When You Least Expect It, There's Hope
Much to my surprise, I’ve become a fan of soccer. In my wife’s eyes, it’s borderline obsession. Soccer has a different feel and fluidity compared to our football or, God forbid, golf.
Soccer is mercifully free of a rule book whose thickness ensures painful droning TV commentary interrupted by an incessant stream of commercials for mobile phone plans and pick-up trucks. … But I digress. (Perhaps a symptom of my obsession?)
A couple years ago, the world’s preeminent soccer league, the English Premier League, created a series of short video promos built around a fictional (and clueless) American football coach named Ted Lasso. The idea is that Ted is inexplicably brought to the U.K. to manage one of the best soccer teams in the world. Somehow, those quirky and funny little commercials morphed a few years later into a new TV series built around Ted as a pro soccer coach. I, of course, am compelled to watch.
The surprise is that this is a wonderful little show about hope. Turns out, Coach Lasso is not quite the goofball he appears to be. He reads people better than an FBI profiler. He’s weirdly wise, romantic, kind, generous, patient, loves his family wholeheartedly, and a whole bunch of other good things.
He’s wildly and authentically hopeful—in the face of facts that would lead anyone to have little reason for optimism. I’m not saying that Ted is some sort of modern-day St. Francis or Mahatma Gandhi. But, if Fred Rodgers had had a TV kid, he might’ve grown up to be Ted. If I could learn to live and think and hope like Ted, I’d be a wise man.
In case you’re dubious and suspect this is all baloney—perhaps a way for an obsessed person to insert his obsession into a Lumunos E-news—my wife is more hooked on Ted than I am. And she’s someone who’d rather watch paint dry than watch any sport. Here’s the best part. At the end a recent episode, she sniffled a bit, holding back poignant tears. Yes, Ted is indeed a welcome breath of fresh air and hope.
Dan Quinlan
