Sport as a Uniting Factor of The Society in Remember The Titans

Every society has a culture that gives them an identity. Sport as a culture is ever-growing conformity and one of the universal elements that define people’s way of life and ideals. Remember the Titans is an American movie based on a true story and released in 2000. The movie is about two racially-diverse football teams from two different schools that were ordered by the government to integrate. In contemporary American culture, football is the country’s most followed sports. The movie Remember the Titans is a constant reminder that sports culture is a uniting factor of the American society.

 In Remember the Titans, football is portrayed through the games played. T.C Williams High School is a learning institution in Virginia which is passionate about their games and boasting of an unbeaten run of games. The athleticism of the players is repeatedly involved in excruciating training. Moreover, most of the scenes are set in the fields. The football players dress in white jerseys and head guards to represent their school. The two coaches applied football tactics to improve the new racially-integrated team. Football defines the personalities of the main characters. Herman Boone, an African-American coach shows character because of his difficult background whereby he was a civil right activist. However, his leadership skills and conviction are the reasons why the school board hires him. Despite the white community disapproving this idea, he overcomes these challenges by making winning football games his main agendas. Bill Yoast the assistant coach has a record as a winning coach and the community adores him. Later in the movie, Yoast congratulates the coach for his sportsmanship after the summer camp. Gerry and Julius are the team leaders for the white team and African-American teams respectively. They demonstrate leadership skills and athleticism. Moreover, they have a passion for football which helps them to put aside their ego in order to serve the team. Guttmann argues that the significance of modern sports activities is for a sacred and secular purpose (1978). However, football has been given the role of the uniting factor in a community divided by racial differences. This segregation is deeply rooted in the community to the point of affecting the players and coaches. However, football influenced the plot through Boone. Yoast who is white gets sidelined by the school board in order to Boone, an African-American, and the head coach of a newly integrated team. The community disapproves of this idea because Boone is African-American and is less experienced. In the training ground, the biracial team is divided into two groups as the tension group. 

With fear of failure looming, the common passion for football and Boone’s tactics to force the team to work together help the teammates overcome their egos. American football is a popular culture that has been used to expose racial issues and problem-solving methods in society. In fact, it is through a team’s passion for football that differences are set aside in order to serve a higher purpose. The team may end up losing matches if there is an atmosphere of hostility growing. So when Julius and Gerry decided to work together to lead the team, they hoped that the monotonous ideology of racism will end. The community soon followed suit as evidenced when the policeman stopped Julius to congratulate him for a good match. Football is the national pride of America is the primary message the movie communicates about sports in our culture and society. According to Sorek & Robert (2016), football displays samples of patriotism since it is the American identity. Such reasons mentioned therein explain why the movie uses sport to show a culture that has been inherited in years. Despite racism being the reason for this animosity between the teams in the movie, sports acted as a unifying factor to create a national identity that represents the U.S. Hence, the American football is a unique name used to shape the American sports and culture. In Remember the Titans, Julius questions Gerry’s leadership skills as the reason why the team was barely united. Later on, Gerry reflects on Julius’ words and sees some truths in the sentiments. These two leaders end up forgiving each other and as result, create a united team whose performance will be the reason for uniting the community. 

Noteworthy, these two characters are passionate football players. The society’s passion for football is clearly as evidenced by Sheryl Yoast’s desire to see the team perform. Sheryl is Yoast’s daughter, whose comic rants and presence is a close representation and impact of American football in society. Football has been used as a laboratory, experimenting on respect, forgiveness, and teamwork as the ingredients of sparking inspiration for the team. If a team of young men from different backgrounds can be brought together by their passion for football, so can the community. Starting from leading a segregated team and community is evidence that negativity can be overlooked for the sake of football. Thus, this process tends to create and shape society and culture that can choose to be united sports. 

The main idea interpreted by Remember the Titans is that sports can be used to overcome diversity. Consequently, football as a national identity is used to teach racists that different cultures can have a common ground where they can socialize without discrimination. As a matter of fact, the movie is about individual choices made by a biracial team led by biracial coaches. Using a high school, the movie uses characters who love sports to show that the hostility is for the minority. According to Coakley (1982), sociology of sports is the connection to family, media, politics, religion, and education. This is factual because, at the end of the movie, the community accepted the Boone’s approach, Titans became a team. In conclusion, American society has a football culture as its identity. Through Remember the Titans, two biracial teams were united. The over-reliance on individualism was overcome by teamwork to solve societal problems.