‘Remember the Titans’ coach walks King’s dream

SHORELINE

A visit from a coaching legend lent an air of authenticity to Shorecrest High School’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. assembly.

Herman Boone, 71, the black coach who led the first integrated football team at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., to the state championship in 1971, spoke to a rapt student body Jan. 18 in the school’s gym.

Boone, immortalized in the movie “Remember the Titans” starring Denzel Washington as the coach, tied his experience to the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.

“The movie ‘Remember the Titans’ was made based on our lives because (the players) found a way when it was not popular to put their differences aside and learned to accept people for whomever they were and not reject them. That in itself created respect amongst these young men,” Boone told the students. “And that respect became the emotional glue that binds that team together even today.”

Taking on the job was a challenge. People threw eggs at the team bus on road trips. Boone received death threats.

They were internal problems at first as well.

“The white kids didn’t like the fact that I was black and the black kids didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t black enough for them,” he said.

Boone, who coached at Williams for nine years, still remains in touch with many of the players on the team.

Boone drew on details from King’s biography and offered his view of what King’s hopes would be for people today.

Boone drew loud applause from the audience when he said King did not live and die to see “young boys wear their pants below their below, where they will not be allowed in the boardrooms of America where you are asked to take the rightful place of senior management of your country.”

Students gathered around Boone after his speech to get autographs and chat.

“It was a history lesson, but it was alive,” said Tirhase Haddis, a Shorecrest senior and co-president of the school’s Black Student Union. “He integrated his experience and Martin Luther King’s experience and educated the youth at our school. It brought us back to the truth of the civil rights movement.”

After his speech, Boone talked about the approach he took with his players. He often started practices off with a joke, to diffuse tensions and break the ice.

“Many of their inhibitions were lost and I could talk to them,” he said. “It gets people to stop looking at the color of your skin.”

Boone also emphasized that he and his staff cared about the players “as human beings,” not only athletes. You “can’t fake caring,” he said.

Senior Jake Mason, who remembered “loving the movie,” said Boone’s example is one that he and his classmates can learn from.

Students sometimes segregate themselves, but they need to work to take an extra step and learn more about each other’s backgrounds, said Mason, who is Shorecrest’s student body president.

Boone spoke to five high schools in the Seattle area during a week-long visit. Rachel North, a Snohomish High School student contacted Boone’s agent and asked him to come speak to Snohomish students. Britt Harris, the activity coordinator at Shorecrest, learned of the visit through the Wesco Interhigh organization and jumped at the opportunity to have Boone visit Shorecrest as well.

Herald staff contributed to this report.