Three years ago, Herman Boone was just another retired high school football coach, well known in Virginia but nowhere else. Then the movie “Remember the Titans” came out and Boone’s 15 minutes of fame have to be measured by a calendar.

“It’s been two years and my requests for speaking engagements have doubled,” Boone told me during an interview on the Haskell Indian Nations University campus. “I’ve been to 104 cities. The only state I haven’t been to is Arkansas. I’ve been in Michigan 21 times and I’ll be going back.”

Who is Herman Boone?

Back in 1971, when Boone was in his mid-30s, the school board in Alexandria, Va., was forced to integrate an all-black school with an all-white school. Boone was brought in from South Carolina to be the football team’s head coach over Bill Yoast, a coach with more seniority and a strong local following.

How Boone and Yoast worked together to mold a group of angry, unfocused youths into a winning team is the theme of “Remember the Titans.” The movie isn’t fiction.

“Our character of Boone is certainly based on the real man,” director Boaz Yakin said. “He was strongly involved in the civil rights movement and has always been incredibly strong-willed. He came in like a bull in a china shop. He broke down everyone’s defenses and was able to accomplish what someone more political wouldn’t have been able to.”

Boone hasn’t descended on the HINU campus like a bull in a china shop, yet his relentless energy has been evident as he has prepared his East team for the first Native American All-Star football game on Saturday night at Haskell Stadium.

“I know my (assistant) coaches want to take a nap,” Boone said. “But I demand organization. I want to know what every player will be doing at all times. It’s not that I’m tough, but I’m a stickler for organization. We’ll rest when the hay is in the barn.”

So, you ask, why has Herman Boone come halfway across the country to coach in a Native American all-star football game?

Truth to tell he probably wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t run into a man named Dominic Bramante about a year ago. Bramante coaches at Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Okla., and when Bramante learned that Boone was half-Cherokee, that his mother was born on a reservation in North Carolina, Bramante applied some pressure.

“Dominic constantly reminds me of my heritage and that I’m not doing anything for that half and he’s right,” Boone said. “Society has not done them proud.”

Boone’s presence has added luster and stamped legitimacy on this unprecedented undertaking by game director Jeff Bigger to showcase Native Americans in a sport in which they are usually overlooked.

“I’m really excited, especially to be able to play for coach Boone,” said Skyler Crane, an East team linebacker from Collinsville, Okla. “That’s an honor to me.”

So instead of playing golf back home in Virginia, Boone has come to Lawrence. Once a coach always a coach and Boone spent nearly four decades doing his thing.

“You keep busy, you stay alive,” Boone told me. “I’m 66 years old and I feel good. It wasn’t the movie that motivated me to coach and help young people. You can rest, but you can’t quit.”

From here, Boone will travel to Cincinnati where he’ll speak at a camp organized by former Bengals’ lineman Anthony Muñoz, then he has a date to speak at the National College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.

Boone does have one non-football weekend scheduled in July. That’s when he and his wife Carol will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary.

“Believe it or not, I live in the same house with the same wife with the same telephone number,” Boone said, smiling. “My wife and I start every day with a laugh. We get up at 5 every morning, eat oatmeal and talk. We look at the obituaries in the paper and if we’re not there we laugh.”

I suspect there will be plenty of laughs at the all-star game awards dinner tonight at the Stidham Union on the HINU campus. Do I have to tell you who’ll be the featured speaker?