September 5, 2024 • 28 mins
Go Fight Win is back for another season of all the High School Football Stories you love! Please hit subscribe and share with the coaches and players you know.
Coach Dooley's List: https://www.coachdooleyslist.com/
Music Coach: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/high-school-football-coach-finally-allows-tunes-at-practice/ar-AA1pq29Z
Teddy Bridgewater: https://brobible.com/sports/article/teddy-bridgewater-miami-northwestern-high-school-football-offense-highlights/
Matthew McConaughey: https://x.com/McConaughey/status/1827838584193503667
Ismael Ayala: https://x.com/McConaughey/status/1827838584193503667
Twitter: @GoCoffeetown / YouTube: @GoCoffeetown / Instagram: @GoCoffeetown / Facebook: @GoCoffeetown / TikTok: @GoCoffeetown
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back into season two of Go Fight Win, the
show with all the high school football stories you love.
My name is Wes Blankenship. I am your host on
this wonderful journey through the greatest sport in all of
American sports, not just high school sports. On this season,
as we did on last season, we'll take a look
(00:20):
at some of the best high school football headlines from
around the country, including a coach that finally discovered music.
A coach who you already know about, Teddy Bridgewater, is
up and running at his high school football alma mater.
Great to see for coach Bridgewater. I'll let you know
what he has going on down in Miami. Plus a
little note from the Minister of Culture on a fellow
(00:44):
longview Lobo love seeing that from Matthew McConaughey. And a
high school football player who's not very tall, but he's
got a whole lot of jersey that he's filling baby.
Plus you may not know this, but it is the
twenty year anniversary of the release of one of my
(01:04):
favorite movies ever and certainly my favorite sports movie, Friday
Night Lights. We'll take a look at this film throughout
this season of Go Fight Win, as we go throughout
the high school football season. But today I'm gonna zone
in on some of the critics who did not like
this film when it came out. They ripped the movie
to shreds. I will rip their reviews to shreds. That's
(01:27):
gonna be really fun and cathartic for me. It's time
for Go Fight Win. Keep those feet moving, boys, let's go.
Well if you get the battle to Donnie Pug and
let that pudge you go. I want to start this
(01:49):
episode of Go Fight Win, and throughout the season, I'm
going to talk about Coach Dooley's List, And Coach Dooley
was my coach when I was a high school football player,
and I am doing that in air quotes didn't really
play much. But when I was a freshman, Coach Dooley
was one of my coaches and he was a younger guy,
(02:09):
just out of college and just figuring out what he
wanted to do as a coach. And he's gone on
to effect and impact so many lives at different schools.
But now he has a website that is kind of
like the Angie's List of high school football coaches. It's
tough to find a good vendor for chin straps or socks,
or jerseys, thipads, whatever you need. Well. Coach has a deep,
(02:34):
deep roster of vendors and coaches that he's worked with
to set up a website called Coachdooley'slist dot com. And
if you're a high school football coach listening to this show,
first of all, I want you to check out Coach
Dooley's List. Also hit subscribe on the show and tell
your other high school football coaches how much you enjoy
these stories and how fun go Fight Win is as
(02:58):
we celebrate the best parts of high scho football and
Coach Dooley's List is definitely one of those things. You
can go on the website and you can check out
just this network that he has of vendors that he trusts,
that are vetted, that are approved. There's things ranging from
signage and advertising. You want to celebrate the seniors. How
do I get this giant headshot uploaded on a poster
(03:22):
that hangs on the chain link fence so all the
fans can see it. There's even stuff for the band, trophies,
things for fundraising and concessions. Check out Coachdooley'slist dot com
it is go fight, win approved all right. Jumping through
the headlines around the country found a few that jumped
off the page for me, and I'm going to start
in Iowa. Walkee Northwest High School in Iowa has a
(03:44):
head football coach, Corey Kapatich that's finally allowing his players
to listen to music while they practice. This is from
WPTZ Plattsburgh, Berlington, Channel five on your side. Key Northwest
High School in Iowa returns around four starters on each
(04:05):
side of the ball, and it's coming off a seven
wins season. Pretty good, and the article says head coach
Corey Kapatich is old school, no sleeves, no extra swag,
absolutely no music at practice until this week. I just
convinced him to listen to music in practice, which is
kind of shocking, said senior Will Koenig. They finally talked
me into having music for the first time for stretch
(04:26):
and drill periods. Kapatich said, now the wolves are whistling
while they work. There are, however, conditions. Coach said that
he is allowing eighties music and they said they'd honor
that at some point. Right now, it's music I've never
heard before. He probably knows one song on this playlist.
Koenick said he wanted eighties music. I told him we'd
(04:48):
give him one day a week. Now that that seems
like Coach is kind of losing the locker room a
little bit when the players are all, you know, calling
all the shots on the playlist. But there is one
negotiable part. There's no dancing allowed, Capati said jokingly. I
don't know if he's joking if he hasn't allowed music
until just now. Walkee did host Johnston to start the season.
(05:13):
How did that new music playlist pay off for him? Well,
they lost. They lost twenty eight to seventeen. So I
think Coach is going to have to make some adjustments
to the playlist that did not work out. I'll say
when I was in high school, our strength coach did
control the playlist and it was all eighties, seventies, eighties
(05:33):
and nineties country. So maybe we would have hit some
more maxes if we were in there listening to Young
Jeezy and Lil Wayne. I don't know, you can't prove
a negative, of course, but we had, you know, Brooks
and Dunn. I was doing power cleans to Neon Moon
and I'll say it did work for me. I did
(05:56):
like it, I did enjoy it. I don't know if
all my teammates really got juiced hearing the dance by
Garth Brooks, but I did. So. It takes a village,
It takes a lot of different players to put that
playlist together, and I think that Walkee will need to
continue to work on that to have a better result
(06:18):
than they did in Week one. All right down in Florida,
there's a coach that you may have heard of, former
NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. He had a chance in college
before Lamar Jackson took college football by storm at Louisville.
