SITE TOOLS
|
|
|
Two Titans Remember
By Lisa R. Foeman
Brad “Bubba” Smith and Wayne Sanders, tight end and running back,
respectively, on the 1971 state championship winning T.C. Williams Titans football team
both remember head coach Herman Boone a little differently. Said Sanders who was called up
from the junior varsity team to play the last two games of the 1971 season as a freshman,
“He [Coach Boone] was not just a coach, but for many of us, he was a father. He gave
us the discipline that a lot of us needed.” Laughingly, Sanders continued, “In
another life, he could have been a drill sergeant. He was that strong of a coach.”
Not quite harboring the same familial notions as Sanders, Smith recounted, “Boone was
a hard coach. I was scared of Boone…. His tone of voice put fear in your heart.”
Both agree that Boone was effective albeit in a different way than Coach Yoast who Sanders
remembered as “quiet, soft-spoken, and reserved.” But Sanders cautioned,
“don’t take [Yoast’s] kindness for weakness.”
|
|
Courtesy Brad Smith
Brad "Bubba" Smith |
|
|
Courtesy Wayne Sanders
Wayne Sanders
|
|
That Remember the Titans
focused on only two of the ’71 team’s six All-America players disappointed
Smith, now a lieutenant with the Gallaudet University police. Gerry Bertier and Julius
“Big Ju” Campbell were not the only Titans stars as depicted by the movie. So
were All-Americas Smith, Frankie Glascoe, Earl Cook and Jim Brown. Opined former tight-end
Smith who was T.C. Williams’ first freshman to play on the varsity squad, “it
was the whole team concept - whether you played or not.”
|
|
|
Titans' genuine portrayal of the racially charged atmosphere in Alexandria
brought back emotional memories for Sanders and Smith. Related Sanders, now a logistical
analyst with a small minority-owned business, “the tension came from the bussing
situation. Blacks didn’t know whites; whites didn’t know blacks as well as
whites didn’t know whites because we had white kids coming [to T.C. Williams] from
[George Washington High] and Hammond [High] that didn’t know each other. There was a
lot of fighting going on and a lot of days school was shut down as a result of the
fighting.” Race was not the only precipitating factor according to Sanders. The
addition of Hammond’s poor white students injected class as a factor as well.
In the end, it truly was the football team that brought the city of
Alexandria together. Smith remembered, “When we started winning games and they saw us
hugging each other on the field, it brought that city together. [The fans] started hugging
each other at the games, shaking hands, running down to the field, hugging on [the
players].” It was the film's accurate portrayal of the big picture issue that pleased
Sanders. He noted, “It just wasn’t a one-sided issue they were trying to
portray, but they were showing everything. How actually the coaches as well as the team
brought the city together…[It] wasn’t so much what we did as individuals, but
what the coaches [did], the sacrifices they made within their own personal lives which the
majority of the people had no clue of.” |
|
|
Like any Hollywood movie, Titans isn’t one hundred percent
accurate. Gerry Bertier’s paralyzing accident occurred after a banquet and not after
a game. Jerry Harris was not a Bible banger nicknamed “Rev.” Frankie Glascoe,
not the quarterback, actually scored the touchdown at the end of the championship game.
That game was not a nailbiter either as depicted - the Titans blanked Andrew Lewis High
(Salem, Virginia) 27-0. |
|
Short Cuts
Remember the Titans Review
|
|
|
While the players socializing with each other off the field may seem a
part of Hollywood fiction, it actually isn’t. Both Smith and Sanders confirmed that
black and white players regularly ate over each other’s homes and visited each
other’s neighborhoods. After speaking to them, it became clear that this perceived
oddity resulted from an ambiguity in the film. T.C. Williams High in 1971 was already an
integrated school comprised of 11th and 12th graders. 1971 was not T.C.’s first year
of integration as the film leads one to believe. Hammond High and George Washington High
merged with T.C., leaving the former two as 9th and 10th grade middle schools. This merger
created a superschool. Witness the fact that T.C. fielded a team of 75 players while other
schools barely dressed 30 players.
Having the opportunity to reminisce with former teammates at the Titans premiere
was special. Even though the players “are all grown and [gone] our separate
ways” as Smith noted, “we all still have love and that Titans spirit.” M
October 2000
|
|
|
|
|
RLP Ventures, LLC and/or its
suppliers. All rights reserved.