In a tweet, the broadcaster asked followers to pick their greatest fictional coach, before listing 10 coaches who have been portrayed in movies. The options included Denzel Washington as Herman Boone in Remember the Titans, Michael Jordan in Space Jam, Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor in the TV series Friday Night Lights and Walter Matthau as the legendary Morris Buttermaker of The Bad News Bears, along with Henry Winkler as coach Klein in The Waterboy and Carl Weathers as Chubbs Peterson in Happy Gilmore.
It didn’t take long for the tweet to backfire, as journalists and college football fans pointed out that while Boone was portrayed by Washington in the movie, he was very much a real person. Others, meanwhile, pointed out that Jordan isn’t technically a coach in Space Jam as he plays himself.
Born in North Carolina in 1935, Boone first made his name as a coach at Luther H. Foster High School in Blackstone, Virginia, where he coached football, basketball and baseball and won three district championships. After returning to his home state, Boone led the E.J. Hayes High School in Williamston to a combined 99-8 record over nine years, before racial tensions brought an end to his incredibly successful spell in charge and Boone resigned after being told Williamston “was not ready for a black head coach”.
Boone then moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where he was named assistant coach at T.C. Williams High School in 1969, before being promoted to head coach two years later.
While the school was created by merging three racially integrated schools and all Alexandria schools had been racially integrated in 1965, the same racial tensions that had brought Boone’s coaching career in Williamston to an end were never far from the surface.
Nevertheless, he managed to guide his team to a 13-0 record in his inaugural season as head coach, clinching the state championship and finishing runner-up in the national championship.
In 2000, Washington was chosen to portray Boone in Remember the Titans, a movie directed by Boaz Yakin. As the film is “based on a true story” rather than being a documentary, Yakin took creative license on a number of occasions, including speeches Boone allegedly gave to the team and turning what in real life were blowout wins into close games on the screen.
The movie grossed approximately $115.6 million in the U.S. and since its release it has been routinely named among the best football films ever made.