It was Teddy Bridgewater that was on all of the
Cardinals headlights highlights, not the headlights on the highlights, and
(06:43):
Teddy was electric, And sadly he did not have the
pro career that I think he deserved and that I
know he wanted to have. Had a terrible injury in
camp when he was with the Vikings and became an
NFL journeyman after that. But since he retired in December,
he wasted no time becoming the head football coach of
(07:04):
his alma mater at Miami Northwestern and guess what Coach
Bridgewater is one to o Now. I've been following Coach
Bridgewater over at gocoffeetown dot com. I wrote a little
piece about him. Bro Bible wrote this story about him,
and this is from their coverage of coach Bridgewater. Says
former NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater is off to a hot
(07:24):
start in his first season as a high school football
coach at Miami Northwestern. He's officially one to oher after
a regular season win on Thursday, and then the Bulls
have one of the most exciting offenses in the entire country.
They won forty five to nothing against Coconut Creek, and
Coach Bridgewater led his team in the fight song after
(07:45):
the win. Bro Bible writes here, it's impossible to dislike
Teddy Bridgewater. That might be possible to dislike him if
you are on the receiving end of that beatdown forty
five to nothing, But outside of that, I'm a big
Teddy Bridgewater fan. I'm going to try, like heck to
get him in an interview on the show. Maybe a
(08:06):
little bit more accessible now that he's a high school
football coaching, not an NFL quarterback. But I love this
quote from Coach Bridgewater. I'm not gonna call him teddy.
I'm going to show him the respect he deserves. He says. Man,
that's just me, my entire life, just paying it forward
because I know I won't play this game forever. There
are certain things in life I can't do forever. So
it's like, man, how can I leave an everlasting impact?
(08:29):
How can I prepare the next wave of athletes for
what's in store. It's kind of my gift to life, honestly,
just pouring into the younger athletes, the younger players on
the team. That's how I stay blessed. That's how I
keep getting opportunities. Of course, outside of what I'm able
to do as a football player. Those are the life
trophies I get. Those are the plaques I get that
(08:50):
you don't see on the walls. It just means a
lot for me. Well, if Coach Bridgewater keeps doing this,
I think he's going to have some real plaques on
the walls and some real trophies in the trophy cases
as well. Because the Bulls, Baby, they got some dudes.
They got some real players as well. It's not just
heart and cliches from coach from coach Bridgewater. But that's
(09:14):
what makes high school football tick. And if you've got
the athletes and you have that, I mean, that's that's
what makes teams really dangerous, is when you have obviously
the players that can can join the ranks. But that's
what separates high school football from college football. There's no
transfer portal. Some guys do have the ability to transfer
(09:36):
quite a few times in their careers, but for the
most part, you have your rosters. You have guys, it's
your destiny. It's where you were born, it's where you
went up through the rec leagues, it's where you end
up playing your high school ball. And it looks like
coach Bridgewater has stepped into a wonderful situation at his
alma mater, and I'm excited to keep up with that
and see what he has cooking down the line. All right.
(09:58):
I saw this on X Matthew McConaughey, the MOC big
Texas Longhorns fan, but he gave a shout out to
a Georgia Tech yellowjacket after Tech upset Florida State. I
don't know if it's an upset anymore, but they upset
Florida State in Ireland and McConaughey giving a shout out
to Haines King, the quarterback of the Yellow Jackets, who
(10:22):
incidentally is a former Texas A and m Aggie, but
evidently McConaughey not holding that against them. He said, once
a Lobo, always a Lobo. Haines King gets it done
Georgia Tech with the win at Longview Lobos. Now McConaughey
went to Longview and if you read his book Green Lights,
(10:44):
he talks about that. He actually ended up doing a
foreign exchange program, I think for the last year where
he lived in Australia, which is probably not surprising at
all if you are familiar with McConaughey at all. But
he's still has those Lobo roots and he saw his guy,
Haines King getting it done, and that high school pride
(11:06):
never leaves you. I went to Collins Hill High School,
and for us, we had Maya more for a long time,
you know. Just the fact that she went to my
school was enough for me to keep up with her
and be proud of everything she did. Our high school
was huge. I only talked to her one time the
whole time we were at school together. She was a
year older than me, but she did get me out
(11:29):
of a quiz. One time, she got me out of
a makeup quiz from when I was sick. We had
the same teacher, and she came in and was just
insanely kind and we chatted a little bit while I
was trying to take my quiz and she said, you
know what, this kid's all right, miss hand. You shouldn't
make him make up this quiz. And it was a
class that I did well in it. It's not like it,
(11:51):
you know, it's not like I really needed her help.
But the fact that she did help me out is
something that I'm gonna talk talk about for a very
long time. And she continues to do amazing things in
her post w NBA career that she is fighting for justice,
got her now husband out of jail for an incorrect charge.
(12:17):
I'm not a legal expert, so I probably butchered the
actual description of what she did there, but look up
her story. It is nothing short of incredible, regardless of
what she did on the basketball court. My more just
a champion, and I can relate to what Matthew McConaughey
is saying there. You're proud of the people that went
(12:37):
to your high school for me. Now, Travis Hunter is
the equivalent now playing for the Colorado Buffaloes. I've never
spoken to him. Graduated. What is the equivalent of a
lifetime after I did from high school. But he's a
state champ and played in another one watches highlight reels,
there's a lot of them. He only leaves the field
for two or three plays at a time with the Buffalos.
