Sheryl Yoast was more of a coach than her father was

Rating: 10/10 (18 April 2019)

Set during the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement, a Black man is hired to be the assistant football coach in a desegregated high school. Black students want to play football with white students, but the white students don't want the black students to play. The coach doesn't really want them to play either, but there isn't a lot he can do about that. Racism is still a large part of the everyday. Coach Boone, the colored coach, sends the boys that want to play to a boot camp and it really helps them get close as a team. All the white boys have to sit with one of the colored boys on the bus and share a dorm room with their bus buddy, there is quite the protest for the first few days and it takes Coach Boone yelling in all their faces to get them to shut up. Boone does a lot of yelling in their faces throughout the course of the movie and it is really funny to watch. The head coach hates that Boone is yelling at the boys. He thinks that it'll make the boys afraid of him. Boone tells the head coach that he doesn't care what the boys think of him. They need to learn how to work together. It isn't about black or white while they are on the field. They are just a football team there to win the game.
Coach Boone is a little mean to the players, but they need to learn that your coach can't always be your friend. It doesn't work like that. Just like your boss or your teachers can't always be your friend. They are your teacher or boss first and foremost. Not every person in your life is going to be your friend. That just isn't how life works. The team has to learn that they are a team, no matter what their skin color is.
I'm aware that there are many historical inaccuracies, but they can be easily overlooked because the overall quality of the film is superb. The daughter of the head coach is honestly my favorite character. She was doing exactly what coach Boone was doing and her father got mad at her because she wasn't the coach. She was more of a coach than her father was. Her father was only concerned about being the players' friend. He wasn't worried about being their coach. Sheryl didn't care. If she thought that the players weren't working hard enough, she'd let them have it and she gave it to them hard. Definitely not their friend. Coach Boone was very similar and after Sheryl watched him coach a few times she gave him her seal of approval. I wonder if her dad ever got that.
Overall a really well-done movie. Can't just watch it once. There is a fair amount of racially offensive language mostly directed at Boone and his colored players. One player's girlfriend dumps him because he wants to spend time with one of his colored friends instead of going to the lake and doing whatever.