What I know about American football could fit inside a thimble. I know that the goal is to run the ball all the way to the end of the field without getting knocked down by the other team - and I know that if you want to keep possession of the ball, you have to move at least ten yards within four plays. Other than that? Nothing. Which is why I am rather surprised to find myself falling head-over-heels in love with Friday Night Lights, a series set in a small Texas town that eats, sleeps, and breathes high school football. After watching all of first and second season and four episodes of the third, I'm desperate to bring other people into the fold - or onto the field, as it were. Why? Coach Taylor. He is just good people (and is also played by Kyle Chandler, who is brilliant and, yes, pretty easy on the eyes even in middle age).
First of all, Coach Taylor is a good coach - a really, really good coach. He's the kind of coach who teaches character along with the fundamentals. In one set of episodes I watched recently, the Dillon Panthers are forced to share their locker room with a rival team after a tornado, and, inevitably, the two teams trash each other's things in one of those adolescent prank wars. Now, the opposing coach simply dismisses this incident as "boys being boys," but not Coach Taylor. No - Coach Taylor makes his boys run laps as punishment because he wants them to understand the importance of being good neighbors when someone is in need.
If one of the boys - or the whole team for that matter - is in need of straightening out, Coach Taylor is always ready to deliver that good swift kick. But he's also willing to provide almost parental support to his players, many of whom have no regular contact with their biological fathers. For example, when one of Dillon's star players loses his chance at a football scholarship because of a knee injury, Coach Taylor spends much of his free time putting the kid through his paces after the injury has healed, makes the calls to get the kid a walk-on tryout, drives the kid to the college to try out, and, when the coach there blows them off, rises up and goes to bat for his player, successfully changing that coach's mind. If a kid in team sports has this kind of a coach - the kind of coach who loves his players as if they were his own kids - he or she is very, very lucky.
Secondly, Coach Taylor is the quintessential middle-American father. The fact that his teenaged daughter is now showing interest in boys - in particular, his football players - scares the living daylights out of him. If he had a shotgun, he would sit there and polish it in front of his daughter's would-be suitors; as it is, he occasionally flips out and make these goofy declarations regarding boarding schools and nunneries. It's all very adorable.
Thirdly, Coach Taylor is in an extraordinarily realistic - and functional - American marriage. Occasionally, our dear coach will develop a case of Foot-In-Mouth Disease, or make a decision without consulting his wife, or do some other darn foolish thing (like get in a fist fight with his wife's old boyfriend), but he always wins Tami's forgiveness in the end because he is so basically decent - and because their love is just that strong. In so many ways, Coach and Mrs. Coach remind me of my own parents. When, for example, a - er- frustrated coach tries in vain to convince his wife that she is ready to have sex six weeks after the birth of their second child, I can almost hear my own mother snapping, "In your jockey shorts!" (Inside family joke.)
Bottom line, I love Coach Taylor hardcore because he is the perfect portrait of the average American man - a man with a rock-solid moral center who has a passion for his career and is devoted to his family. There needs to be more characters on television just like this - and if I can convince you all to give this show a try, maybe there will be.
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