(13:00):
He's going to be a first round NFL draft pick,
and a lot of Collins Hill people are very proud
to watch him. My Collins Hill Eagles undefeated and the
longview Lobos putting a lot of talent out there into
the world as well. You better get ready when you're
facing the sting of Haines King driving that rambling wreck
(13:20):
all the way across the ocean. He's not taking a ferry.
He's just driving that Ford model, a sport coop right
across the Atlantic and all the way back and maybe
even to the college football playoff. Go Lobos, all right.
The last thing I have here someone tagged me in
(13:42):
this tweet. My guy Ryan Jordan is a fan of
Coffee Town football, and this tweet from Ismael Eliah forty
four now I've included a link in the podcast description
to this young man's tweet, and I want to is
what I'm saying here. I'm not dogging on this guy.
(14:04):
I'm not making fun of him, not piling on a
lot of people want to. But when you look at
the image, you see that is Mile is about as
wide as he is tall. And look at his stat
line and it shows just as much girth. Two sacks,
five tackles, one tackle for loss. He's got a link
to his huddle. I think he may be about five
(14:26):
foot seven, maybe five foot six if I'm being generous,
but he's also pushing probably about two eighty three hundred
plus perhaps, And every thread of this jersey is stretched
to the brim and is Miles Mifflin number seventy nine,
maroon and gold uniform. It's actually a pretty sweet uniform.
(14:50):
I think if Coffeetown was a real team, it would
wear this uniform combo with kind of the copper looking helmets,
maroon jerseys and gold letters and pants. And is Mile's
getting after it. Man, he's got I don't know what
he's tipping on the scales, but he's outweighing that in
(15:11):
heart with the stat line like that number. Ismaele Ayala
number four, Governor Mifflin High School, number seventy nine, class
of twenty twenty five. So he's trying to go out
there and prove some things and he is just lighting
it up. Man. I'm going to be keeping up with
(15:33):
Ismaele throughout the season. He's a beast. Go get him,
is Mile, keep going King. We'll check in with Ismaele
throughout the season and perhaps get an interview with him
as well. All right, coming up, Go fight. Win takes
a look back at Friday Night Lights twenty years later
throughout this season, as it did come out in the
(15:54):
year two thousand and four. How about some reviews from
the critics who didn't like Friday Night Lights. They were
actually out there. We'll hear from them next. Friday Night
(16:15):
Lights came out twenty years ago this year two thousand
and four. I was a high school football freshman. I'd
never played the game before, had some medical issues that
prevented me from playing between the ears. And incidentally, that's
why I had to stop playing early, because I had
too many concussions. I forgot what I was about to say, oh,
(16:40):
Friday Night Lights, so I will not forget the first
time I saw Friday Night Lights in the theaters. It
set the tone for some of what high school football
is about. Obviously, there are some exaggerations in the film.
It's a little you know, some times it only hits
(17:00):
on one to four notes of drama or themes. But
I don't need a lot of themes. I just need
Texas Hasko football. There are some things that are glaringly wrong.
The players are wearing equipment from the early two thousands
in a movie that's set in nineteen eighty eight. The
book is fantastic, highly recommended if you haven't read the book,
(17:25):
and the TV show is its own work of art,
and I believe that all these things should be held
up for observation in their own light. They're different, They're similar,
but different. Well, there are some critics that I will
look at today who watched Friday Night Lights. I'm going
off of rotten tomatoes here. It's got great reviews across
(17:48):
the board. Eighty two percent Tomato meter certified fresh from
the critics, eighty five percent popcorn Meter from the viewers.
So when you see numbers like that, you know it's
a championship film. However, the theme of today's Friday night
Lights deep dive is the critics who didn't like Friday
(18:12):
Night Lights. The first one that I see here that
gave it a splat. You either get a tomato or
a splat, in case you're not familiar with rotten tomatoes.
Tony Macklin from the Bright Lights Film Journal, I guess
this is a Lights rivalry here, the Bright Lights Film
Journal going up against Friday Night Lights and Tony Macklin
(18:35):
sided with his publication. Friday Night Lights is a feel
good movie, but it's not real. It's a hard hitting
Hallmark greeting card. It's no wonder it appealed to Larry King.
It's safe, easy, conventional, and Feigne's incisiveness. I'm just gonna
go line by line here. It's not real yet, No kidding, Tony,
it's a movie. It's a hard hitting Hallmark greeting card.
(18:59):
Why are you hating on hall Man? There's some hilarious
Hallmark greeting cards out there, and I think that was
uncalled for. Also taking down the late Larry King. Larry
King's My two Cents was the greatest thing on Twitter
up until his passing. The guy just just shooting off
(19:22):
his observations on life, and there's some wisdom in there.
There were some things that I don't know what Larry
was trying to say, But if Larry King liked it,
then by god, I like it, you know, by and large,
that's just how I've lived my life. And then he
says it's safe, easy, conventional and feigns incisiveness. Dude, this
(19:45):
is a high school football film. You can't be using
words with twelve letters in them. I don't know what
that means. It feigns incisiveness. I'll tell you what though.
It wasn't safe when Permian agreed to play at the
(20:05):
Astrodome and get a Zebra crew out there that they
didn't know about, that they hadn't played with. That wasn't safe.
It wasn't easy for head coach Gary Gaines to go
flip a coin and help his team get the tiebreaker.
