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Woodlawn
Posted on 9/2/15 at 11:30 am
Posted on 9/2/15 at 11:30 am
Reposting here because I don't think anyone has looked at the thread on the OT Board and Coach Gerelds was a proud alumnus of AU.
Woodlawn opens in theaters 16 October.
LINK
LINK
In the midst of violent, impassioned racial tensions in Birmingham, Alabama, new football coach, Tandy Gerelds, was struggling to create a winning football team at Woodlawn High School—one of the last schools in Birmingham to integrate. The team he was handed did not have the caliber of players he needed to win—until he saw Tony Nathan run.
But Tony was African American and Coach Gerelds knew that putting him in as running back would be like drawing a target on his own back and the back of his soon-to-be star player. But Coach Gerelds saw something in Tony, and he knew that his decision to let him play was about more than football. It was about doing what was right for the school…and the city.
And soon, the only place in the city where blacks and whites got along was on Coach Gerelds’s football team. With the help of a new school chaplain, Tony learned to look beyond himself and realized that there was more at stake than winning a game.
In 1974, Coach Gerelds’s interracial team made Alabama history drawing 42,000 fans into the stadium to watch them play. It was this game that triggered the unity and support of the Woodlawn High School Colonels and that finally allowed a city to heal and taught its citizens how to love.
Tandy Gerelds, the coach at Woodlawn at the time, is one of the greatest men I have ever had the pleasure to meet in my life and it was an honor to play football for him when he was the coach at my alma mater, Deshler High School, in Tuscumbia, AL.
In 10 years (1984-1994) at Deshler Coach Gerelds compiled a record of 101-34, won the 4A State Championship in 1990 and set an Alabama all-class record of 603 points scored in a season running the old-fashion Wing-T (I think that record was eventually broken by Hoover). He sadly passed away in 2003.
Woodlawn opens in theaters 16 October.
LINK
LINK
In the midst of violent, impassioned racial tensions in Birmingham, Alabama, new football coach, Tandy Gerelds, was struggling to create a winning football team at Woodlawn High School—one of the last schools in Birmingham to integrate. The team he was handed did not have the caliber of players he needed to win—until he saw Tony Nathan run.
But Tony was African American and Coach Gerelds knew that putting him in as running back would be like drawing a target on his own back and the back of his soon-to-be star player. But Coach Gerelds saw something in Tony, and he knew that his decision to let him play was about more than football. It was about doing what was right for the school…and the city.
And soon, the only place in the city where blacks and whites got along was on Coach Gerelds’s football team. With the help of a new school chaplain, Tony learned to look beyond himself and realized that there was more at stake than winning a game.
In 1974, Coach Gerelds’s interracial team made Alabama history drawing 42,000 fans into the stadium to watch them play. It was this game that triggered the unity and support of the Woodlawn High School Colonels and that finally allowed a city to heal and taught its citizens how to love.
Tandy Gerelds, the coach at Woodlawn at the time, is one of the greatest men I have ever had the pleasure to meet in my life and it was an honor to play football for him when he was the coach at my alma mater, Deshler High School, in Tuscumbia, AL.
In 10 years (1984-1994) at Deshler Coach Gerelds compiled a record of 101-34, won the 4A State Championship in 1990 and set an Alabama all-class record of 603 points scored in a season running the old-fashion Wing-T (I think that record was eventually broken by Hoover). He sadly passed away in 2003.
Posted on 9/2/15 at 11:39 am to DannyB
Former walk-on Blake Burgess acted in the movie as well.
Posted on 9/2/15 at 12:50 pm to blzr
Drove by them filming this everyday at the old Hueytown High School football field....
Posted on 9/2/15 at 5:57 pm to DannyB
Karlos Dansby went to Woodlawn I think. In fact I think he was the first major recruit Auburn pulled from what was traditional Bama territory.
He still says Woodlawn when introduced on NFL games.
He still says Woodlawn when introduced on NFL games.
Posted on 9/2/15 at 6:11 pm to Pavoloco83
Dansby may have been shades valley... Chris Davis went to Woodlawn iirc.
Posted on 9/2/15 at 6:23 pm to lowspark12
Dansby went to Woodlawn too. Can't recall any shades valley players we've had
Posted on 9/2/15 at 6:41 pm to BowlJackson
We signed an LB from shades valley the same year we signed KD I believe.
Posted on 9/2/15 at 6:52 pm to lowspark12
I was 12 when Dansby graduated, so I have no idea who was in recruiting class
Posted on 9/2/15 at 8:57 pm to BowlJackson
Cassanova also went to woodlawn
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