The Wave of Belief
I’m a card carrying member of the Ted Lasso Fan Club. Season two debuted last Friday night finally feeding the legions of hungry fans whose bellies had been growling since Richmond lost at the end of last season. The loss relegated the Greyhounds to soccer’s lower division Champions League, giving Ted another phone booth to jump out of in season two. A suspended chance to remind us of all the power we have but so often give away.
A quick recap in case you don’t have any idea who or what ‘Ted Lasso’ is: ‘Ted Lasso’ is a TV series about a small-time American Football Coach who is hired to coach a professional soccer team in England, despite having no experience in the sport whatsoever. The premise is the spin-off of a series of commercials Jason Sudeikis starred in promoting NBC Sports’ coverage of England’s Premier League in 2013.
When ‘Ted Lasso’, the series, dropped in 2020, it had the star power of Jason Sudeikis as fuel and the phenomenon of World Championship Soccer as a vehicle. It also had a captive audience thanks to Covid 19. (A topic talking heads like to debate for no other reason--like most things-- than because they can.) The consensus on the back side of the series’ first season of amazing popularity has been that Ted Lasso was a seed that blew in just when the soil conditions were perfect for planting. You think? Isn’t that the way most things take off and grow? Timing and spacing are always factors--take a second and think about the trail of your life.
The consensus on the back side of the series’ first season of amazing popularity has been that Ted Lasso was a seed that blew in just when the soil conditions were perfect for planting. You think? Isn’t that the way most things take off and grow? Timing and spacing are always factors--take a second and think about the trail of your life.
But the wave of Ted Lasso madness has less to do with the opportunistic window it dropped in through than it does with what it carried with it when it came.
At the outset, a lot of people tripped on the cornball comedy, some on the heavy English accents of the supporting cast. I’m sure a bunch of people, truth be known, stumbled over both. Perhaps the rudimentary way the pandemic served the series was that people had more space for patience when they had to work a little to be entertained. As it turns out, the humor and the dialect just served as traps to keep the riff raff out. Those willing to stick around for just a bit got the prize.
The nugget encased in the candy was well worth the wait.
Critics say Ted Lasso is not realistic. And he’s not. They say the characters don’t behave as real people would. And they don’t. They say the circumstances would never play out as they do. And they wouldn’t. And that is so not the point.
So what exactly is? The point, that is?
That’s a question for the creators. But this is why I wear the membership pin: ‘Ted Lasso’ soaks me in hope. And I can’t think of a better thing to wear.
I laugh a lot during the 34 minute episodes because the humor is sharp, even when it’s corny. Sometimes the funnies are spitballs that hit you in the ear when you’re not looking, and sometimes they’re fastballs you see coming at your forehead down the pike. And they’re almost always wrapped in context. They get funnier the more you know. But the humor is really just a bonus. The paycheck is the way my insides smile when the credits start to roll at the end, and the spring in my step when I get up to walk away. I am lighter as I go, regardless of the weight in the world. That’s what bathing in hope does. It helps you handle your load.
The quirky, egoless ‘foot’ ball coach, Ted Lasso, is a tireless do good-er whose great joy springs from helping other people get what they need. Even if, and mostly when, they don’t know what that is. He’s the shadow boxer friend we all would like to have and secretly wish that we could be. Coach scraps out beyond the rings clearing clutter and shining lights so people can become their finest selves.
Ted Lasso’s heart is enormous, his curiosity intense, and his optimism a superhero cape that they do not sell in stores. He’s idealistic, but he’s not a textbook Pollyanna. He sees what is possible through what is, and is only blind to things he knows are beneficial not to see. He’s a breath of fresh air outside the smoker’s lounge at the airport. Nobody, even whole stadiums full of nobodies, can wear his hope down. The chants of “Wanker” in the stands and in the bars waft right through him as if he doesn’t even have skin. It’s almost as if the poisonous fumes have nothing to stick to. He just keeps on expelling clean air.
Ted is competent but he doesn’t wear it as a breastplate. He just sort of keeps it in his pocket and pulls it out when it’s needed to make somebody else feel like a king—or a queen—depending on the situation at hand. Like when the team has no chance of winning and he designs a series of trick plays that give them a chance to stay in the game. Or when he beats Rebekah’s ex at darts in the bar to protect her pride and put Rupert in his place. Ted doesn’t bulldoze anyone with brilliance. He uses it instead as a rudder to help things happen for people as we all hoped they would.
Ted Lasso has become a movement. A wave of kindness. A ball of optimism that people are playing with, like Hacky Sack with their hearts. Ted Lasso tweets. And he sends emails. If you watched the first season on Apple TV, you got one in your inbox before the debut on Friday night. In it he spewed belief. That’s what he’s known for if you have to put him in a box. And Ted Lasso’s belief is the kind that wears overalls and has work boots on. The kind that lives under the elementary font of the blue letters scrawled across the yellow sign. The kind you have to have to do the little and the big things in your life.
While the global pandemic may have been fertile flooring for a show whose time was right, I’m pretty sure we’ve been belief-anemic for more than a year or two. And we recognize how much better we feel when we get the transfusion in our veins. Ted is motivational and inspirational and a north star we can’t help but chase. It feels almost like we know him though we can’t quite place when or where we met. I think there’s a reason he feels familiar.
Ted Lasso is the better human that lives inside us all.
Sherri Coale
P.S. Spend some time with Ted…you’ll be glad you did.