CHAMPION: Former T.C. Williams football coach Herman Boone (above).
Herman Boone, retired former head football coach T.C. Williams High School, in Alexandria, Va., will be the guest speaker for the 68th Unsung Heroes Banquet on Monday, May 12 at the Marriott's Hunt Valley in Baltimore County.
The following is a biography issued by the organizers of the event.
Coaching is hard enough. In the perfect scenario, a coach must display leadership, bring together players of different backgrounds and personalities and teach them to compete effectively as a unit.
That is an oversimplification of the challenge that confronts every coach – and it’s no easy task. What Herman Boone confronted in 1971 was far from a perfect scenario.
In Alexandria, Virginia in 1971, in an effort to integrate local schools, three schools merged to become T.C. Williams High school. Racial tension was high. White and black players previously at different segregated schools would try to be teammates.
The three schools had also been rivals before adding to the friction. Herman Boone had been an assistant coach of one of the three schools, and he was appointed head coach of the new T.C. Williams. He was selected for the job over a successful, white head coach from one of the three, pre-merger schools.
There was a large group of community members who resented Boone winning the job. Many might see this as a formula for disaster---but instead it became a story that is a lesson in understanding and civility.
How did Boone rise above the turmoil? In his direct style, he states “I just wanted to win football games.”
Born in North Carolina, one of 12 children, Herman wanted to build a career molding and motivating youth like he was guided in his early years. He was an outstanding athlete himself, and he decided on a career as a teacher and coach.
And he was a very good coach. The 1966 team he coached at E.J. Hayes High School in Williamson, North Carolina was rated number one nationally by Scholastic Coaches magazine. The T.C. Williams High Titan team of 1971 went 13-0 and won the state championship.
That team was a great example of how sports can heal communities and build character. The story was so compelling that it was turned into a major motion picture by Disney studios, “Remember the Titans,” in 2000 with actor Denzel Washington portraying Coach Boone.
Coach Boone, married with three daughters, is retired but continues to mold lives by speaking at a wide range of gatherings, often to youth groups. Though it happened nearly 40 years ago, the story he tells of that Titan team still resonates with audiences.
Of sports, Coach Boone once said, “It’s the vehicle that transports people, that carries people who are willing, whether they know it or not at the time, to eat together, talk together, sit together and live together. It’s the big bus that will carry us all.”
In an interview with Michael Wilbon of The Washington Post, Coach Boone said of the Titans’ story, “I’m pretty proud. I don‘t think people outside sports believe it. They don’t want to believe sports does that. They need to think again.”
Among the past Unsung Heroes guest speakers have been:
Bill Veeck, Joe Garagiola, Frank DeFord, Wes Unseld, Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, Bart Starr, Cathy Rigby, Brian Billick, Mary Lou Retton, Dick Vitale, Jim Morris (The Rookie"), Dr. Ben Carson.