That wasn't easy at that truck stop. Anything could have
(20:27):
happened there. And was there anything conventional about Booby Miles
breaking down in his car and sobbing with his uncle?
I don't think so, Tony, you missed You missed that one,
all right. Next up is Garth Franklin from Dark Horizons
(20:48):
Again publication dealing in the darkness in a movie about lights?
How do you think Garth voted here? And how does
a guy named Garth not like a movie set in Texas.
While the atmosphere is excellent and the general elements all strong,
the film sadly fails to give any real insight or
(21:08):
depth in regards to explaining the hows and whys of
the near fever over the game and its players. I
don't need to know any hows or whise. I just
know that I like the movie Garth. Jeffrey m Anderson
from Combustible Celluloid. I think one of my aunts had
combustible celluloid. That might be a hip of violation, but
(21:34):
I think that's what she had. Jeffrey says the movie's
principles are seriously out of whack, even as it angles
toward a big life lesson with all capital letters about
learning to live with falling short of greatness. I think
there was a big life lesson when Booby Miles has
(21:56):
to watch that garbage truck roll down the street and
think about, Man, if only that MRI could have repaired
my knee, this wouldn't be my future. And by the way,
he did not have a future in garbage trucks, which
is you know, I think it's actually a pretty profitable business,
so no shame if you are a garbage truck driver
(22:19):
or attendant hanging off of the back. But I think
there were some life lessons in the film. But even
if it did fall short, again, that's not why I
tuned in, man. I tune in to Friday Night Lights
to hear explosions in the sky so I can sit
there and listen to it while I work and weep
(22:39):
and hope that my children don't walk in and see me.
That's what I'm tuning into Friday Night Lights for. Here's
Neil Smith from BBC dot Com. I assume he's a
brit Its script is pure corn, drenched in syrupy sentiment
and topped with prize ham in the shape of Bill
(23:00):
Bob Thornton's tub thumping coach. Yeah. I don't even know
what that means. Script is pure corn. I think the
script was written on paper and I think it was
pure oil in petroleum with a match right beside it,
(23:21):
drenched in syrupy sentiment. Is that what they eat over
there in the UK? Corn and syrup and prize ham
They don't worry about prize hams in Texas, Baby, it's
all about It's all about the Steers. And why is
Billy Bob Thornton a tub thumper? The only tub thumping
(23:43):
I know about is Chumblewamba. And you know what that
song says. I get knocked down, but I get up again,
And that's what Odessa Permian does. That's mojo, Baby. Neil Smith,
you fumbled. Audrey rock Richardson from the two L Transcript
bulletin That's too many words. A crowded film in which
(24:06):
the main characters emerge as people who have skewed and
unsympathetic priorities. I think that coach Gary Gaines was pretty
sympathetic when he went over to see Mike Winchell dealing
with his deadbeat brother and mom who was just a sad,
(24:27):
sad case. Coach didn't have to do that, even drove
Mike Winchell home. James Vernier from The Boston Herald, The Boston,
Harold Bland pap Americana. Yeah, I wouldn't expect you to
get anything about Texas High school football Gym. Baltimore's son
(24:48):
just has a splat. I guess the whole newspaper didn't
like it. Same for the Hartford Current, which I think
is some sort of plant, some sort of spice like
a grape Hertford Current. Charles Taylor once owned a pair
of his shoes from Salon dot com. Yes, Salon, Salon
(25:11):
is really gonna understand high school football substitute slick cynical
point scoring for insight. I do like the alliteration in there,
but slick cynical point scoring cynical. It was not cynical
at all. When Permian was in the state championship and
(25:36):
Mike Winchell was under center and he called that play
all right, wiggle thirty four switch played for the state championship.
I love all y'all, baby, I love all of you.
Let's go on one. That wasn't cynical at all. It
was slick, though it was slick. Good job, Chuck. Thomas
(25:57):
Delapa from Boulder Weekly. Graduate work in the Jerry Bruckheimer
School of overproduced underwritten gut shots. Though Berg's big game
finale will win fans, the build up feels like one
long time out. The finale was sweet, with Tim hugging
Billingsley giving him a state championship. Cop eyes are getting
(26:21):
wet right now. I need electrolytes in my eyeballs. Matt
Brunson from Creative Loafing. There's no loafing on a Texas
high school football field, Matt, So you've missed the mark.
A true life yarn that was dubbed by SI as
one of the greatest sports stories of all time has
(26:43):
now been turned into one of the dullest sports films
of recent years. Ouch, all right, thank y'all for tuning
in to go Fight Win. We'll have some guests on
throughout the year this season. I want to do a
little bit differently than last year. Last year we had
some high name, high profile guests on to talk about
their high school football careers, guys from the world of
media and college football. And look, there's nothing wrong with that,
(27:06):
and I'm sure I'll have some more of that on
this year, but I want to reach out to those
guys like Ismael Ayala. I want to reach out to
the coach that allowed music on the team. And yes,
I know that Teddy Bridgewater falls into the category of
high profile names, but I want to hear from some
real people. So if you're listening, to this show. You
(27:27):
can tag me online, hit my DM boxes on x
on Instagram, go Cooffeetown dot com. There's a place to
submit some stories. And I want to hear from y'all
about the people that I need to speak with that
are really sharing and living all these high school football
stories that we love. If you've listened to this episode,
(27:50):
you've listened to the episodes from episode one, go back
and check them out. You know the flavor of what
Coffeetown High School Football started, what Go Fight Win is cantinuing.
