Should You “Believe” Ted Lasso? My Real Experience Tests His Truth

As a lifelong call-it-football player, I enjoyed the Apple TV series “Ted Lasso” as a callow, genuinely American take on Earth’s most popular sport. As a critically-thinking adult and former TV executive, I found Ted Lasso (the title character being an affable but unqualified American coach of an English club) to be a noble but childish reprise of “Forrest Gump”, cajoling us to curb our ambitions and appreciate our gift to be simple.

But my greatest interest in the show hinged on my coincidental re-entry into competitive football at age 66. After a near-fatal injury in a game in 1980, I took my wife’s advice (order) and quit. For 40 years. When the pandemic hit, I took up the sport again, and played pickup games with the lofty, fate-tempting goal of joining a team in a real league again.

During this rickety athletic trajectory, I shifted my focus on “Ted Lasso” from the predictable and prosaic plots to the abstract, underlying theme of the program and protagonist: “Believe”. Short, easy to remember. But what did it mean? Believe in the team? Yourself? Love? Believe you can win? Do anything? Believe in something bigger than yourself? Redemption? Honor?