The Church of Coach Taylor

“Give all of us gathered here tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable, and we will all, at some point in our lives... fall. We will all fall. We must carry this in our hearts... that what we have is special. That it can be taken from us, and when it is taken from us, we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls. We will now all be tested. It is these times, it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.” – Coach Eric Taylor


On Friday night, the lights went out in Dillon one last time (I should work for NBC). And true to the words of Coach Taylor that ended the pilot episode of Friday Night Lights, this pain allows us to look inside.

Friday Night Lights is the best network show I have ever watched. It is also my favorite. There is a distinction between the two to be made, as Chuck Klosterman and others have discussed lately around the internet.

I own the first three seasons of Miami Vice on DVD. I was literally obsessed with LOST, to the point that my friend Josh and I used to talk for an hour on the phone every night following an episode during the final season (I’m a nerd, sue me).

The Lights was better than both.

Miami Vice really only had a couple of seasons throwing a 98 mph fastball before it jumped the shark. It was revolutionary, but faded quickly. It was Dwight Gooden. When it ended, you can almost imagine that die hard viewers had either already stopped caring or were happy it was being mercy-killed.

LOST was fantastic and kept me glued to the screen, but as the finale approached I looked forward to it. I wanted to know what happened.

With this show, I dreaded the finale. Of course I was anxious to see what happened; however, this angst was not enthusiasm in disguise. It was the realization that with every minute of the finale that went by, I was one minute closer to never having a new episode of this show to watch. Ever. And that really sucked.

When The Lights (as it is known around Casa de Bro and the Stein Family household) debuted, I quickly fell in love with Coach Taylor and his wife Tammie.

Coach Taylor, much like my own father, represented a lot of what I thought true men were supposed to be about. An emphasis was placed on brevity. Family and loved ones always come first. The strong silences, the brutal honesty, the self deprecation and the aura of complete and total respect at all times are the trademarks that his character, my favorite in the history of television, have indelibly left behind.

It took me a little while but I fell in love with Tim Riggins, the alcoholic, troubled fullback who was a total prick at times but at the end the type of kid you wanted in your corner. We also watched as Taylor Kitsch, the actor who portrayed him, evolved in to an absolute force of nature.

I fell in love with Smash Williams, the flamboyant star running back who was in many ways the heart and soul of the bunch.

I fell in love with Matt Saracen, the gritty, overachieving quarterback who dated the coach’s daughter.

I fell in love with Minka Kelly. Not her character, Lyla Garrity, so much as the actress. Let’s be real, she wasn’t on the show for her acting chops. But at least she has given me another reason to hate Derek Jeter now (while at the same time giving me yet another reason to respect the hell out of Derek Jeter).

As the show grew on I fell for a new cast of characters: Becky Sproles, Jess Merriweather, Luke Cafferty and of course Vince Howard.

We watched Buddy Garrity evolve from a semi-sleazy self-interested hanger-on to a lovable rebel caught up in a grass roots movement…and maybe back again.

We watched Coach continue to be Coach and Mrs. Coach continue to be Mrs. Coach; the true bedrock of this show was the dynamic between the two which was not always smooth but was always solid. Such was their chemistry that we routinely wondered whether the on-screen romance had spilled off-screen. We were not the only ones.

However, more important than the individual characters was the story that was told.

This was small town Texas…and more importantly, small town America… to a T. The fact that the show could seem so outlandish and still ring true is a testament to both the actors and the writers and a reflection of how out of whack the “reality” of most television shows has become.

“Really, an entire episode about a ‘slam page’?”

“Really, an entire radio station devoted to covering a high school football team?”

“Really, they’re going to fire the coach and create an entirely new football team just to clear the way for a freshman quarterback with a cannon for an arm?”

These all seemed impossibly contrived, and for someone from LA or New York they probably are.

But this is a world I lived in. I lived in Texas. I lived in Wisconsin. I lived in Georgia. I lived in Florida. These are by and large rural states that are obsessed with football.

In small towns, this shit really happens. High school sports take on importance that you would never think. There ARE boosters and there ARE tiger parents who all have their own agenda. There ARE radio stations that debate the on-field and off-field merits of 15 year old kids.