It's the stories we love. It's the stories that make
us smile, the stories that make us laugh, the stories
that make high school football a timeless institution in America,
(28:12):
things that just bring us so much happiness, joy, peace
in our hearts, with a little bit of grit and guts,
and maybe maybe some bad reviews as well. But the
critics aren't always right, and I appreciate the critics of
(28:33):
this show who love it. Leave a comment, give me
some five star reviews for a show that isn't always
about five star players. Hit subscribe on Go Fight Win,
See y'all next week. Piece
Welcome back into season two of Go Fight Win, the
show with all the high school football stories you love.
My name is Wes Blankenship. I am your host on
this wonderful journey through the greatest sport in all of
American sports, not just high school sports. On this season,
as we did on last season, we'll take a look
(00:20):
at some of the best high school football headlines from
around the country, including a coach that finally discovered music.
A coach who you already know about, Teddy Bridgewater, is
up and running at his high school football alma mater.
Great to see for coach Bridgewater. I'll let you know
what he has going on down in Miami. Plus a
little note from the Minister of Culture on a fellow
(00:44):
longview Lobo love seeing that from Matthew McConaughey. And a
high school football player who's not very tall, but he's
got a whole lot of jersey that he's filling baby.
Plus you may not know this, but it is the
twenty year anniversary of the release of one of my
(01:04):
favorite movies ever and certainly my favorite sports movie, Friday
Night Lights. We'll take a look at this film throughout
this season of Go Fight Win, as we go throughout
the high school football season. But today I'm gonna zone
in on some of the critics who did not like
this film when it came out. They ripped the movie
to shreds. I will rip their reviews to shreds. That's
(01:27):
gonna be really fun and cathartic for me. It's time
for Go Fight Win. Keep those feet moving, boys, let's go.
Well if you get the battle to Donnie Pug and
let that pudge you go. I want to start this
(01:49):
episode of Go Fight Win, and throughout the season, I'm
going to talk about Coach Dooley's List, And Coach Dooley
was my coach when I was a high school football player,
and I am doing that in air quotes didn't really
play much. But when I was a freshman, Coach Dooley
was one of my coaches and he was a younger guy,
(02:09):
just out of college and just figuring out what he
wanted to do as a coach. And he's gone on
to effect and impact so many lives at different schools.
But now he has a website that is kind of
like the Angie's List of high school football coaches. It's
tough to find a good vendor for chin straps or socks,
or jerseys, thipads, whatever you need. Well. Coach has a deep,
(02:34):
deep roster of vendors and coaches that he's worked with
to set up a website called Coachdooley'slist dot com. And
if you're a high school football coach listening to this show,
first of all, I want you to check out Coach
Dooley's List. Also hit subscribe on the show and tell
your other high school football coaches how much you enjoy
these stories and how fun go Fight Win is as
(02:58):
we celebrate the best parts of high scho football and
Coach Dooley's List is definitely one of those things. You
can go on the website and you can check out
just this network that he has of vendors that he trusts,
that are vetted, that are approved. There's things ranging from
signage and advertising. You want to celebrate the seniors. How
do I get this giant headshot uploaded on a poster
(03:22):
that hangs on the chain link fence so all the
fans can see it. There's even stuff for the band, trophies,
things for fundraising and concessions. Check out Coachdooley'slist dot com
it is go fight, win approved all right. Jumping through
the headlines around the country found a few that jumped
off the page for me, and I'm going to start
in Iowa. Walkee Northwest High School in Iowa has a
(03:44):
head football coach, Corey Kapatich that's finally allowing his players
to listen to music while they practice. This is from
WPTZ Plattsburgh, Berlington, Channel five on your side. Key Northwest
High School in Iowa returns around four starters on each
(04:05):
side of the ball, and it's coming off a seven
wins season. Pretty good, and the article says head coach
Corey Kapatich is old school, no sleeves, no extra swag,
absolutely no music at practice until this week. I just
convinced him to listen to music in practice, which is
kind of shocking, said senior Will Koenig. They finally talked
me into having music for the first time for stretch
(04:26):
and drill periods. Kapatich said, now the wolves are whistling
while they work. There are, however, conditions. Coach said that
he is allowing eighties music and they said they'd honor
that at some point. Right now, it's music I've never
heard before. He probably knows one song on this playlist.
Koenick said he wanted eighties music. I told him we'd
(04:48):
give him one day a week. Now that that seems
like Coach is kind of losing the locker room a
little bit when the players are all, you know, calling
all the shots on the playlist. But there is one
negotiable part. There's no dancing allowed, Capati said jokingly. I
don't know if he's joking if he hasn't allowed music
until just now. Walkee did host Johnston to start the season.
(05:13):
How did that new music playlist pay off for him? Well,
they lost. They lost twenty eight to seventeen. So I
think Coach is going to have to make some adjustments
to the playlist that did not work out. I'll say
when I was in high school, our strength coach did
control the playlist and it was all eighties, seventies, eighties
(05:33):
and nineties country. So maybe we would have hit some
more maxes if we were in there listening to Young
Jeezy and Lil Wayne. I don't know, you can't prove
a negative, of course, but we had, you know, Brooks
and Dunn. I was doing power cleans to Neon Moon
and I'll say it did work for me. I did
(05:56):
like it, I did enjoy it. I don't know if
all my teammates really got juiced hearing the dance by
Garth Brooks, but I did. So. It takes a village,
It takes a lot of different players to put that
playlist together, and I think that Walkee will need to
continue to work on that to have a better result
(06:18):
than they did in Week one. All right down in Florida,
there's a coach that you may have heard of, former
NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. He had a chance in college
before Lamar Jackson took college football by storm at Louisville.
