Essays From West of 98: The Ted Lasso Essay

Lessons on rural revitalization from the Premier League

WARNING: this essay contains some general spoilers about the plot of “Ted Lasso.”

I warned my wife. I told her not to lure me in to watching “Ted Lasso.”

I had resisted watching soccer for many years. It was becoming something of a hipster thing in America and I reflexively reject all hipster fads (unless I was a fan of them first, of course; I’m not saying my brapin works logically here). I had some typically American qualms about soccer as a sport. I was trying to spend less time watching sports (to focus on other pursuits in life), not more.¹ I had some other peculiar concerns related to my own personality that I will share later.

“Ted Lasso” premiered on the Apple TV+ streaming service in mid-2020 and quickly became the darling of a young-ish viewing audience that loved to binge-watch new shows on streaming television and then talk about them online. As a result, a LOT of people in my online sphere started talking about it. And talking. And talking some more. It started winning awards at an unprecedented level. It was a darling of critics. I started hearing about these characters from the show. I didn’t know who they were, but they seemed to pop up in conversation with increasing frequency.

I remained non-plussed. Lauren watched the first season and fell prey to the show’s charms. She told me I would love it. I warned her not to lure me in. She continued to encourage me. Other friends encouraged me.

Then, something wild started to happen. I started to see praise of “Ted Lasso” from a truly unprecedented mix of writers: Christian and atheist, leftist and deeply conservative, political essayists and sports bloggers. They all loved it. They were all moved by this fictional tale in which an American college football coach takes on the challenge of managing a downtrodden club in England’s Premier League, the richest and most famous soccer league in all the world and the most-watched sports league of any kind on Earth.²

Finally, I relented.

Lauren and I started the series from the beginning in early 2023.

Not long thereafter, we were sitting at a local restaurant and she realized what she had done. I was opining about the intricacies of the English soccer league system, in which thousands of soccer clubs, from the richest squads in the Premier League to semi-professional clubs in tiny rural towns, are organized in a hierarchy and have the ability to play their way up into higher leagues or be relegated to a lesser league at the end of each season.³ As we were deep into this discussion, she looked at me and asked, “is this why you warned me not to get you involved?”

Alas. I tried.

The “Ted Lasso” essay has been coming for quite a while. Last fall, I referenced the show in a discussion about high school football, but that was not the Ted Lasso Essay. This is the Ted Lasso Essay.

“Ted Lasso” is not a family show. There are plenty of adult themes. Given that the show centers around the rough-and-tumble world of professional soccer in England, it has plenty of adult language. I wouldn’t consider it for a family evening around the television like the movie “Road House.” That’s a joke.

There’s a reason why “Ted Lasso” is loved by a unique mix of viewers from across the political, religious, and social spectrums. I am sure any number of thinkpieces have been written on that very point in the last few years, but I did not read any of them in preparation for this essay, because I did not want anyone else to color my writing on this point.

The character Ted Lasso is a fundamentally decent man who loves coaching sports because of how he can impact others. He was a successful American college football coach who became a successful soccer coach at the highest level of soccer in all the world, despite many lapses in understanding the tactics and even the basic rules of the game. He would have been successful coaching any sport at any level for that very reason. His backstory was set at a small college in Kansas, but he would have made an extraordinarily good Texas high school football coach. Ted was scarred by his own life’s experiences, some of his own making and some outside of his own control. He works through his issues as he coaches others. He never pretends to be flawless, but he is not always good about being open with his shortcomings and struggles, either. He is perpetually enthusiastic and positive to the disdain of some who are close to him. There are reasons why he is so positive that are connected to his own scars. He tries to help people within his circle of influence whether they want to be helped or not. Most of them come around at varying speeds, in their own time, often with grudging acceptance for Ted’s persistence.

Then there’s the sign.

In the very first episode, Ted arrives in West London at the fictional AFC Richmond soccer club. He is introduced at a press conference where he is savaged by skeptical reporters. His players are horrified by their new hire and could not be less welcoming to the new gaffer. He is undeterred. In one of his first acts as manager, he hangs a sign in the locker room that says “BELIEVE.” It is his mantra. The sign lingers in the background in practically every conversation that occurs in the locker room. The sign itself later becomes a subplot with an assistant coach. Ted’s core expertise as a coach is not tactics or cliché motivational speeches from a Disney sports movie. His skill is a relentless push to teach the players (and coaches) to believe in themselves and in one another. He gives them books. He asks them difficult questions. He pushes them into uncomfortable leadership roles. He often handles adversity in a manner opposite of the expectation and how practically any other coach would respond. He insists that coaching is not about wins and losses and actually means it. He treats every player and coach differentlsy and unique to their own individual skillset and personality.

