The author of the nonfiction book Friday Night Lights, which inspired the hit TV drama of the same name, has given his blessing for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to draw inspiration from one of the show's main characters.
On August 6, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election. Since then, the governor, a former high school coach who won a state championship in 1999, has been drawing comparisons to Eric Taylor, the high school football coach at the center of Friday Night Lights. The comparisons have come not only because of Walz's background but also because of the values he espouses, which mirror the fictional character's.
"Under those Friday night lights, Coach Walz motivated his players to believe they could achieve anything," Harris said while introducing Walz at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Now, author Buzz Bissinger has given the green light for the comparisons to continue.
"Coach Taylor was sensitive. Coach Taylor put his players first. Coach Taylor could motivate without screaming and denigrating," Bissinger wrote in a Thursday column for The New York Times. "He's what we think of when we think of the ideal high school coach: empathetic, humane, with a drive to win but compassion after a loss. He was the embodiment of masculinity without the obnoxious edge."
The writer added: "If coaching experience was the only criterion in running for vice president—and it feels hard to forget that it's not, given the media frenzy around Mr. Walz—Coach Taylor would be the hands-down choice."
Bissinger compared politics to a "glorified form of horse trading" and said the skills needed include "listening, cajoling, knowing when to push and when to recede, knowing your opponent beforehand with the equivalent of scouting reports to find little holes of weakness, through the discipline of complete preparedness."
"A great coach can do all that, in the locker room and beyond," he added.
Bissinger said those qualities were admirable, but what he found most impressive about Walz was that he served in the Army National Guard for 24 years, as a public school teacher, in the U.S. House of Representatives "and as the governor of Minnesota, where his down-home and authentic style has connected him to the Midwest."
He concluded his column by giving his blessing for Walz to "channel" the TV coach: "If Mr. Walz wants to channel Coach Taylor under the glow of the Friday night lights, I say go for it.
"Coach Taylor's most cited line in the television show occurred in a fictional speech in a fictional locker room in front of actors playing fictional roles when he said, 'Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.'"
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