Alexandria City Public SchoolsThe T.C. Williams High School Titans football team in 1971.The 2000 movie Remember the Titans is considered one of the greatest football films of all time. It follows a high school football team in Alexandria, Virginia, that overcomes racial tensions to win the 1971 state championship. But the real story behind Remember the Titans is far different from how it was depicted onscreen.While the movie is based on true events, much of the plot was either exaggerated or entirely fictionalized. As in the movie, Herman Boone played by Denzel Washington was named the head coach of the T.C. Williams High School football team in 1971. And the team did have an undefeated season. But many of the events in the film never happened.In the movie, the T.C. Williams High School football team is portrayed as newly integrated, but that wasnt actually the case. In fact, schools in Alexandria had been desegregated for several years prior to the 1971 football season. As such, much of the players real-life conflict came from the consolidation of three existing teams rather than racial prejudice.But that wasnt the only thing movie producers embellished. From the state championship game to the car crash that paralyzed Gerry Bertier, read on to learn more about the true story behind Remember the Titans.The True Story Of Remember The TitansRemember the Titans, which was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Chad Oman, and directed by Boaz Yakin, wasnt critically acclaimed when it was first released in 2000. But the feel-good story of a high school football team overcoming racism to become state champions has made the production one of the quintessential modern sports movies.In the film, Denzel Washington plays Herman Boone, a Black football coach who is hired to lead the city of Alexandrias only integrated team at T.C. Williams High School. At one point in the film, Boone even tells his players, Tonight, weve got Hayfield. Like all the other schools in this conference, theyre all white. They dont have to worry about race. We do.In reality, T.C. Williams was far from the only integrated team in the area. In fact, all the football teams in Alexandria were integrated by 1971. The city had begun its institutional desegregation process in 1959, and virtually every school had both Black and white students by the 1970s. Whats more, T.C. Williams High School hadnt been formed by merging an all-white and an all-Black school, as Remember the Titans suggests.Alexandria City Public SchoolsCoach Boone training with Titans players in the 1970s.According to the official website for Alexandria City Public Schools, T.C. Williams was built in 1965, well after the start of integration. In 1971, the year the movie takes place, the city consolidated all high school students into T.C. Williams so that the school became Alexandrias only public senior high school serving 11th and 12th graders.Because of this, three varsity football teams T.C. Williams, George Washington, and Francis C. Hammond were merged. Bob Luckett, who played on Boones team as an offensive lineman, spoke of the real story behind Remember the Titans to Northern Virginia Magazine in 2021. When they brought the three schools together, to me, it wasnt a question of Black or white, Luckett explained. I didnt like that guy because he was my rival.I cant tell you that there werent people on the team that were affected by the race issue, Luckett continued, there certainly were. But if you went to T.C. Williams, you grew up disliking Hammond and GW because of athletics. Today, we still talk about who wouldve had the better team that year.However, the idea of racial conflict was too good for Hollywood to pass up so producers decided to magnify the issue for the big screen.The Issue Of Race In Remember The TitansIts true that race was an important factor in the real story behind Remember the Titans, even if many of the events in the film were exaggerated. President Richard Nixon even wrote a letter to Coach Boone, stating, I would like to commend you not only for the fine job you have done in moulding this superb team, but also for the major contribution you have made in bringing the citizens of Alexandria together.However, the racial tension wasnt always quite as glaring as shown onscreen.One of the main plot points in Remember the Titans stems from a dire warning to Coach Boone. Early in the movie, a school board member informs him that hell be fired if the team loses a single game. Later, during the semi-finals, defensive coordinator Bill Yoast learns that the Virginia High School Hall of Fame has fixed the game to ensure that the Titans lose and Boone is dismissed.Yoast storms onto the field, threatening to expose the scandal if the referees dont stop making unfair calls. But none of this ever happened. In fact, the Hall of Fame wasnt even established until 1990. Buena Vista PicturesCoach Herman Boone (portrayed by Denzel Washington) leads the Titans onto the field in victory.Even Coach Boone remarked that the real story behind Remember the Titans was different than what audiences saw in the movie. We got our share of bad calls, and Im not sure, to this day, that some of it was not racism, Boone noted in the movies DVD commentary, as reported by ESPN. But it was not as overt as appears in the film.Indeed, another scene, in which two Black players are kicked out of a bar because of their race, was also fictionalized. That said, Coach Boone did weather racist attacks during his tenure his home was vandalized during the 1971 season. In the movie, a brick is thrown through his window. But the real events were much more disturbing.As Boone recalled in the DVD commentary, There wasnt a brick thrown through my window 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.But swapping a toilet for a brick was the least of the changes producers made to the real story of Remember the Titans.Other Glaring Inaccuracies In The FilmThe climax of Remember The Titans comes during the state championship game, when the Titans secure a victory over George C. Marshall High School in the final play. But in real life, this match took place in the middle of the season. The Titans played their real championship game against Andrew Lewis High School and won 27 to 0. Of course, a shutout game wouldnt have been dramatic enough for Hollywood, so producers swapped the timeline of the true story behind Remember the Titans. They also added to the tension by changing the date of team captain and star defensive lineman Gerry Bertiers car crash.Family Photo/Find a GraveGerry Bertier was paralyzed in a car accident in 1971 and killed in a second collision a decade later.In the movie, Bertier becomes paralyzed after the teams victory at the semi-final game and isnt able to play in the championship. In real life, Bertie was in a car crash but it didnt take place until December 1971, several days after the Titans won the finals. Then, Bertiers accident took place after a celebratory banquet held in honor of the teams undefeated season.The film also leaves out another important detail: the fate of Coach Boone.In 1979, Boone was dismissed from his position as head coach. As reported by the Washington Post at the time, the principal of T.C. Williams High School simply claimed that the program needed a change.WFAA/YouTubeBill Yoast and Herman Boone in a 2000 interview about Remember the Titans.However, Boone had been facing allegations of physically and verbally abusing players. While these claims werent substantiated, several members of his staff including Bill Yoast had reportedly threatened to resign if Boone remained head coach.In the end, screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard maintained that the changes he made to the real story of Remember the Titans were necessary to create a popular film. You just have to maintain the spirit of the piece, Howard told the Washington Post in 2020. You can change a bunch but you cant violate the spirit.After reading about the real story behind Remember the Titans, learn about the true life of Rudy Ruettiger, the Notre Dame football legend behind Rudy. Then, go inside the real events behind 11 historical movies.The post The Incredible True Story Of <em>Remember The Titans</em>, One Of The Most Beloved Football Films Ever Made appeared first on All That's Interesting.