Remember The Titans

The true story of the forced integration of a 1971 Virginia high school football team shows how we can all get along if race and background are put aside for the sake of the common goal. T. C. Williams is named for a former superintendent of schools who served from the mid-1930s until the mid-1960s. Virginia, like many other Southern states had a history of segregated schools. "Jim Crow Laws" which was the basic term for legal segregation took long to up by federal courts, had effectively created two separate societies. The two societies were "separate," but they were barely "equal." T. C. Williams High school had the goal, to not have segregation as apart of there school system. Black and white members of competing football teams were now part of the same school. If there was only one high school, there would be only one football team. The questions that were frequently asked was "Who would be on the team?" And, more importantly, "Who would be its coach?" The school opened in 1965 and has served the Alexandria community and tens of thousands of students well for the past thirty-three years. The school has grown into one of the most respected, comprehensive public High Schools in the country. Eighty percent of the students go on to post-secondary education. T. C. has one of the most diverse student bodies in America with students from over eighty-four countries, speaking over fifty-six languages in its' halls and classrooms. In 1959, five years after the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that separated but equal schooling is inherently unequal and unconstitutional, Alexandria formally desegregated its' public school system. But, unfairness in the diversity of neighborhood populations caused the school system to slowly migrate toward racial imbalance. In 1971 the Supreme Court ruling on the Swann vs. CharlotteMecklenburg Board of Education case legitimized busing as a method to achieve desegregation. Alexandria adopted the K6-2-2-2 Plan (Kindergarten through sixth grade at one school, two years in middle school, two years in Junior High School and two years in Senior High School) to bring racial and economic balance to its' school system. Two High Schools, George Washington (GW) and Francis Hammond (FH) were changed to Junior High Schools and T. C. Williams High School (TCW) became the Senior High School. All the city's freshman and sophomores were divided between GW and FH, all the juniors and seniors attended TCW. This dramatic, sudden change caused a lot of tension and fear. The only three High Schools in the City there had been strong rivalries and competition between the schools for the City and District Championships at all levels of academic and athletic competition. One of the strongest most bitter competitions was in football. The football team did not know that they would set the tone for the entire community in a time of tension, conflict, and mistrust. Going under rough, uncompromising leadership the players developed a strong bond as a team through anything that came between them. This took away the 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, by seeing that segregation is not the way to go. The success of that team and the sense of community helped within the city today with so many diverse people in Alexandria and in T. C. Williams. While on the surface, high school football may seem like an innocent game played by the young, for the young, it is, in fact, much more. For millions, including many fans who are well removed from their high school years but who love to sit in those creaky bleachers every Friday night / Saturday morning, it is something similar to a religion. Director Boaz Yakin's Remember the Titans captures the heart of high school football while undertake the sins of its fathers, chronicling the true story of the undefeated 1971 T. C. Williams team of Alexandria, Virginia, which was the first integrated high school team in the state. Denzel Washington brings his ever-powerful presence to the role of the Titans coach Herman Boone, which thunders all the way to the hall of fame of hopes and dreams. In Virginia of 1971, as the first AfricanAmerican coach of the first integrated football team, Boone steps up to the seemingly impossible task of overcoming prejudice between the teammates and other coaches. He gets the guys to work together and forget about the racial issues and play as a team. Essentially, Boone wants to have a winning team, but in his dilemma, winning is not just an ambition, but a demand of survival. If he looses even one game, he will be fired and that will show that he could not battle the racial discrimination. In order to teach his students to win on the football field, he must teach them to be fearless victors over prejudice in their hearts and souls. Coach Boone decides to gather all the players to go on a trip to

