Coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) is the head football coach at T. C. Williams High School. He has had a successful career as head coach and is even mentioned as a candidate for induction into the Virginia high school hall of fame. Coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) is the head football coach at the Black High School in the district. He has also had a successful career as a head coach.
In 1971 the two high schools are integrated. The school board decides to give Coach Boone the position as head coach and give Coach Yoast the postion as assistant coach. There is one catch. If Coach Boone looses a game he also loses his position as head coach.
The players from both the black and the white high school teams travel to Gettysburg for a training camp. At this camp the boys learn to overcome their differences and develop into a team. However, when they return to Alexandria they find a town town apart by friction, anger, and mistrust. The team and the coaches must deal with the pressures of society while trying to compete in one of the toughest divisions in high school football.
--Marie Mize, Resident Scholar
A school decides to combine black and white people. This means that the football team will be both black and white. It starts off badly between the two groups, but then they start to ignore their differences and play together to take home the championship.
--Jack Bauer, Resident Scholar
In this film, Denzel Washington plays a football coach who is in charge of a freshly integrated Virginia high school. At first, it makes students of both races uncomfortable with his presence, but he teaches them the importance of racial equality. Because of his motivational efforts, the team begins to play in ha ...