Based on a remarkable true story, "Remember the Titans" follows the explosive dramatic events that took place in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971 when African American football coach Herman Boone (Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington) was hired to guide an integrated but racially polarized high school team—the T.C. Williams Titans. Angry, stubborn and a rigid task master, Boone faces a cool reception from the team's players as well as an awkward relationship with assistant coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton), a local white coach with seniority and a tradition of winning who was bypassed for the job. As the two men learn to overcome their ignorance and bigotry and realize that they have much in common—integrity, honor and a strong work ethic—they work together to transform a group of angry unfocused players into a dynamic winning team of responsible young men. In the process, they also unite a divided community and ensure that Virginia will always "Remember the Titans."

At the beginning, the players don’t want to be together. The white players resent having to give up their coach, accept a black coach, and try out for their positions against black players. The black players appreciate having a black head coach, but they think it will help them gain all of the starting positions on the team. The black players want to have a black team, and don’t like the integration any more than the white players. This film is about how the team comes together in spite of (or maybe because of?) everything that is working against them.

LEADER NOTE:  In this study guide, I use the terms ‘white’ and ‘black’, not because they are the best or the most politically correct, but because they are the easiest. In the real world, especially today, there are other terms that are more appropriate, namely African American and Caucasian. Additionally, the world is much more complex, both today and in 1971, than for two categories to suffice. Even among descendants of Africans and northern Europeans, there are and always have been innumerable different ethnic/national/tribal groups. Then, when we put into the mix people from Asia, Latin and South America, and everywhere else, you see how complicated it quickly becomes. And so, for the purpose of this study guide, I will use the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ because in the 1971 Virginia of this film, there were, for all practical purposes, two groups of people.

Study questions

• How do the ’71 Titans start to become a team? (They come together as a team at the training camp. They have to get away from everything else [friends, family, news, etc.]. Even this doesn’t work at first—they’re still fighting at camp. They have to start to get to know one another as individuals [remember the assignment at camp, learning specific things about members of the other ‘race’?] before they can become a team.)
  

• What do you think went through everyone’s mind when they arrived in early morning at the Gettysburg battlefield after Coach Boone’s impassioned speech?
  

• Coach Boone tells the players, “I don’t care if you like each other, you will respect each other… and maybe play this game like men.” What do you think Coach Boone meant by “play this game like men”? Did he mean to be macho, to simply be respectful to one another, or to be mature in their relationships?
  

• How much does the way you act toward other people influence your attitudes about them, even despite the way you feel?
  

• The team comes to another crisis when they arrive back in town from training camp. School is just starting, and for the first time, T.C. Williams High School is integrated. There are hundreds of protesters at the school when the black students arrive, and much melee at the school entrance. The Titans are dumbfounded because they’ve changed during training camp, but their town hasn’t. How did you feel when one player said to the other, “Back to the real world—we’d have been better staying where we were.”
  

• After a few games, the team was losing some of what they had gained at camp. One even says to another, “The world tells us they don’t want us to be together and we just fall apart.” How much do the opinions of people around you influence you and your actions?
  

• Coach Yoast lost the vote that would have put him in the Hall of Fame, because of how he supported the team instead of the people who wanted Coach Boone to fail. Early in the film getting into the Hall of Fame was really important to him. At the end, though, when he found out how the vote went, it didn’t seem to faze him too much. What changed for Coach Yoast over the course of the ’71 football season? Have you ever stood up for what you believed was right, even though others didn’t approve of your stance? Have you ever taken a stand even though doing so would cause you to lose something important to you?
  

• When Gary was in the hospital after he got his by the truck, the only person he wanted to see was Julius. What happened between these two people to cause such a close connection? How had they both changed from the beginning of the story? How did you respond to Gary’s chastising the nurse: “Alice, are you blind? Don’t you see the family resemblance? That’s my brother!”
  

• At the beginning of the film, before training camp, we hear the line, “He’s just another blessed child in God’s loving family.” At the end of the film, we are told to “Trust the soul of a man, not his look.” Both of these are good sentiments, if they are spoken with sincerity. However, in the film, the first is spoken sarcastically. Do you pay attention to how you communicate or just what you say?
  

• Where is God in this film?
  

• What can the story of the ’71 Titans tell us about our world today, especially in relation to race relations in the wake of 9/11? How did our country treat Muslims through September and October of 2001? How are Arab Americans treated in your context? What about Latinos, African Americans, American Indians or Asian Americans if your group is mostly white? If you are a person of color, how are white people treated in your context?

• Luke 10:25-37

• Galatians 3:23-29 (talk about the progression within this passage from law to faith and Gospel in relation to the progression within the film from quick judgments to getting to know others as people)

• Matthew 5:43-48

• Matthew 25:31-46

• Exodus 23:1-3, 6-9 (focus on God’s plan for justice for all people, and how we’re part of bringing that plan to reality)

• Luke 1:46-55 (focus on how God cares for the poor, outcast, etc., on God’s desire for justice for all people, and how we’re part of bringing that plan to reality)