Motivational. Honest. Dedicated. These three words, among countless others, can truly be used to describe Coach Herman Boone’s lecture to the Fairleigh Dickinson University community on March 5 in Lenfell Hall. Boone is well known for inspiring a football team in Alexandria, Virginia, in the 1970s and his character is portrayed by Denzel Washington in the award-winning film “Remember the Titans.”

Regarded as a renowned motivational speaker, Boone travels and delivers hundreds of speeches each year across the country, teaching lessons of respect, determination, and hope. Today, Boone is retired but he continues to motivate and inspire audiences with his presentations on respect, teamwork and community involvement.

Sponsored by the Office of the Campus Provost, the Diversity Committee and the Division of Student Affairs, this event generated a tremendous response from the FDU community as a famous icon spent time at a small university in northern New Jersey.

During a time of racial segregation in America, Boone was presented with the challenge of trying to find a way to unify a football team at T.C. Williams High School, an institution in which three schools merged to form a newly integrated one.

During the presentation, Boone tried to communicate the point that football in the south is not only a sport, but rather, it is truly a way of life. This team contained a total of 92 sixteen and seventeen-year-old boys and tensions were high as Boone soon became one of the most controversial and radical men in the entire country.

After beating out local favorite and successful Coach Bill Yoast of the formally all-white high school to become head coach of the Titans, Boone knew that he had his fair share of problems before him and the most pressing concern was how he was going to be able to overcome the racial diversity and divisions within the team.

Boone stated that even Yoast would not be able to handle this situation, even though he was the community favorite to lead the team, but the two persevered together.

Dean Brian Mauro began the presentation by playing a clip from the movie in which the team is sent off on a two-week training trip and they follow Boone down to the battlefield at Gettysburg. During the presentation, Boone spoke about how this moment in his team’s history was truly a turning point, as he wanted to stress the fact that if the team was unable to come together, there would be no other choice for them but to falter and fall apart. He faced difficulties day in and day out but there had to be a way to form a sense of unity. Even to this day, Boone stated that his players were forever changed by this experience in which the team had to overcome complications of sitting on integrated buses, eating at the same lunch tables, and merely talking to one another as well.

Surprisingly, most of the players had never even been close to another individual of the opposite race. Boone stressed that at that Gettysburg cemetery, people destroyed each other for the same reason that the team was destroying itself, due to their individual hatred for one another.

Additionally, on the Gettysburg trip, Boone had to face the difficulty of integrating races for different positions. While this is not in the movie, Boone said that on one specific day of the trip he laid out two rows of chairs – one row for defensive players and one row for offensive players. He then posed a question to the players which stated that if any of them wanted to play for his team, they would have to take a seat in one of these chairs. Upon asking that question, tons of offensive and defensive players flooded the seats without realizing that a majority of them were sitting on top of a player of another skin color. Boone said that the players did not have to like one another but they certainly had to respect each other, and that hatred and prejudice would not be tolerated, but rather, it would be celebrated. Although the team faced problems even upon returning from the trip, they all knew that it was a powerful learning experience for them because they all were living and working towards one unified goal.

Throughout the presentation, Boone made it clear that he often spent much of his coaching time telling stories and relaying life lessons to his players.

He lives by such statements as one “cannot survive without a sense of humor,” in addition to stating that “the word ‘can’ always comes before ‘can’t.’”

Through his motivational talks to his players, the team was able to find commitment and eventually went on to complete an undefeated season and win the 1971 state championship.

The team as a whole was soon viewed as an American role model and saved the city from being torn apart by racial strife. Boone stated that the team even received recognition from President Nixon and the United States Army for its achievements.

While lecturing, Boone made it a point to engage the entire audience and he even walked into the crowd when it came time to ask him questions.

While speaking, Boone consistently pointed to the audience, as if he was coaching everyone who was sitting in the crowd.

Commenting on Boone’s presentation, FDU student-athlete Marcie Schlanger said, “It was so inspiring to hear an intense story from someone who was actually placed in charge of such a difficult struggle.”

When answering one of the last questions, Boone stated that coaching is not necessarily the most lucrative profession, but it is certainly one of the most rewarding ones.

MEGHAN DROGE
Staff Writer