It was Teddy Bridgewater that was on all of the
Cardinals headlights highlights, not the headlights on the highlights, and
(06:43):
Teddy was electric, And sadly he did not have the
pro career that I think he deserved and that I
know he wanted to have. Had a terrible injury in
camp when he was with the Vikings and became an
NFL journeyman after that. But since he retired in December,
he wasted no time becoming the head football coach of
(07:04):
his alma mater at Miami Northwestern and guess what Coach
Bridgewater is one to o Now. I've been following Coach
Bridgewater over at gocoffeetown dot com. I wrote a little
piece about him. Bro Bible wrote this story about him,
and this is from their coverage of coach Bridgewater. Says
former NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater is off to a hot
(07:24):
start in his first season as a high school football
coach at Miami Northwestern. He's officially one to oher after
a regular season win on Thursday, and then the Bulls
have one of the most exciting offenses in the entire country.
They won forty five to nothing against Coconut Creek, and
Coach Bridgewater led his team in the fight song after
(07:45):
the win. Bro Bible writes here, it's impossible to dislike
Teddy Bridgewater. That might be possible to dislike him if
you are on the receiving end of that beatdown forty
five to nothing, But outside of that, I'm a big
Teddy Bridgewater fan. I'm going to try, like heck to
get him in an interview on the show. Maybe a
(08:06):
little bit more accessible now that he's a high school
football coaching, not an NFL quarterback. But I love this
quote from Coach Bridgewater. I'm not gonna call him teddy.
I'm going to show him the respect he deserves. He says. Man,
that's just me, my entire life, just paying it forward
because I know I won't play this game forever. There
are certain things in life I can't do forever. So
it's like, man, how can I leave an everlasting impact?
(08:29):
How can I prepare the next wave of athletes for
what's in store. It's kind of my gift to life, honestly,
just pouring into the younger athletes, the younger players on
the team. That's how I stay blessed. That's how I
keep getting opportunities. Of course, outside of what I'm able
to do as a football player. Those are the life
trophies I get. Those are the plaques I get that
(08:50):
you don't see on the walls. It just means a
lot for me. Well, if Coach Bridgewater keeps doing this,
I think he's going to have some real plaques on
the walls and some real trophies in the trophy cases
as well. Because the Bulls, Baby, they got some dudes.
They got some real players as well. It's not just
heart and cliches from coach from coach Bridgewater. But that's
(09:14):
what makes high school football tick. And if you've got
the athletes and you have that, I mean, that's that's
what makes teams really dangerous, is when you have obviously
the players that can can join the ranks. But that's
what separates high school football from college football. There's no
transfer portal. Some guys do have the ability to transfer
(09:36):
quite a few times in their careers, but for the
most part, you have your rosters. You have guys, it's
your destiny. It's where you were born, it's where you
went up through the rec leagues, it's where you end
up playing your high school ball. And it looks like
coach Bridgewater has stepped into a wonderful situation at his
alma mater, and I'm excited to keep up with that
and see what he has cooking down the line. All right.
(09:58):
I saw this on X Matthew McConaughey, the MOC big
Texas Longhorns fan, but he gave a shout out to
a Georgia Tech yellowjacket after Tech upset Florida State. I
don't know if it's an upset anymore, but they upset
Florida State in Ireland and McConaughey giving a shout out
to Haines King, the quarterback of the Yellow Jackets, who
(10:22):
incidentally is a former Texas A and m Aggie, but
evidently McConaughey not holding that against them. He said, once
a Lobo, always a Lobo. Haines King gets it done
Georgia Tech with the win at Longview Lobos. Now McConaughey
went to Longview and if you read his book Green Lights,
(10:44):
he talks about that. He actually ended up doing a
foreign exchange program, I think for the last year where
he lived in Australia, which is probably not surprising at
all if you are familiar with McConaughey at all. But
he's still has those Lobo roots and he saw his guy,
Haines King getting it done, and that high school pride
(11:06):
never leaves you. I went to Collins Hill High School,
and for us, we had Maya more for a long time,
you know. Just the fact that she went to my
school was enough for me to keep up with her
and be proud of everything she did. Our high school
was huge. I only talked to her one time the
whole time we were at school together. She was a
year older than me, but she did get me out
(11:29):
of a quiz. One time, she got me out of
a makeup quiz from when I was sick. We had
the same teacher, and she came in and was just
insanely kind and we chatted a little bit while I
was trying to take my quiz and she said, you
know what, this kid's all right, miss hand. You shouldn't
make him make up this quiz. And it was a
class that I did well in it. It's not like it,
(11:51):
you know, it's not like I really needed her help.
But the fact that she did help me out is
something that I'm gonna talk talk about for a very
long time. And she continues to do amazing things in
her post w NBA career that she is fighting for justice,
got her now husband out of jail for an incorrect charge.
(12:17):
I'm not a legal expert, so I probably butchered the
actual description of what she did there, but look up
her story. It is nothing short of incredible, regardless of
what she did on the basketball court. My more just
a champion, and I can relate to what Matthew McConaughey
is saying there. You're proud of the people that went
(12:37):
to your high school for me. Now, Travis Hunter is
the equivalent now playing for the Colorado Buffaloes. I've never
spoken to him. Graduated. What is the equivalent of a
lifetime after I did from high school. But he's a
state champ and played in another one watches highlight reels,
there's a lot of them. He only leaves the field
for two or three plays at a time with the Buffalos.
(13:00):
He's going to be a first round NFL draft pick,
and a lot of Collins Hill people are very proud
to watch him. My Collins Hill Eagles undefeated and the
longview Lobos putting a lot of talent out there into
the world as well. You better get ready when you're
facing the sting of Haines King driving that rambling wreck
(13:20):
all the way across the ocean. He's not taking a ferry.
