Yoast was particularly close to Bertier. When Gerry heard that Yoast was effectively being replaced, he put together a petition to try and keep his coach around. At one point he even refused to be part of the team. But soon after football camp, when Bertier ran into some trouble at school he was surprised to find an unlikely guardian angel by his side, his new teammate Julius 'Big Ju' Campbell, the lead defensive end. A black player. It was a moment Bertier never forgot. Over the course of the season, the two bonded and became role models for the rest of the student body.
"Bertier and Campbell were two of the best players," says Howard. "They were like brothers. Julius' father came to think of Gerry as a son."
Many in Alexandria credit the two young men for being the catalyst that would heal a community. Once the integration began, it was unstoppable. The stands, which used to naturally segregate with white families on one side amid black on the other, suddenly became a hodgepodge of color. Folks who never gave Coach Boone's family the time of day would stop by and pay their respects. The Titans were a team and so were their fans.
Many of the characters in the film are based on real players, but some are amalgamations of several people. "We had to use composites for obvious reasons," notes Howard. "There were 80 some guys on the team and the coaches never cut anyone. But the essence of who these guys were as human beings is on the page and on the screen."
"We've stuck to the truth of who the coaches were," further explains Yakin. "But we had to take license with the boys because we had to compress all those players into seven or eight heads. We used real names, but some of the characters and their interaction are essentially made up. There's no way we were going to get each person exactly the way they were at that time. We tried to use what happened to inspire the creation of these characters and tell the story through a number of key roles. I hope we captured the spirit of the real team."
"When yon make a film based on a true story, it's important to stay true to the people who lived it," says Bruckheimer. "We want the emotion of the moment to be authentic, but we are creating a dramatization. Changes are never made without a great deal of forethought and care; it's a formidable task."
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