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His approach works, but not necessarily at the speed or in the manner that you’d expect of a sports story in storybook fashion. After all, this is not a Disney movie.

In the middle of the third season, after a critical match against the extraordinarily wealthy and successful Manchester City club, he gives an incredible speech to his players and coaches about the sign and the message he has worked to instill in the club:

Belief doesn’t just happen because you hang something up on a wall. All right? It comes from in here. You know? And up here. Down here.

Only problem is we all got so much junk floating through us, a lot of times we end up getting in our own way. You know, crap like envy, or fear, or shame. I don’t want to mess around with that s— anymore. You know what I mean. Do you?

You know what I wanna mess around with? The belief that I matter, regardless of what I do or don’t achieve. Or the belief that we all deserve to be loved, whether we’ve been hurt or maybe we’ve hurt somebody else. Or what about the belief of hope? That’s what I want to mess with. Believing that things can get better. That I can get better. That we will get better.

Oh man. To believe in yourself. To believe in one another. Man, that’s fundamental to being alive. And look, if you can do that, if each of you can truly do that, can’t nobody rip that apart.

In the Year of Our Lord 2024, the work of revitalizing rural communities is an extraordinarily daunting task. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson unleashed the “get big or get out” mantra almost 70 years ago and it solidified rural America’s path towards “efficiency,” “cheap food,” and population decline. Benson’s protégé Earl Butz hammered it into the core vision of American agriculture during his term at the USDA from 1971 to 1976. Technology, corporate consolidation, decades of government policy, and a host of other factors have contributed to rural decline as a seeming inevitability and a foregone conclusion. Worst of all, this trend has caused rural America to no longer believe in itself as a people, as a place, and as a community worth living and worth continuing.

I think of Ted Lasso.

To be clear, this is the real world and not a fictional television show about English soccer. Outcomes are not scripted in real life. Yet, as I launch the next phase of West of 98 in the weeks to come, Coach Lasso’s underlying instruction is something that underlies everything about my work. I felt this way before I watched “Ted Lasso,” but he put it into the proper perspective that I needed.

BELIEVE.

If we do not believe in our cause, the rest of it is a moot point. Undertaking a project without a belief in what you are doing is going through the motions at best and it is deeply disingenuous at worst. This is why I could never run for any higher office. I would simply be going through the motions, on some level, for the sake of holding that office. I cannot do it. I cannot serve without throwing myself wholly into the task, with all that it entails. I cannot believe in any other cause as deeply as I believe in the future of Stamford and its people. I simply cannot. “BELIEVE” sounds great and it truly is, but as Ted himself learns in his belief in the AFC Richmond squad, it is not easy. That belief has caused me stress, anxiety, sleepless nights, and more. I do not say that to elicit sympathy. Not at all. I merely state it to underscore what true devotion to a cause entails. This work has given me extraordinary levels of joy, hope, satisfaction, and love for neighbor. I am simply not capable of believing in other causes on the same level that I believe in this one. Other people have this level of devotion to their cause, whatever it may be, and I applaud them for their own devotion. I cannot even rightly say that this is the cause that I chose. This is the cause that chose me.

I have spent more time curiously reading about the Premier League, the EFL Championship, League One, League Two, the National League, and the other levels of the English soccer system than I will admit. I knew this is why I could not dip my toes in the water of soccer, because it would become too interesting to resist.

Alas, Lauren lured me in to the “Ted Lasso” world anyway. I am glad she did. Coach Lasso underscores my view of what matters most in my work: a genuine belief in what you are doing. I needed his message to undergird my own work and devotion to my cause.

Some people will tell you that revitalizing rural communities is a hopeless cause. They will tell you not to believe that it is possible. Yet, I believe in this cause. I believe in those of you who share my belief. And no matter what inevitabilities Ezra Taft Benson and Earl Butz seemingly set in action, can’t nobody rip that apart.

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James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the “Rural Church and State” and “West of 98” podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found. Check out the West of 98 Bookstore with book lists for essential reads here.

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1. Spending way too much time in college and my twenties posting on message boards/blogs about baseball and college football will do that to you.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_League#cite_note-Worldviews-11

3. The system of promotion and relegation, used practically everywhere in the world outside of American sports, is an incredibly fascinating way to keep sports leagues competitive despite power/wealth imbalances and it is an abomination that it is not used anywhere in American sport.