He's just driving that Ford model, a sport coop right
across the Atlantic and all the way back and maybe
even to the college football playoff. Go Lobos, all right.
The last thing I have here someone tagged me in
(13:42):
this tweet. My guy Ryan Jordan is a fan of
Coffee Town football, and this tweet from Ismael Eliah forty
four now I've included a link in the podcast description
to this young man's tweet, and I want to is
what I'm saying here. I'm not dogging on this guy.
(14:04):
I'm not making fun of him, not piling on a
lot of people want to. But when you look at
the image, you see that is Mile is about as
wide as he is tall. And look at his stat
line and it shows just as much girth. Two sacks,
five tackles, one tackle for loss. He's got a link
to his huddle. I think he may be about five
(14:26):
foot seven, maybe five foot six if I'm being generous,
but he's also pushing probably about two eighty three hundred
plus perhaps, And every thread of this jersey is stretched
to the brim and is Miles Mifflin number seventy nine,
maroon and gold uniform. It's actually a pretty sweet uniform.
(14:50):
I think if Coffeetown was a real team, it would
wear this uniform combo with kind of the copper looking helmets,
maroon jerseys and gold letters and pants. And is Mile's
getting after it. Man, he's got I don't know what
he's tipping on the scales, but he's outweighing that in
(15:11):
heart with the stat line like that number. Ismaele Ayala
number four, Governor Mifflin High School, number seventy nine, class
of twenty twenty five. So he's trying to go out
there and prove some things and he is just lighting
it up. Man. I'm going to be keeping up with
(15:33):
Ismaele throughout the season. He's a beast. Go get him,
is Mile, keep going King. We'll check in with Ismaele
throughout the season and perhaps get an interview with him
as well. All right, coming up, Go fight. Win takes
a look back at Friday Night Lights twenty years later
throughout this season, as it did come out in the
(15:54):
year two thousand and four. How about some reviews from
the critics who didn't like Friday Night Lights. They were
actually out there. We'll hear from them next. Friday Night
(16:15):
Lights came out twenty years ago this year two thousand
and four. I was a high school football freshman. I'd
never played the game before, had some medical issues that
prevented me from playing between the ears. And incidentally, that's
why I had to stop playing early, because I had
too many concussions. I forgot what I was about to say, oh,
(16:40):
Friday Night Lights, so I will not forget the first
time I saw Friday Night Lights in the theaters. It
set the tone for some of what high school football
is about. Obviously, there are some exaggerations in the film.
It's a little you know, some times it only hits
(17:00):
on one to four notes of drama or themes. But
I don't need a lot of themes. I just need
Texas Hasko football. There are some things that are glaringly wrong.
The players are wearing equipment from the early two thousands
in a movie that's set in nineteen eighty eight. The
book is fantastic, highly recommended if you haven't read the book,
(17:25):
and the TV show is its own work of art,
and I believe that all these things should be held
up for observation in their own light. They're different, They're similar,
but different. Well, there are some critics that I will
look at today who watched Friday Night Lights. I'm going
off of rotten tomatoes here. It's got great reviews across
(17:48):
the board. Eighty two percent Tomato meter certified fresh from
the critics, eighty five percent popcorn Meter from the viewers.
So when you see numbers like that, you know it's
a championship film. However, the theme of today's Friday night
Lights deep dive is the critics who didn't like Friday
(18:12):
Night Lights. The first one that I see here that
gave it a splat. You either get a tomato or
a splat, in case you're not familiar with rotten tomatoes.
Tony Macklin from the Bright Lights Film Journal, I guess
this is a Lights rivalry here, the Bright Lights Film
Journal going up against Friday Night Lights and Tony Macklin
(18:35):
sided with his publication. Friday Night Lights is a feel
good movie, but it's not real. It's a hard hitting
Hallmark greeting card. It's no wonder it appealed to Larry King.
It's safe, easy, conventional, and Feigne's incisiveness. I'm just gonna
go line by line here. It's not real yet, No kidding, Tony,
it's a movie. It's a hard hitting Hallmark greeting card.
(18:59):
Why are you hating on hall Man? There's some hilarious
Hallmark greeting cards out there, and I think that was
uncalled for. Also taking down the late Larry King. Larry
King's My two Cents was the greatest thing on Twitter
up until his passing. The guy just just shooting off
(19:22):
his observations on life, and there's some wisdom in there.
There were some things that I don't know what Larry
was trying to say, But if Larry King liked it,
then by god, I like it, you know, by and large,
that's just how I've lived my life. And then he
says it's safe, easy, conventional and feigns incisiveness. Dude, this
(19:45):
is a high school football film. You can't be using
words with twelve letters in them. I don't know what
that means. It feigns incisiveness. I'll tell you what though.
It wasn't safe when Permian agreed to play at the
(20:05):
Astrodome and get a Zebra crew out there that they
didn't know about, that they hadn't played with. That wasn't safe.
It wasn't easy for head coach Gary Gaines to go
flip a coin and help his team get the tiebreaker.
That wasn't easy at that truck stop. Anything could have
(20:27):
happened there. And was there anything conventional about Booby Miles
breaking down in his car and sobbing with his uncle?
I don't think so, Tony, you missed You missed that one,
all right. Next up is Garth Franklin from Dark Horizons
(20:48):
Again publication dealing in the darkness in a movie about lights?
How do you think Garth voted here? And how does
a guy named Garth not like a movie set in Texas.
