William "Bill" Yoast (born 1924) is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
high schoolHigh school is the name used in some parts of the world, particularly in Scotland, Northern America and Oceania, to describe an institution that provides all or part of secondary education...
footballAmerican football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, and often as Gridiron or Tackle football outside North America, is a competitive team sport known for combining strategy with physical play. The objective of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the...
coach best known for being featured in the 2000
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
Remember the TitansRemember the Titans is an American sports drama, directed by Boaz Yakin and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer for Walt Disney Pictures, released in 2000. The film stars Denzel Washington as coach Herman Boone and Ryan Hurst as Gary Bertier. Remember the Titans centers on the American football team of...
. He was portrayed by veteran actor
Will PattonWilliam Curtis "Will" Patton is an American actor.-Early life:Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest son of a Lutheran minister...
.
Yoast grew up in
Florence, AlabamaFlorence is a city in and the county seat of Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the northwestern corner of the state.According to the 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city's population was 36,721....
. After a three year tour in the
United States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the U.S. armed forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947 - 80 P.L....
, he attended
Georgia Military CollegeEstablished in 1879 in Milledgeville, Georgia Military College now includes a liberal arts junior college, a high school, and a middle school. GMC's focus is on a junior college military science program that culminates at the end of two years of study and training with contracted cadets being...
and later
Mercer UniversityMercer University is an independent, private, coeducational university with a Baptist heritage located in the U.S. state of Georgia. Mercer is the only university of its size in the United States that offers programs in eleven diversified fields of study: liberal arts, business, education, music,...
, where he joined
Sigma NuSigma Nu is an undergraduate social college fraternity with chapters in the United States and Canada. Sigma Nu was founded in 1869 by three cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia...
fraternityFraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In English, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in North America, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
and earned a
Bachelor of ArtsBachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences or both....
in
Physical EducationPhysical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting...
. He later earned a masters degree from
Peabody CollegePeabody College of Education and Human Development was founded in 1875 when the University of Nashville, located in Nashville, Tennessee, split into two separate educational institutions...
.
A high school and college athlete, Yoast turned to coaching as a career.
William "Bill" Yoast (born 1924) is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
high schoolHigh school is the name used in some parts of the world, particularly in Scotland, Northern America and Oceania, to describe an institution that provides all or part of secondary education...
footballAmerican football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, and often as Gridiron or Tackle football outside North America, is a competitive team sport known for combining strategy with physical play. The objective of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the...
coach best known for being featured in the 2000
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
Remember the TitansRemember the Titans is an American sports drama, directed by Boaz Yakin and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer for Walt Disney Pictures, released in 2000. The film stars Denzel Washington as coach Herman Boone and Ryan Hurst as Gary Bertier. Remember the Titans centers on the American football team of...
. He was portrayed by veteran actor
Will PattonWilliam Curtis "Will" Patton is an American actor.-Early life:Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest son of a Lutheran minister...
.
Yoast grew up in
Florence, AlabamaFlorence is a city in and the county seat of Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the northwestern corner of the state.According to the 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city's population was 36,721....
. After a three year tour in the
United States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the U.S. armed forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947 - 80 P.L....
, he attended
Georgia Military CollegeEstablished in 1879 in Milledgeville, Georgia Military College now includes a liberal arts junior college, a high school, and a middle school. GMC's focus is on a junior college military science program that culminates at the end of two years of study and training with contracted cadets being...
and later
Mercer UniversityMercer University is an independent, private, coeducational university with a Baptist heritage located in the U.S. state of Georgia. Mercer is the only university of its size in the United States that offers programs in eleven diversified fields of study: liberal arts, business, education, music,...
, where he joined
Sigma NuSigma Nu is an undergraduate social college fraternity with chapters in the United States and Canada. Sigma Nu was founded in 1869 by three cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia...
fraternityFraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In English, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in North America, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
and earned a
Bachelor of ArtsBachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences or both....
in
Physical EducationPhysical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting...
. He later earned a masters degree from
Peabody CollegePeabody College of Education and Human Development was founded in 1875 when the University of Nashville, located in Nashville, Tennessee, split into two separate educational institutions...
.
A high school and college athlete, Yoast turned to coaching as a career. He worked in
Sparta, GeorgiaSparta is a city in Hancock County, Georgia, United States. The population was 1,522 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Hancock County...
and
Roswell, GeorgiaRoswell is a city located in northern Fulton County and an affluent northern suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. Per the US Census Bureau's 2008 estimate, the population is 87,657. It is the seventh-largest city in Georgia...
before moving to
Alexandria, VirginiaAlexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 128,283. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately 6 miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as...
, where he spent several decades and earned his greatest notoriety.
Yoast's 1971 season at
T. C. Williams High SchoolT. C. Williams High School is a public high school in Alexandria, Virginia, USA. Named after former superintendent T.C. Williams of Alexandria City Public Schools who served from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. It is located near the geographic center of the city, at 3330 King Street. It is...
served as the inspiration for
Remember the Titans. Yoast, who is
whiteWhite people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, worked as an assistant to head coach
Herman BooneHerman Boone is a former American high school football coach, most famous for coaching at T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Boone was portrayed by Denzel Washington in the 2000 film Remember the Titans....
, who is black and Native American, at the newly-integrated school. The team enjoyed a dominant season, winning the state title and taking a second-place national ranking.
Having retired in 1990, Yoast has published a book discussing his experiences in coaching,
Remember This Titan.
Yoast had four daughters and seven grandchildren. His daughter Sheryl, a football fanatic who assisted her father during his coaching career, died suddenly from a heart malfunction in 1996, three years before
Remember the Titans was released. She was only 34 years old.
External links