In 1973, a spiritual awakening captured the heart of nearly every player on the Woodlawn High School football team. Their dedication to love and unity, in a newly desegregated school filled with racism and hate, leads to the largest high school football game every played in the torn city of Birmingham, Alabama, and the rise of superstar, Tony Nathan.
Tony Nathan (newcomer Caleb Castille) lands in a powder keg of anger and violence when he joins fellow African-American students at Woodlawn High School after its government-mandated desegregation in 1973. The Woodlawn Colonels football team is a microcosm of the problems at the school and in the city, which erupts in cross burnings and riots, and Coach Tandy Gerelds (Nic Bishop) is at a loss to solve these unprecedented challenges with his disciplinarian ways. It’s only when Hank (Sean Astin), an outsider who has been radically affected by the message of hope and love he experienced at a Christian revival meeting, convinces Coach Gerelds to let him speak to the team that something truly remarkable begins to happen. More than 40 players, nearly the entire team, black and white, give their lives over to the “better way” Hank tells them is possible through following Jesus, and the change is so profound in them it affects their coach, their school and their community in ways no one could have imagined.
“Woodlawn is one the most powerful faith-based films I have ever seen. This is more than a film about a historic football game; Woodlawn is the story of God’s power breaking down the walls of racial prejudice. Though set in the ‘70s, Woodlawn is so current and relevant for today, addressing the same problems that continue to divide us in America. A massive spiritual revival known as the Jesus Movement changed the people in this story, and my hope is that God will do it again. I wholeheartedly endorse it and encourage you to see it. Take along someone who does not know the Lord yet as well!”
