What Ted Lasso Taught Me about My First Semester of Teaching

As a first-year professor on the tenure track, I’m looking for inspiration from any source, including Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. The series is about an American college football coach hired by an English soccer team. Like many of the show’s more than 500 million viewers, I found comfort in the warmhearted leader, Ted; to my surprise, there was significant overlap between the show and my first semester of classroom experience. Here are five reflections describing the overlap between this quirky series and lessons I’ve learned from my first semester of teaching.