By Nick Serrata, Staff Photographer Herman Boone greeted audience members after the lecture.

Celebrate Black History Month
Former Titans coaches Herman Boone and Bill Yoast speak about struggles with racism

By Nicole Perry
the stylus

“The best will play.  Color won’t matter,” said TC Williams Titans head coach Herman Boone in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971.

You might remember that line from the movie Remember the Titans, in which Boone’s character (played by Denzel Washington) reminds his players what’s important when it comes to football and life.  That quote goes to show the world today that talent, not skin color, determines who plays on the football field.

All people face a challenge at some point in their lives. Titans coaches Herman Boone and Bill Yoast faced the biggest challenge of their careers in the ’70s, when they coached the team despite the evil glares and hateful words of a community and players engulfed by racial prejudice. Unfortunately, the challenge of racism still exists today.

On Feb. 8, Yoast and Boone visited the Union Ballroom to tell their tale of hardship to the crowd of more than 100 students and community members.

Because the school systems in Alexandria decided to integrate, offense coach Boone was thrust into the position of head coach after only one year of coaching football. He was placed in front of legendary coach Yoast, who had been there for many years.

“I hated the fact that I was forced to take this job,” Boone said.  “I didn’t want it, I didn’t deserve it and I didn’t ask for it.”

By Nicholas Serrata, Staff Photographer Bill Yoast signed a football for Anna Micoli, a junior and midfielder on the Brockport women’s soccer team.

In order to achieve team unity, the team had to accept the integration. “We had to get used to the other’s personality,” Yoast said. “We accepted each other because the players did.”

Both coaches had to put their differences aside and focus on what was important: a winning team ­— and a winning team was what they got when they became State Champions that very year.  No coach would be able to achieve that goal unless the players were friendly with one another.  That wasn’t the case with the Titans.  Every teammate, no matter the color, was at each other’s throats.  Boone recalled an incident in which one of the players said something to another player that caused the whole team to start fighting.

Boone, as shown in the movie, took the players to the cemetery in Gettysburg.  He was tired of how the team was acting toward one another and wanted to show them where all the fighting began.  With terrified looks on their faces, they listened to how the battle of Gettysburg was fought.  The sole purpose of the trip helped the Titans eventually realize they were teammates, not enemies.

The next challenge was to convince the community that racial tolerance was the right path. Boone remembered a time when a parent of a white player stood up in the stands and started yelling at him because he took out the player and replaced him with a black one. The parent felt his son should be playing, and not the other team member.

“It was hard trying to convince everyone we could be successful,” Boone said.

Months of hard work  finally paid off.  Boone noticed a change in the players when they would be telling “yo’ ‘mama” jokes to each other.  It was then he realized that they accepted one another, not caring about the skin color.

The community even began to change. “It was the sixth or seventh game and the community, instead of sitting separately and cheering for their own race, came together as one, cheering for everyone,” Boone said.