Herman Boone, coach portrayed in ‘Remember the Titans,’ dies at 84

Herman Boone, who led a racially integrated high school football team in Virginia to a state championship in his first season as head coach and later was portrayed by Denzel Washington in the Disney movie “Remember the Titans,” died Wednesday at his home in Alexandria, Virginia. He was 84.

The cause was lung cancer, said Anthony Henderson, a son-in-law.

In 1971, Alexandria’s three public high schools were merged into T.C. Williams High School. Boone was hired by the Alexandria school board as the head coach for the school’s football team, the Titans.

“He handled that coaching year with dignity,” said Wayne Sanders, who was a running back on the school’s junior varsity team that year.

“He was the right man for that year because of his coaching style,” he said, adding that Boone coached with discipline, respect and leadership.

Boone’s leadership during his first year as head coach inspired “Remember the Titans,” which was released by Disney in September 2000.

“If ‘ Remember the Titans’ is corny, it’s unabashedly, even generously so,” New York Times film critic A.O. Scott wrote, praising Washington’s presence as “strong” and “complex enough.”

Herman Boone was born Oct. 28, 1935, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, about 60 miles east of Raleigh.

After graduating from North Carolina Central University, where he received both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in physical education, Boone became a coach at a high school in Blackstone, Virginia.

In 1961, Boone moved to Williamston, North Carolina, and became a coach at E. J. Hayes High School. In 1969, the Williamston school board told Boone that the town was “not ready for a black head coach,” according to the ’ 71 Original Titans Foundation, so Boone resigned.

That year, he became an assistant coach at T.C. Williams High School.

In 1971, when the Alexandria schools merged, the school board appointed Boone head coach. He was chosen over Bill Yoast, a white coach who had more experience, Henderson said. Boone and Yoast worked together to lead the football team to its first state championship that year. Yoast died in May at 94. After the schools were combined, Sanders said, people who would not ordinarily interact came together for games and school events.

“They had to deal with individuals that they weren’t accustomed to playing or associating with on a daily basis,” he said.

And though race was undoubtedly a factor during that first year, he added, the team did not focus on it once players got to know one another.

“The race issue was more for the adults than the students,” said Sanders, whom Boone asked to play during the 1971 championship game even though he was on the junior varsity team.

“Race wasn’t an issue with him. It was for everyone else — he didn’t care.”

The T.C. Williams Titans won the state championship in 1971, 1984 and 1987.

Boone stopped coaching football in 1979, according to Aly Khan Johnson, 69, who was an assistant coach for Boone at the time. He continued to teach physical education at the school and later coached golf for several years, Johnson said.

Boone’s wife of 57 years, Carol Boone, died in March at 83. His survivors include two daughters, Sharon Henderson and Monica Merritt, as well as 10 grandchildren and six great- grandchildren. Another daughter, Donna Dulany, died in November 2014, Henderson said.

Boone’s daughter Henderson said she did not watch “Remember the Titans” often.

“It was very surreal,” she said. “It helped us to appreciate the things our father was doing while he was at work.”