Remember the Titans

Remember the Titans

2000

Director: Boaz Yakin

Writer: Gregory Allen Howard

113 Minutes

In 1971, America was on the verge of racial change and that change was met with resistance, hate, and violence. And then there were the Titans.

The T.C. Williams Titans covered the range of hate and bigotry in this country having one black coach, one white coach, and a mixture of black and white players playing both offense and defense. Their goal was to put the best football team on the field, but their obstacles were far beyond their comprehension.

Not only did the Titans have to face all-white schools with no racial tension, but they needed to face their own egos, limitations, and preconceived notions of one another. Finally, this team had to confront a community unwilling to adjust to color barrier. It was triple the conflict most high school football teams encounter.

But, their coaches Herman Boone (Danzel Washinton) and Bill Yoast (Will Patton) helped them understand that the football field holds no color, no race. Football is supposed to be above hatred. Football, in the simply sense, helps unite a towns, cities, states that face the change that needs to be accepted. Moreso, football will help unite thirty-odd boys who hate each other.

Boone and Yoast take their boys to camp at Gettysburg College where they experience pain, dehydration, and exhaustion. Yet, they still haven’t learned to get along. Boone makes them interview one another, but still they continue to hate. And finally, Boone marches them to the battlefield at Gettysburg and explains this:

“This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we are still fighting among ourselves today."

That does it. That was the turning point for the team. But, then the team returns to the real world.

And the real world hasn't changed, thus the team falls back into the same sticky, racially charged situation as before they left. You can take a hateful person out of the city and show them peace in the country, but when they return to the city, they'll most likely forget the country.

That’s what happened to the Titans.

They needed to remind themselves what they learned at camp and how unimportant skin color is. They needed to dance.

In the scene above, the Titans tell Boone and Yoast they wanted to enter onto the field a little “differently.” The teams forms five lines, packs together, and dances/sings their way onto the field.

They line up and continue to dance, showing themselves and the crowd they are one united front above everything else. They stick together past black and white. And every game after, they march onto the field the same way to have the same results.

Victory.

The T.C. Williams Titans needed this moment. They needed to dance onto the field to bond them together. They have long forgotten their days at camp and needed to remember what it felt like to join together as a team.

That's what makes teams great: the bond. And even though the Titans faced enormous obstacles, they had a bond. And their bond was together as one, just by dancing.

In the end, we take this from the final line in the film:

“…but before we reach for hate, we must always, always, remember the Titans.”

Their teams spirit lives on. The Titans live on. And their message lives on.