While the atmosphere is excellent and the general elements all strong,
the film sadly fails to give any real insight or
(21:08):
depth in regards to explaining the hows and whys of
the near fever over the game and its players. I
don't need to know any hows or whise. I just
know that I like the movie Garth. Jeffrey m Anderson
from Combustible Celluloid. I think one of my aunts had
combustible celluloid. That might be a hip of violation, but
(21:34):
I think that's what she had. Jeffrey says the movie's
principles are seriously out of whack, even as it angles
toward a big life lesson with all capital letters about
learning to live with falling short of greatness. I think
there was a big life lesson when Booby Miles has
(21:56):
to watch that garbage truck roll down the street and
think about, Man, if only that MRI could have repaired
my knee, this wouldn't be my future. And by the way,
he did not have a future in garbage trucks, which
is you know, I think it's actually a pretty profitable business,
so no shame if you are a garbage truck driver
(22:19):
or attendant hanging off of the back. But I think
there were some life lessons in the film. But even
if it did fall short, again, that's not why I
tuned in, man. I tune in to Friday Night Lights
to hear explosions in the sky so I can sit
there and listen to it while I work and weep
(22:39):
and hope that my children don't walk in and see me.
That's what I'm tuning into Friday Night Lights for. Here's
Neil Smith from BBC dot Com. I assume he's a
brit Its script is pure corn, drenched in syrupy sentiment
and topped with prize ham in the shape of Bill
(23:00):
Bob Thornton's tub thumping coach. Yeah. I don't even know
what that means. Script is pure corn. I think the
script was written on paper and I think it was
pure oil in petroleum with a match right beside it,
(23:21):
drenched in syrupy sentiment. Is that what they eat over
there in the UK? Corn and syrup and prize ham
They don't worry about prize hams in Texas, Baby, it's
all about It's all about the Steers. And why is
Billy Bob Thornton a tub thumper? The only tub thumping
(23:43):
I know about is Chumblewamba. And you know what that
song says. I get knocked down, but I get up again,
And that's what Odessa Permian does. That's mojo, Baby. Neil Smith,
you fumbled. Audrey rock Richardson from the two L Transcript
bulletin That's too many words. A crowded film in which
(24:06):
the main characters emerge as people who have skewed and
unsympathetic priorities. I think that coach Gary Gaines was pretty
sympathetic when he went over to see Mike Winchell dealing
with his deadbeat brother and mom who was just a sad,
(24:27):
sad case. Coach didn't have to do that, even drove
Mike Winchell home. James Vernier from The Boston Herald, The Boston,
Harold Bland pap Americana. Yeah, I wouldn't expect you to
get anything about Texas High school football Gym. Baltimore's son
(24:48):
just has a splat. I guess the whole newspaper didn't
like it. Same for the Hartford Current, which I think
is some sort of plant, some sort of spice like
a grape Hertford Current. Charles Taylor once owned a pair
of his shoes from Salon dot com. Yes, Salon, Salon
(25:11):
is really gonna understand high school football substitute slick cynical
point scoring for insight. I do like the alliteration in there,
but slick cynical point scoring cynical. It was not cynical
at all. When Permian was in the state championship and
(25:36):
Mike Winchell was under center and he called that play
all right, wiggle thirty four switch played for the state championship.
I love all y'all, baby, I love all of you.
Let's go on one. That wasn't cynical at all. It
was slick, though it was slick. Good job, Chuck. Thomas
(25:57):
Delapa from Boulder Weekly. Graduate work in the Jerry Bruckheimer
School of overproduced underwritten gut shots. Though Berg's big game
finale will win fans, the build up feels like one
long time out. The finale was sweet, with Tim hugging
Billingsley giving him a state championship. Cop eyes are getting
(26:21):
wet right now. I need electrolytes in my eyeballs. Matt
Brunson from Creative Loafing. There's no loafing on a Texas
high school football field, Matt, So you've missed the mark.
A true life yarn that was dubbed by SI as
one of the greatest sports stories of all time has
(26:43):
now been turned into one of the dullest sports films
of recent years. Ouch, all right, thank y'all for tuning
in to go Fight Win. We'll have some guests on
throughout the year this season. I want to do a
little bit differently than last year. Last year we had
some high name, high profile guests on to talk about
their high school football careers, guys from the world of
media and college football. And look, there's nothing wrong with that,
(27:06):
and I'm sure I'll have some more of that on
this year, but I want to reach out to those
guys like Ismael Ayala. I want to reach out to
the coach that allowed music on the team. And yes,
I know that Teddy Bridgewater falls into the category of
high profile names, but I want to hear from some
real people. So if you're listening, to this show. You
(27:27):
can tag me online, hit my DM boxes on x
on Instagram, go Cooffeetown dot com. There's a place to
submit some stories. And I want to hear from y'all
about the people that I need to speak with that
are really sharing and living all these high school football
stories that we love. If you've listened to this episode,
(27:50):
you've listened to the episodes from episode one, go back
and check them out. You know the flavor of what
Coffeetown High School Football started, what Go Fight Win is cantinuing.
It's the stories we love. It's the stories that make
us smile, the stories that make us laugh, the stories
that make high school football a timeless institution in America,
(28:12):
things that just bring us so much happiness, joy, peace
in our hearts, with a little bit of grit and guts,
and maybe maybe some bad reviews as well. But the
critics aren't always right, and I appreciate the critics of
(28:33):
this show who love it. Leave a comment, give me
some five star reviews for a show that isn't always
about five star players. Hit subscribe on Go Fight Win,
See y'all next week. Piece
Host
Wes Blankenship
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