(The whole “conspriring to kill the attempted rapist” plot line, however, WAS more than a little contrived and the reason why Season 2 is something I’d rather hadn’t happened.)

There ARE teen pregnancies. There ARE abortions. There ARE lynch mobs that form in the Bible Belt when one of these two happens.

In real life, dancing at a strip club is oftentimes just another job for women who couldn’t go to college and happen to have the body for it. It is perfectly conceivable for the women that do it to leave the strip club and be normal people.

Perhaps that was the real strength of this show. By breaking away from stereotypes and showing the duality of man, this show actually seemed MORE contrived. Its immense realism made it in the eyes of many unrealistic. Think about that.

Strippers aren’t supposed to be good people, they are supposed to be bimbos and floosies and trailer trash.

The tough guy coach is not supposed to be the softy dad with his high school babe of an older daughter and the new baby who actually looks like an alien. He is not supposed to admit when his wife is “kicking his ass” in an argument.

The tough kid from the ‘hood who grew up without his imprisoned father is not supposed to admit weakness.

This is not the world that is, at least according to conventional television standards.

But in real life, there is always a flip side. That is what this show did best: it highlighted ambiguity.

The Lights finally got its long overdue Emmy nomination for Best Drama this week. It is fitting that it happens as the show goes off the air; this was a show that for whatever reason never did as well as it should have. After two seasons, NBC had to work out a deal with DirecTV to move the show to The 101 in order to avoid cancellation. Money is never the friend of critically acclaimed but little watched programming.

It essentially became the only reverse-repurpose situation that I know of, where it aired first on a non-broadcast (in this case satellite) channel before airing on a broadcast network later in the year.

Indeed, this was a theme: The Lights never got the respect it deserved. As an avid viewer, I resent the fact that NBC did such a shitty job of positioning the show, both in its marketing schemes and on its schedule. I resent that more people didn’t watch just ONE episode, because one was all it took to get you.

And yet, similar to a hipster, I am glad to be part of the group that knew about this show that no one else seemed to. It felt small town and intimate. Maybe it is better that it never took off like LOST did and avoided all the pressure and stunts that come along with huge exposure. Maybe I am happy that I got five good seasons (well, 4 good seasons) out of my beloved show and then got to see it retire on top, like Jordan hitting the jumper against Utah or Jay Z leaving after The Black Album (ignore the fact that both unretired). Maybe all the people that didn’t watch can go screw themselves.

This is they type of show that is destined to become a cult classic, much like The Wire. In its DVD life, it will gain popularity. The same people who were too busy watching bullshit like Glee when it actually needed the viewers will talk to me years from now about how great this show was. And much like hipsters feel when one of their groups (like Foster the People or Florence and the Machine) hit it big, I will have a knowing smirk on my face, a look that says I was there before anyone else. “Now you finally get it.”

By any conventional standard for television, this show failed. It never posted even decent ratings. It has been nominated a few times but never won anything at the Emmys.

Despite that, it was around for 5 seasons in the day and age of shows getting cancelled after two episodes.

It is the only show I remember that my entire family watched and enjoyed together, including my mom.

(I guess Wipeout! also qualifies but when it is cancelled I will not be eulogizing it)

It was supposedly a show about football, but as anyone who has watched it can tell you, football always took a backseat to the stories that were being told. It was just like the book that inspired it all: a town, a team and a dream. This show was more than a show. It was church, and Coach Taylor was the pastor.

My roommate and I watched the finale together on Friday night. We bought a six pack of Lonestar and a six pack of Shiner Bock (clearly the superior choice, for the record; there’s a reason it is the National Beer of Texas) and wore our boots and then went silent as the end unfolded in front of us.

And when it was done, we didn’t look at each other for a while.

The room had gotten a little dusty for both of us, and to look away from the screen would not only betray a weakness that Coach Taylor would never have, but also serve to acknowledge that our favorite show was now gone forever.

Instead we drank our beer in silence until finally I picked up the remote and turned the tube off.

I got up and poured us each a shot of Jack.

It was obvious what the toast would be.

“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose”.

Amen.