Bill Yoast, former high school football coach portrayed in 'Remember the Titans,' dies at 94
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Bill Yoast, former high school football coach portrayed in 'Remember the Titans,' dies at 94
By Tom Schad, USA TODAY, May 25, 2019
Photo: Linda Spillers, Associated Press
Bill Yoast, a former football coach at T.C. Williams (Alexandria, Va.) High School who was famously portrayed in “Remember the Titans,” has died at the age of 94.
Alexandria City Public Schools confirmed Yoast’s death in a news release and said he died at an assisted-living facility in Springfield, Virginia.
His daughter, Dee Dee Fox, told The Washington Post that he died Thursday but did not provide a cause of death.
Yoast coached at Francis C. Hammond High School, which was an all-white school, before the city of Alexandria moved to integrate its high schools in 1971. He then coached the defensive side of the ball for T.C. Williams and worked as an assistant to head coach Herman Boone, who is black.
The relationship between Yoast and Boone, who were portrayed by Will Patton and Denzel Washington, respectively, in “Remember the Titans,” serves as the crux of the 2000 film.
“I didn’t know Yoast. Yoast didn’t know me,” Boone told The Washington Post . “I knew that Hammond had no black athletes, and I didn’t know if Coach Yoast had anything to do with that. But we got to (training camp) and became roommates and found a way to talk to one another.”
The Titans went on to win the Virginia state football championship that season, finishing the year with an undefeated record.
An Alabama native, Yoast spent three decades as a football coach in Alexandria and retired from teaching in 1990, according to the Post. The newspaper reported that he is survived by three children and nine grandchildren.
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