Gettysburg. The next morning he asked all the players to meet in front of the school and ride on the school bus together. There was two buses outside of the school and the whites get into one bus and the blacks get into the other bus. Coach Boone's then responded by asking all the players to get off the bus. His strategy was to get the blacks and whites on the team to sit next to each other on there way to Gettysburg. The players do not obviously get along with one another and they try to keep there distance from each other. One of the players named the "Rev" starts singing the song "Aint no Mountain High" by Marvin Gay. The other African American guys start singing together except for Lewis and Petey. They were the only White players who got along with the other African American guys. The next morning Coach Boone wakes the players up at three a.m. and makes them jog as a team through the graveyard at Gettysburg. It is at this point where he gives the "We are the Titans" speech which metaphors the battle of Gettysburg to the team itself. He explain to the boys that during the battle of Gettysburg the men worked as one to accomplish on thing, that was to win the war. He emphasizes that the boys must works as a team, put all colors aside, and strive to win as a team. As a African-American coach, Boone would be harsh on the African players on the team. He wouldn't give them any slack and expected them to be as good as any White player on that team. Though Boone is eventually successful as a coach, the townspeople disapprove of him because he replaces the popular, entrenched former coach, Bill Yoast (Will Patton). With Will Patton in the role of defensive coordinator and replaced head coach, Yoast resents being replaced and disagrees with Coach Boone. He hates the fact that Boone will be taking over his promotion as coach and in no way in the world is Boone going to be successful and overcome the racial discrimination between the team. During the stay at the camp the guys become closer with one another but Ray still has the abhorrence in him and cannot stand the fact that his best friend Gerry is actually becoming friends with Julius and the team. In a thematic statement "I was afraid, and all I saw in you was what I was afraid of", Gerry illustrates how far the control of fear of reach, to wash out those fears than that of a high school football team and players who, for the most part, mirror the fears and insecurities of their society. After the players return back to T. C. Williams, there was a riot between the whites and blacks. They were protesting against the blacks for attending T. C. Williams. Gerry spots his girlfriend Emma and walks up to her with Julius and introduces him to her. Julius takes out his hand for a handshake and Emma rolls her eyes and walks away. Julius feels that even if they are a team, in the real world it still had racial discrimination issues. Sunshine (which was White), "The Rev" and some of the other teammates which were African American went out to a restaurant to celebrate the teams win. As the guys walk in, the Whites turn around and verbally abused them and told the guys that they were not wanted there because they were black. This just brought the guys in reality that segregation was rising. At another point in the movie, Gerry tells Ray ( he is white) to block one of his teammates during practice. Ray does not block "The Rev" because he is African-American and he gets severely injured. Gerry notices that Ray did that on spite and informs Coach Boone that he should be dismissed from the team because he was causing problems. Eventually, Ray is lashed off the team and at this point Coach Boone recognizes that Gerry is looking beyond the color of his teammates and is willing to give the team a chance. Coach Boone explains to the guys that they are a team that they are brothers and as brothers they will win together and see each other as humans and not as color. Before any game the players would do a traditional dance that only the "Titans" would do and sing "We are the Titans". The opposing team would look at them in shock and think that they weird because no team in history would dance before a game. This truly showed the coming together of brotherhood. From then on the team has won every game that they have played. The finals were coming up and the players were practicing enormously so that they would be ready for the championship game. The high point of the movie is when Gerry goes for a drive to celebrate the fact that they are all the way to the finals but gets in a car accident. Some other car hits him because he runs a stop sign and Gerry is in critical condition. Everyone in his team is devastated and goes to see him in the hospital. Julius finds out that this catastrophic incident that has happened to his best friend and is in total devastation. He could not imagine that Gerry would be in a hospital bed and in critical condition. The doctor comes back and tells the Coach, Gerry's mother and teammates that Gerry is paralyzed from waist down. This basically breaks Julius in half to see his best friend not walk again nor can he play his dream sport. Julius made every effort to see his "brother" Gerry in the hospital, but there was a nurse that asked Julius to leave because he was not family but Gerry said "He is my brother, don't you see the family resemblance?" Essentially, this proved that they loved one another and truly brothers. Before the

championship, Gerry wished Julius the best of luck for the finals and Julius said that the win was for Gerry. Not only is this heart-warming, inspiring movie based on a true story about overcoming prejudice, but it is also one of the best football films out there where they overcome discrimination and win the championship. In an admirable emotion packed blend, the ambition of attaining sports glory becomes the path of discovering true human spirit. Every scene in the movie top with and many scenes explode with either racial conflict, great football plays, emotional breakthroughs, or comic relief of turning a bunch of bullish, distrustful, racially antagonistic guys into a team. Coach Boone showed his point through their differences, colorful supporting characters fuel the dramatic momentum to the extent of turning every scene to penetrate in the quest for supreme athleticism as much as in the search for greater humanity. That we can ultimately use the game of football and its tribal scrimmage line of tangled bodies as a nursery that transforms the fear of difference into the unconquered strength of understanding, respect, and hope is yet another testament that greatness is often born in simplicity and game.

Source used: http://www.lawbuzz.com/movies/remember_the_titans/the_titans_ch1.htm#preface http://www.acps.k12.va.us/profiles/tcwilliams.html The Cast: Herman Boone: Denzel Washington Bill Yoast: Will Patton Petey Jones: Donald Faison Julius "Big Ju" Campbell: Wood Harris Gerry Bertier: Ryan Hurst Lewis Lastik: Ethan Suplee Carol Boone: Nicole Ari Parker Sheryl Yoast: Hayden Panettiere Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass: Kip Pardue Jerry "The Rev" Harris: Craig Kirkwood Emma Hoyt: Kate Bosworth Ray Budds: Burgess Jenkins Darryl "Blue" Stanton: Earl C. Poitier Alan Bosley: Ryan Gosling