Last Chance U Is Still a Show Every Educator Should Watch

A few signs point to another school year’s beginning: I’ve been sitting in several all-day meetings, including one on my birthday. The university quad looks especially stunning, ready for students—and their parents—to arrive. Athletes are already on campus, including what seems like hundreds of football players, who are grunting and cheering right outside my office window. (I think they are practicing on the field nearby, but cannot confirm.)

            Two years ago, I wrote about the relatively new football program at my university, and how the Netflix documentary series Last Chance U had helped me appreciate our program, its athletes, and the challenges they face. In that post, I argued that every educator should watch the series because of its invaluable insights into teaching and its amazing hero, Brittany Wagner, an academic support specialist for a junior college football program who worked tirelessly to help young players succeed in the classroom.

            I just finished watching seasons three and four of the show, and want to reiterate my earlier assertion: Last Chance U is a series that every educator should watch, even those who work at universities without a football team (and those schools still exist, don’t they?). The latest seasons of Last Chance U follow Independence Community College in Kansas, a program with mixed success, led by a mercurial coach named Jason Brown. And once again, I found myself challenged to develop more empathy for students who struggle in my classes; more respect for those who help underprepared students succeed; and even more understanding for people like Coach Brown, whose arrogance and machismo, while incredibly irritating, seems to mask deep insecurity and loneliness—traits I recognize in myself (though without the accompanying hubris).

            The show is primarily about student athletes, young men who dream of playing in The League and who see a year or two at a Ju-Co as the step they need toward that dream. (Hence, the series name, Last Chance U.) I love that the show features these young men and their challenges as athletes and students, because it reinforces a value I try to convey to all my students: that every person’s story matters, and is a reflection of God’s unique imprint in each person’s life. That definitely includes down-and-out young men with big dreams, who find the college classroom a barrier to what they see as successful life outcomes.

In a cultural climate where black men are more often represented as thugs—and where that representation is so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that black boys are being shot for playing with toys or holding cell phones—I’m grateful for the portrayal Last Chance U provides: of young men, mostly black, who want to excel in the classroom; and who support their families with fierce loyalty; and who play football with passion; and who just want to find love and acceptance, to be known as worthy of the place they inhabit on the earth.

The Independence seasons also feature English teachers who work to make the student athletes reach their potential and know their worth. Like Brittany from seasons one and two of Last Chance U, Heather Mydosh and Latonya Pinkard at ICC work hard with students who are underprepared for college, and thus lack the tools—but not necessarily the desire—to succeed in the classroom. While some folks might protest that these teachers are enabling students, working too hard to help them pass classes, I saw instead some incredibly dedicated educators with the patience and the empathy that I long to have, in the classroom and in every other part of my life.

And it’s that empathy that Last Chance U builds best, not only for the students, but also for the coaches who are working in a system that doesn’t always reward them (that actually undermines their dignity and their families’ well-being), and even for the head coach, Jason Brown, the short-fused f-bomb throwing leader of the team. I imagine viewers could hate him—plenty of people in Independence, Kansas, certainly seem to. But the directors of Last Chance U create a much more empathetic character, one who is driven by his own demons, who makes appalling decisions on and off the field, and who seems so exceedingly isolated that we can’t help but feel sadness for his character. By the series’ end, I also hoped that he has a much happier future on whatever field he chooses to play.

It’s clear that field won’t be football, at least not for a while.  Brown has written a book (which I probably won’t be reading), and is hitting the road for a book tour. The students and teachers at ICC are no doubt descending on a small Kansas town for another football season; the folks at Last Chance U are moving on to a school in California, where the next episodes will be filmed. As I’m facing down my 20th year of teaching English full-time, I’m walking to classrooms with a renewed sense of empathy for students and colleagues, as well as an understanding that all our stories matter. That we all deserve empathy, no matter the choices we make. That we are, all of us, fearfully and wonderfully made, images of our Creator, whether we are trying to reach The League or hoping to get a research paper finished before the deadline.

I’m grateful that Last Chance U has once again prepared me for the new year, which is why I believe every educator should watch the show and learn from its perfectly imperfect cast.