Team Of One We Believe

The Tri-Central High School football team was one of the worst-performing teams in Indiana. The program had difficulty recruiting enough boys to field a team, leaving school administrators on the verge of considering the unthinkable: closing the football program altogether.

Willing to give the team one last chance, the school hires George M. Gilbert, a recently fired coach looking for an opportunity to end his career on his own terms and with dignity. Where others saw a failing football program, Gilbert saw potential and opportunity. Five years later, the Tri-Central football team was playing for the Indiana State Championship in their division.

Team of One: We Believe is the remarkable story of the fifty-eight-year-old Gilbert and the young men he coaches to success. It’s the story of how a school, a community, an incredible coaching staff, and a team come together to produce one of the greatest sports stories in Indiana high school history.

Join Coach Gilbert as he recounts this incredible journey—a true Hollywood-worthy underdog story in which one old coach and an ailing team demonstrate the power of character, perseverance, and teamwork.

George M. Gilbert built two successful high school football programs from the ground up over the course of his thirty-five years as a coach. He has been selected twice as an Indiana all-star coach, won the Indiana Coach of the Year award, and been a finalist for the NFL Don Shula High School Football Coach of the Year award.

Gilbert's current coaching record is 201 wins and 161 losses. He is ranked as the sixteenth most successful active high school coach in Indiana.

The recipient of a local teacher-of-the-year award, Gilbert has a master's degree in education and teaches US history, world history, sociology, health, physical education, and strength training.

Gilbert lives in Clinton County, Indiana, in a small rural community outside of Kirklin. He has been married to his wife, Judy, for thirty-seven years and has one daughter, Elaine, and two sons, Michael and Matthew.