Clear eyes, full hearts

Fall has officially arrived. Not merely because temperatures are dropping and leaves are falling, but because football season has kicked-off (thanks be to God).

Full disclosure here: autumn is my favorite season, and – honestly – it’s not even close. September nights are filled with memories for me: crisp air, hooded sweatshirts, camp fires, apple cider, new classes and high school football games. Granted, I did not grow up in Texas, but it’s fair to say that R. Nelson Snider High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana is a place where football tradition runs deep. Every game was an event, and every year brought championship ambitions.

Author H.G. Buzz Bissinger documented a year in a small Texas town that lived and died with every high school football game in the book, “Friday Night Lighqwts.” My experience was nothing like that, but the book resonated nonetheless. Since that book was released in 1989, a successful movie and TV series have been spawned. That series just recently capped off its Emmy-nominated final season, meaning that a great many retrospective conversations have been taking place with the creator/writer/director Peter Berg (sample questions include, “Do you remember that one time when the team won the game on the final play? That was awesome!"). Some examples can be found here:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6766070/clear-eyes-full-hearts-lose

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/16/137823040/as-friday-night-lights-ends-its-still-texas-forever

During one of these interviews, I heard Berg state that the show worked because it focused on so much more than football. It was about small town life and relationships and – perhaps more than anything else – marriage. In fact, the show ended up hinging upon the coach’s marriage far more than upon football realism. Berg said recently, “That marriage became one of the dominant experiences of Friday Night Lights, and we never saw that coming.”

My wife and I have been watching “Friday Night Lights” for a while now, and Berg’s comments got me thinking. Eric and Tami Taylor have an incredibly real, honest and complex relationship. Otherwise, I doubt I could have talked my wife into watching. She had little interest in watching a show about football, but the characters’ relationship just worked.

There’s a phrase that Coach Taylor and his players scream every Friday night in the locker room. “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” During a recent NPR interview, Berg confessed to writing that slogan himself after watching high school football players in locker rooms all over Texas. But then he said something really interesting, “I think it’s true that if your eyes are clear and your heart’s in the right place, it’s pretty hard to lose in life…The idea of living your life with that kind of clarity of purpose was something that kind of rubbed off on me”

We generally try to avoid clichés here, and I am not completely convinced that Berg is right. After all, some spouses’ eyes are clear and their hearts are full, but something fundamentally changes along the way. Just like in football, game plans must be adjusted. Regardless, I see a lot of myself in the Taylors’ relationship, and in the Panthers’ slogan. Perhaps that's especially true in the fall. When my kids put on their Bears jerseys next Sunday (and they will), I will probably find myself saying, “Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.” Interestingly enough, I will not be talking about the final score...not totally, anyway.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)