Image courtesy of Disney
A scene from "Remember the Titans'
Join Alexandria City High School Friday, Sept. 19 at the school for a night to remember as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film "Remember the Titans."
To honor both the movie and the 1971 State Championship Titan team that the movie is based on, Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) has teamed up with Comcast’s Xfinity to host a celebration that reunites original players, coaches and cheerleaders with today’s student-athletes.
Out of 77 original players, 40 are expected to attend, along with four of the five surviving coaches—a rare opportunity to capture the full arc of the Titan story. Highlights include a community tailgate event and a commemorative football game against John R. Lewis High School.
The impact of Remember the Titans is still felt every day in Alexandria City. A scholarship is awarded annually in honor of the team, and their story continues to guide our work around equity, leadership and resilience. Our current players are not only aware of the legacy they’ve inherited—they’re inspired by it. This weekend is as much about where the Titans have been as it is about where they’re going.
WHAT: A celebration event marking the 25th Anniversary of Remember the Titans.
WHO: ACPS Superintendent Dr. Melanie Kay-Wyatt, Alexandria City School Board members, ACPS leadership, the 1971 state championship football team players and coaches, ACPS Executive Director James Parker, 71' Original Titans Foundation Leader Bob Luckett, ACPS students, staff and families, Comcast’s Regional Vice President of Government & Regulatory Affairs, Misty Allen and Alexandria City community members.
WHEN: Friday, Sept. 19, 2025
- 5:30-7 p.m. Titans Tailgate, Fri., Sept. 19, 2025, Alexandria City High School (ACHS) Main Gym
- 7 p.m. 1971 Pre-Game Tribute & Football Game, ACHS Parker-Gray Memorial Stadium.
WHERE: Alexandria City High School - King Street Campus, 3330 King St, Alexandria, VA 22302.
Parking is available in the garage adjacent to the building.
Please enter through door 1.
All press must bring a valid form of identification and present it to a member of the security team upon entering the building.
Based on a true story, the 2000 film "Remember the Titans" is a sports drama that tells the story of the T.C. Williams High School football team in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1971. The film centers on the forced integration of the school and its football team, which brings together a new African American head coach, Herman Boone (played by Denzel Washington), and the respected white assistant coach, Bill Yoast (played by Will Patton). The movie follows the coaches and players as they navigate intense racial tensions both on and off the field, ultimately learning to overcome their differences and become a united, successful team.
The film's central themes are teamwork, overcoming racial prejudice, and leadership. The movie uses the backdrop of high school football to explore how a common goal—winning—can be a powerful force for unity. Through rigorous training camp and forced interaction, the coaches break down the barriers between the Black and white players, transforming initial hostility into a bond of brotherhood. The film portrays the idea that by getting to know each other personally, the players and coaches can dismantle learned biases and find common ground. This journey of personal and collective growth is what makes the movie a classic sports film, not just about the game, but about the human spirit.
While "Remember the Titans" is celebrated for its inspirational message and powerful performances, it's worth noting that it takes some dramatic liberties with the real events. For example, some of the racial conflict and specific plot points were exaggerated or fictionalized for the film. The movie’s depiction of the community's intense racial turmoil and some of the key on-field moments, like the dramatic final game, were altered to create a more compelling narrative. Despite these creative changes, the film's core message of reconciliation and the lasting friendship between the coaches and players remains a poignant and enduring legacy.
The real-life coaches
Image courtesy of ACPS
T.C. Williams remembers Bill Yoast
T.C. Williams High School Coach William “Bill” Yoast died in May 2019. The ACPS Express remembered him:
Yoast, 94, passed away at Aarondale Retirement and Assisted Living in Springfield, Va. The former coach was immortalized in the movie about the 1971 integration of Alexandria’s high schools.
"Coach Yoast served our country in WW2, and then served generations of students in @ACPSk12 ," then-Mayor Justin Wilson said. "Our City is better off and grateful for his legacy. RIP, Coach."
ACPS announced at the time: "Today we remember legendary #RememberTheTitans Coach Bill Yoast, who has passed away. Along with Coach Herman Boone, Yoast helped transform the @TCWTitans into a model team and model school, leading the newly integrated football team to win the state championship in 1971."
Yoast — a legendary coach at the all-white Francis C. Hammond High School before he became defensive coach at T.C. Williams High School — put politics aside to work with T.C.’s first African American head coach, Herman Boone. The two pulled together to solidify a diverse group of students into the most successful football team in the state that year.
More importantly, the football games, and Yoast and Boone’s relationship, brought together the formerly divided city of Alexandria to support their winning integrated school team. Yoast later served as an assistant coach on T.C. Williams football teams that won Virginia AAA titles in 1984 and 1987.
Yoast has been remembered as a quiet, humble "people person." He didn’t shy away from discussing issues even during the difficult times Alexandria was going through, and was instrumental in helping pull the city together.
Even though Yoast and Boone were as different as “night and day,” Boone said, “He and I found a way to talk to each other and trust each other.” In the end, Boone said Yoast was the best friend he ever had.
"It was when the integration plan was announced. We thought it was a joke. But it turned out to be better for us than Brown v. Board of Education. It was not easy. People were not accepting integration. But you could see it in Bill Yoast. You can’t fake believing. You can lie about things, but you cannot fake your beliefs.”
In 1971, the Alexandria City School Board’s decision to swiftly integrate the two upper grades of the two all-white high schools with the one all-black T.C. Williams happened amid racial unrest, riots and more subtle discomfort.
The year Yoast passed away, in 2019, was the 65th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision requiring school districts to integrate. Virginia engaged in a campaign to avoid integration called “The Massive Resistance,” that delayed Alexandria’s efforts for five years. When the city finally did begin to integrate, Yoast’s decisions made in a politically volatile climate helped bridge racial divides.
In fact, Boone said he and Yoast didn’t like each other at first — not until they started working together. The system was very divided, according to Boone, who said the families from the different schools didn’t like each other. There were a lot of rivalries that spilled out around the football games.
By the end of the Titan’s season, however, President Richard Nixon told The Washington Post, “The Titans of Alexandria saved the city of Alexandria.”
After graduating from Coffee High School, Yoast joined the U.S. Air Force for three years. Yoast started college at Georgia Military College and then Mercer University in Macon, Ga., where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Physical Education. His master’s degree was from Peabody College, in Nashville, Tenn.
After working in Sparta, Ga., as a coach for football, basketball, baseball and track, Yoast moved to Roswell and taught track and football for seven years. It was then he moved to Alexandria, where he coached Francis C. Hammond High school and led them to regional champs in 1969 before coaching at T.C. Williams High school. He spent three decades coaching in Alexandria.
Yoast and his wife, Betty, had four daughters and seven grandchildren. He enjoyed golfing, fishing and working out. Yoast, born in 1924 in Florence, Ala., was played by another southerner, South Carolina actor William Patton in "Remember the Titans."
ACPS
ACPS wrote that same year, in December, of Boone's passing as well: Former Head Coach of the T.C. Williams High School 1971 championship football team Herman Boone passed away Wednesday.
Boone, whose story is immortalized in the Disney movie Remember the Titans about the 1971 integration of Alexandria’s high schools, died just weeks after making a guest appearance at the annual ACPS Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony where he was welcomed as a star and former inductee.
Boone came to Alexandria from North Carolina as T.C.’s first African American head coach, had to put politics aside to work with Yoast, the equally legendary coach at the all-white Francis C. Hammond High School who had been hired as defensive coach at T.C. Williams High School. The two pulled together to solidify a diverse group of students into the most successful football team in the state that year.
