Bill Yoast, a former high school football coach at T.C. Williams portrayed in the film "Remember the Titans," died Thursday according to his daughter. He was 94.
The film depicted the football team overcoming a racial divide after the school district consolidated three high schools — T.C. Williams, Francis Hammond, and George Washington — resulting in a 4:1 white-black ratio at T.C. Williams. Yoast, who coached at Hammond, was considered the favorite for the job at T.C. Williams, but school officials picked Boone to be the Titans head coach.
Staff Photo by Megan Raymond/USA TODAY IMAGES “No doubt, the beginning of our relationship was rocky,” Boone told The Post. “I didn’t know Yoast. Yoast didn’t know me. 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.
“I think that’s the formula for race relations throughout the world. People have to learn to talk to one another. You have to learn to talk to that individual, and when you talk to that individual, you learn to trust that individual, and that’s the greatest gift God to give to man.”
Boone and Yoast were a unique pairing. While Boone was loud and imposing, always imploring his players to give more and more, Yoast was cool and stoic.
"He was just so soft-spoken, so concerned and so caring,” Collin Arrington, a fullback on the 1971 team, told The Post. “He was so easy to talk to. You’d look at Coach Boone. He was intimidating. Nobody wanted to talk to him. But Coach Yoast, we all loved him, and we’re going to miss him.”
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