Description

(INTRODUCTION/PROBLEM) 

This essay will describe the many challenges that an African-American high school football coach, named Herman Boone, faced during a racially divided town and student body that opposed segregation of their high school.  Yet, while demanding the respect to the character of Herman Boone in the 2000 film Remember the Titans.  The theme that is being promoted throughout this paper is that Boone’s character as an effectiveness as a coach was witnessed in the movie for his courageous leadership.  Boone has proven himself who was fully aware of the challenge that lie ahead of the task of leading the team of a racially diverse football players towards victory and something that was bigger than sports itself; a hope to end segregation in the world.  Coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) wanted to prove himself as an effective football coach at the integrated T. C. Williams High School in the year 1971.  Having been an African-American in the school with the rest of the coaching body’s members consisting of Whites, Boone knew that it will prove extremely challenging for him to be able to reach this objective.  To add even more complexity to the task, Boone announced that he will make a point in keeping the Titans football team as racially diverse as possible, something that at the time was considered as a rather controversial practice.  Racial tensions already existed along with desegregation of the high school.   Coach Boone had to overcome the racism within the team, the coaching staff, and the community if he were to build a diverse and racially mixed football team.  Racism in the south at the beginning of the 1970s divided the football team due to black and white students being forced to play together.  There were many factors working against him Coach Boone, for example the players had deep-seated loyalty to the previous coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) and the fact that Boone did not seem to be endowed with the prominent individuality of any sort.   Boone’s challenge was trying to win the respect of the team.  Nevertheless, it did not take the character too long to ensure that the Titans indeed regard him as being nothing short of a “natural born” leader.   (THESIS) Coach Boone was transformational leader during that time in 1971, a time of systemic and blatant racism, he became the a transformational leader adaptive leader, became adaptive , chose to be visionary, a human resource type of a leader who empowered those around him making him a transformational leader our time.  

(ADD SUPPORTING PARAGRAPH As an adaptive leader,) one of the first things that Coach Boone did was letting the all of his players know that he was not going to tolerate anybody on the team questioning his authority as a coach.  He made it clear to the players what it meant being on the team, “This is no democracy.  It is a dictatorship.  I am the law”, he stated.  He took a control of his team as what author …. Explains the steward of the ship.  By having adopted the strongly authoritarian stance from the very beginning, the film’s main character has shown that he does understand the discursive implications of the fact that the game of football is, in fact, the socially observable extrapolation of the so-called “masculine values” (Magzan, 2012).  By having acted in the way he did, Boone has established himself as a culturally competent adaptive leader, in full accordance with the suggestion that “adaptive leaders need to understand culture and how it shapes the way we do things” (Glover, Friedman, & Jones, 2002, p. 21).  He acquired the charisma of someone who embodies authority during challenging times.   As change takes place it is also very important for adaptive leaders to ensure there exists a strong emotional link between them and the followers.  Boone never gave up on his players and gained their respect as someone who was fair and trustworthy always unaffected by any racial bias or prejudices.