier and Campbell lead the way by calling out their followers for failure to play hard for all players of any race. Later in the training camp a new player, Californian quarterback Ronnie Bass, is introduced to the team. Quickly nicknamed “Sunshine” by the team, he brings in a happy, laid-back element that helps to further break down racial tensions.
By the end of the training camp, the players are showing great cohesiveness as a team, and strong inter-racial friendships are developing. However, things are quite different among the folks of Alexandria. On the first day of school, the players arrive to find anti-integration picketers lining the streets, and people still clinging tight to their racial biases. Bertier’s girlfriend, for example, refuses to shake Campbell’s hand when they are introduced. Coach Boone is also informed that if he loses a single game, then he’ll lose his job.
Before game one, Coach Boone gives a speech to the team telling them to never let anything come between them as a team. The game starts badly for the Titans, but turns when Coach Yoast replaces one of his white defensive players with a black one. The Titans go on to win.
Continued wins bring the team, and to a lesser extent, the community, closer together. Near the end of the season, a Virginia Hall of Fame board member tells coach Yoast, who is a Hall of Fame coaching nominee, that Boone is out and Yoast is in. Coach Yoast is made to understand that the subsequent game will be fixed so that Coach Boone will be fired for losing, and that Yoast will be inducted into the Hall of Fame after taking over.
At the next game, the referees are obviously and intentionally calling spurious penalties. Coach Yoast sees this (as does his small daughter screaming from the stands), and decides that he is not going to let it happen. He has a private conversation with the head official, threatening to go to the papers if they don’t start calling the game fairly. The officials relent, and the Titans win. But after the game, Yoast is told that his actions have lost him his place in the Hall of Fame. “Didn’t want it now anyway,” Yoast’s daughter grumbles. “Buncha ole rednecks.”
Pockets of racial discrimination emerge, and this begins to erode some of the bridges the team had formed. Sunshine encourages his black teammates, including Petey Jones, to go into a restaurant with him. They do but are promptly told to leave by the racist owner. Later a racially motivated scuffle breaks out in the school when Petey talks to some white girls and a white kid takes offense. Finally, a brick is thrown through Coach Boone’s house window, while he, his wife, two daughters and Coach Yoast’s daughter are in the home.
These events serve as a catalyst for Campbell and Bertier, who remain close friends, to call for a team meeting without the coaches present. One of the black players calls the team out for backtracking on the progress they made at camp, and for losing cohesiveness as a team. Bertier then makes a speech to bring the team together and raise team camaraderie. As part of this they come up with a unique, dance-inspired warm-up routine for the start of each game.
With the exception of white tight end Ray Budds, the team pulls closer together. In the next game, Budds intentionally fails to block an opposing player, and the Titans’ black quarterback Jerry “Rev” Harris is badly injured in a brutal tackle. Sunshine steps in and, well--shines. The Titans’ undefeated streak continues. After the game, Bertier tells coach Boone that Budds, who had been Bertier’s friend, should be cut from the team. Coach Boone hands the decision back to Bertier, who cuts him.
Coach Boone’s white neighbors, who had previously shunned the family, cheer him upon his return home. Elsewhere, the post-game celebration ends in tragedy: Bertier is involved in a car accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down. The team gathers at the hospital, but Bertier’s mother says he only wants to see Julius Campbell. When Campbell enters Bertier’s room, he’s told by the nurse that only family is allowed to visit. Bertier says, “Can’t you see the family resemblance? He’s my brother.”
Just prior to the championship game, Emma approaches Campbell and introduces herself by extending her hand. Campbell takes it and Emma wishes him good luck.
At halftime, the Titans are behind 0-7 and struggling to get traction despite everyone’s best efforts. Coach Boone’s halftime talk is defeatist. “Do your best, that’s all anybody can ask for,” says coach Boone. But Campbell responds by saying, “No, it isn’t. With all due respect, you demanded more from us; you demanded perfection.” He goes on to say that they stepped on to the field undefeated, and that’s the way they want to leave it. Coach Yoast asks for Coach Boone’s help on defense and together they make defensive changes.
These actions rally the team, and the tide turns in the second half. With less than a minute to go, the Titans are down 3-7 and their opponent has the ball. But Campbell forces a turnover, and the Titans get the ball back with only seconds on the clock. Coach Yoast advises Coach Boone to throw a trick play at the defense as the only way to win. Coach Boone takes the advice, and the Titans win on the final play of the game. The coaches display complete respect for each other, holding the game ball together over their heads.
In the closing moments of the movie, we learn that Bertier goes on to win a gold medal in the shot put in the wheelchair games. Ten years later, Bertier is killed by a drunk driver, which brings the team back together, and back to the opening scene of the movie: Bertier’s funeral. We also learn what happened to the main characters after they graduate.