The best scene from one of the more fascinating and instructive sports movies ever made begins with the football coach from T.C. Williams High School in 1970s northern Virginia making a dramatic point on how mortal enemies can transform into blood brothers.
The coach was Herman Boone and the movie was Remember the Titans. It's a film based on a true story (with some historical liberties taken) about a newly integrated high school football team which learned lessons then that apply now, all these decades later. To this day, the story of the Titans remains highly relevant.
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| Coaches Bill Yoast (left) and Herman Boone (center) are vital to the Titans' memorable tale. (Getty Images) |
Just for a moment -- a moment is all that's asked -- let's step away from the sports petty, the mundane and the multi-headed beast that is the he sucks/you suck daily soulless stupidity and remember the possible. Let's take a walk down memory lane. Let's remember the Titans.
In that scene Boone, played by Denzel Washington, wakes the team at 3 a.m. and trots them through thick woods to a Civil War battleground. His point was that America needed to stop refighting the same old internal battles.
"This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg," Washington's character says. "Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we are still fighting among ourselves today. This green field right here, painted red, bubblin' with the blood of young boys. Smoke and hot lead pouring 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 you 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 of not, but you will respect each other. And maybe ... I don't know, maybe we'll learn to play this game like men."
The plot revolved around the true story of black and white kids forced together through integration and the racial politics of the time are played out on a football field. The popular white coach loses his job to Boone, a coach who is both black and an outsider.
After the initial tensions, the players learned to accept each other and grew a friendship that not only would last for much of their lives but also instructed parents and others about tolerance. The players on that team were able to mesh despite the ugliness from outside forces.
In other words, the kids taught the adults.
"When I first heard about the movie, I thought, 'Why would anyone make a movie about us?'" Kerry Lundin, a member of the Titans and best friend to one of the team's stars, Gerry Bertier, said in a telephone interview. "But our story was important then and it's still important."
The team's bond was united by a tragic occurrence. Bertier, a star linebacker, was paralyzed from the waist down in an automobile accident. Bertier later became a great Paralympic athlete before being killed by a drunken driver. His friends, like Lundin, continue Bertier's efforts in finding a cure for spinal cord injuries.
On Sept. 12 those efforts continue with an annual golf tournament in Bertier's name which draws almost two dozen members from that T.C. Williams team, NFL players and several actors from the movie. Funds generated by the Gerry Bertier Foundation are donated to Virginia Commonwealth University's spinal cord injury research and rehabilitation center. VCU matches dollar for dollar all of the foundation contributions.
The Gerry Bertier Foundation has raised $234,000 for spinal cord research in three years. It utilizes 40 unpaid volunteers.
• Gerry Bertier Foundation for spinal cord injury research
Decades ago, the Titans players were able to do in a few weeks what it takes a lifetime for some to accomplish even now.
Lundin explained the racial tensions between players on the team weren't as thorny as the movie portrayed because the players put race aside. The problem, Lundin said, was with the parents.
"We didn't have racial tensions with the football players," said Lundin. "It was just flat out competitive."
"The parents had issues," said Lundin. "But a funny thing began to happen. The parents watched us start to get along and the parents began to think, 'If the kids can get along, why can't we?'
"It took the parents about five or six games to start mingling and being friendly," Lundin said. "Once we started winning the mingling started."
That tiny nugget of tolerance on and off the field was the beginning of friendships that crossed the brutal carnage of ethnicity and class.
The movie wasn't perfect. Portions of its historical accuracy have been questioned, but its heart and message have never been.
Lundin says he's often asked if the funny celebratory scene where Ronnie Bass kissed Bertier was true.
"I tell people no, because Gerry would've killed him," Lundin joked.
"The storyline was mostly very accurate," Lundin said of the movie. "What was very accurate was there's no doubt that Coach Boone would've been replaced had he lost one game. All it would've taken was one loss. Then none of that, the story or the movie, would've ever happened."
Some of the original players, including Lundin, speak to Virginia-area high schools about the movie and what Virginia society was like in 1971. He tells stories that leave them wide-eyed and breathless. When the integration of Virginia schools started, some parents pulled their kids out public school and into private.
Next year is the 10th anniversary of Remember the Titans and foundation organizers such as Mac Church are attempting to get actors from the movie, like Washington, to attend the golf tournament next year. Bertier, it should be remembered, was also a dramatic proponent for wheelchair rights. The efforts of Bertier and others led to easier access in public areas for the handicapped.
The movie itself isn't in the cult classic category like Rudy or When We Were Kings, but it's close.
Very close.
"I never thought things would get this big," Lundin said. "Gerry would be proud."
