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The following real-life inspirational/motivational instructors/mentors have been portrayed in popular films:
Paul "Bear" Bryant, American football coach portrayed in the 2002 television movie The Junction Boys and the 1984 theatrical feature The Bear.[7] Bryant is also a minor character in Forrest Gump, in which he coaches the title character during his college years.[8]
Noel Chestnut, track team coach and prison guard portrayed in the 2008 film Racing for Time[11]
Joe Louis Clark, high school principal credited with the turnaround of a troubled and dangerous New Jersey high school. Clark was portrayed by Morgan Freeman in the 1990 film Lean on Me.[12]
Marva Collins, American educator who in 1975 started Westside Preparatory School in the impoverished Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago, portrayed in the 1981 docudrama TV movie The Marva Collins Story
Sarah Grace Cooke, on whom the character Miss Moffatt was closely modeled in the 1945 film and the 1979 made-for-TV movieThe Corn Is Green
Richard Dadier, English teacher portrayed by Glenn Ford in Blackboard Jungle (1955), a film based on Evan Hunter's experience among unruly students at the Bronx Technical High School
Bel Kaufman, author of the novel on which the film Up the Down Staircase (1967) was based, and whose experiences as a teacher for 30 years in New York City schools were the inspiration for the film's main character, Sylvia Barrett, portrayed by Sandy Dennis
Jim Morris, high school science teacher and baseball coach who became a major league baseball player after his students encouraged him to try out, portrayed in the 2002 film The Rookie
Catana Starks, former Tennessee State Tigers swim coach, who became the first woman ever to coach a college men's golf team in the 2014 film From the Rough
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