Psychosocial Principles Of Coaching In The Movie Remember The Titans

Remember the Titans is a classic film that illustrates the actions of a coach integrating a racially divided team. Through this process, both the athletes and coaches go through some psychosocial principles to get them to put their differences aside and come together.

Several psychosocial principles were crucial for the team to come together and act on Coach Boone’s ultimate goal of winning the football season. The psychosocial principles included in the film were the four stages of team development through linear perspective, cohesion, and social-loafing. The group of men developed into a team when they went through linear perspective. Linear perspective includes four stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing. As the movie progressed, you can see the young men overcome each of the steps corresponding to the linear perspective. The forming stage consists of team members familiarizing themselves with each other and is often marked by irresolute team structure, leadership, and goals. You first see the team go through this phase when they first meet in the gym. Both the African American and Caucasian players were marked with uncertainty about the roles they had on the team and were ambivalent to Coach Boone’s title as head coach. Boone is quick to squash any uncertainty by saying, “This is democracy, not a dictatorship”. It is up to the leader to clarify the ultimate goals and roles of the team members. It was obvious that the players were grouping themselves based on their race when they were boarding the buses to head off to camp. Coach Boone deliberately told the players to be seated by the positions they played and were required to sit with someone of the opposite race to show the expectations he had for the individual players and the team as a whole.

The storming phase is when the team is faced with obstacles that must be overcome. A very important confrontation that occurred in the movie was when Campbell scorned Bertier because he was allowing his Caucasian players to continue to not properly block the African American quarterback, Rev. Campbell questions Bertier as to why he must work hard and wear himself out for the team when everyone else is only looking out for themselves. Bertier then replies by saying that his attitude is what is the problem. Campbell then responds by saying, “Attitude reflects leadership, captain”.

The confrontation made Bertier realize that he was not performing his role as captain properly, so the following practice he scolded his Caucasian teammates for not properly guarding the quarterback. This was a major turning point in the movie because it is where the entire team gained respect for Bertier, including Campbell, which leads to the norming phase. The norming is the phase in which the team develops and integrates when the team comes together as a whole. Everyone knows and accepts their roles to reach their ultimate goal as a team. Once Bertier confronted his white teammates for not guarding Rev, everyone ultimately gained respect for one another and began to play as a team. From here on out in the film racial segregation was no longer a problem for the team. They even came together and created a warm-up routine that would show everyone else who was not on the team that they had set their differences aside and accepted one another for who they were.

The performing is the last stage of team development and is where the team is performing at a prime level and are exceeding the goals they were given prior to the season. The teammates have an ultimate respect for one another and are willing to do anything to gain a victory. In the championship game, Bosley was able to recognize what was best for the team by sacrificing his playing time and giving his position to Jones because he was ultimately better suited for the playing position against that particular opponent. The team came together and won the state championship because they were able to complete the four stages of team development. Cohesion was an additional psychosocial principle that was displayed in Remember the Titans. According to Carron, Brawley, & Widmeyer (1998), cohesion is “a dynamic process reflected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for the satisfaction of member affective needs. ” A recent study conducted by Miçooğullari & Kirazci (2016) proved that cohesion is increased when players spend more time together and create team bonding experiences through psychological skills training (PST). The study also showed that the PST intervention significantly improved the athletes’ role awareness and “positively impacted the team’s shared ambitions of success”.

In the film, the Titans displayed Task Interactive Cohesion which demonstrates that the team was working together towards a common goal. Coach Boone’s perseverance to get the athletes to put their differences aside to play football by forcing them to get to know everyone on the team is what significantly increased the team’s cohesion. Another psychosocial principle that corresponds to the film is social loafing. Social loafing is when a particular individual in a team does not perform to their fullest potential due to motivation loss. Football is like a machine with many parts; if one part of the machine is not performing its duty properly, then the entire machine does not work. In football, there are many moving parts in completing the ultimate goal. Ray, who is Gary’s best friend displays social loafing on multiple occasions throughout the film. Gary notices Ray purposely missing blocks during one of the games and kicks him off the team because it is causing problems in the team by lowering the cohesion and affecting their performance. Ray was the part of the machine that was not working properly and negatively affecting the performance of the team. Once Gary removed Ray from the team, the team worked more as a whole and increased their performance and success. Psychosocial principles play a major role in sports; they are essential to the team’s success. The principles that were stated previously for the film Remember the Titans indicated why the Titans had such a successful football season. They were able to complete the four stage process of team development, enhance their performance through cohesion, and get rid of negativity by removing a player from the team who was displaying social loafing.