Remember the Titans takes place in a time when the world is changing and they are being faced to deal with it. The racial problems going on in the seventies were severely disturbing to the town of Alexandria, Virginia because they were being forced to integrate two schools. There are riots and extreme dislike between everyone involved. It is at this time that the football team is getting their first taste of what their season is going to be like. The school board hands over the head coaching job to a black man, Coach Boone, who they expect to fail. He takes the team to camp and revamps the way that the see the world, or atleast the way most of them do. When they return home from camp all ...view middle of the document...
After the missed tackle, Gary soon realized what had happened and was disgusted. He addressed the situation with Coach Boone but Boone allocated the decision solely on Gary's shoulders. Gary wanted a team that would play together and would not stand to loose a game or a hardworking teammate for the mere fact of skin color. Therefore, he acted as a change leader and decided to suspend Ray from the team. The team was still experiencing racial problems on and off the field but by suspending Ray, he was taking another step into fully integrating the two teams.Coach Herman Boone acted as a change leader because he needed to introduce a new level of commitment and participation of the teammates. Coach Boone was very critical to the development of the team. He knew that the two individual teams needed to come together as one, so he took charge and initiated the change.Boon was a change leader in many ways but a specific example was when the team gathered to go to camp. The boys were saying goodbye to their parents and all the whites were getting on one bus and all the blacks were getting on the other. Coach Boone was watching the boys get on the bus when Gary and Ray approached him. Gary said that if Coach Boone wanted any of the whites to play for him he would have to reserve half of the open positions for white players. Boone responded by asking Gary where his parents were. Gary pointed to his mother and Boone told Gary to take a good look at his mother because he wasn't going to have his momma at camp. Boone told Gary that he would have his brothers on the team and his daddy, referring to himself. Coach Boone was trying to change the perception that Gary and Ray had of him so he referred to himself as their daddy. Boone let them know that this was his team and that he was in charge. He didn't care if they were black, green, blue, or orange, this was his team. He made everyone get off the buses and split into two groups, defense and offense. He then divided each group into pairs. A black team member had a white partner and a white team member had a black partner. The pairs not only had to sit on the bus together but room together for the whole two weeks of camp. This was a huge change for the whole team. This very scene was the ground breaking event for the racially joined team we see at the end of the movie.Louie proved to be a very influential leader in the beginning of the season. When the school board first announced that Boone would be head coach and he called his first team meeting none of the white males showed up except Louie. He walked into the gym and when everyone looked at him and made comments about what he was doing his reply was a sincere comment about just wanting to play football. He acted as if he did not even notice that he was the only white man in the room. He showed leadership in this situation because he was the only one to take a stand and show that his love for the game was more important that what his teammates loo...
