What’s Beard Reading? (3.10: “International Break”)
Beard first mentions Suzanne Simard’s work in Season 2. Nate is becoming increasingly resentful of Ted’s success and wants the credit he thinks he deserves for the team’s turnaround. “Here we go again,” Nate bemoans when Ted agrees to use the Wonder Kid’s new False Nine strategy. “Give Ted yet another idea he’ll take all the credit for.”
It’s not the first rumblings we’ve seen of Nate’s discontent, but it’s probably the most overt: “Do you guys ever wanna be in charge?” he asks Beard and Roy. “Be the boss? Get all the credit?” If we’ve learned anything from Ted Lasso, we know that’s antithetical to its spirit, and it’s especially surprising coming from Nate who has benefitted tremendously from Ted’s generosity and encouragement.
Beard’s retort comes from an unlikely source — forestry: “You know, we used to believe that trees competed with each other for light. Suzanne Simard’s field work challenged that perception, and we now realize that the forest is a socialist community. Trees work in harmony to share the sunlight” (“Midnight Train to Royston”). It’s an idea profoundly resonate with the ethos Ted has brought to Richmond: cooperation, interdependence, and mutual support. All for one and one for all.
Nate rejected all that when he joined forces with Rupert and took the position at West Ham. He earned the manager role, he convinces himself, but soon finds out that it’s actually not what he really wants. This prestige has come at the expense of the community he took for granted. He’s lost his Diamond Dogs, he’s left without friends at work, and he realizes that Rupert is jeopardizing his burgeoning relationship with Jade. It’s an appropriate time, then, for Beard to reintroduce Simard’s work, this time by way of her book Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.[1]
Robin Wall Kimmerer describes Finding the Mother Tree as an “interplay of personal narrative, scientific insights and the amazing revelations about the life of the forest.” Simard’s thesis, drawn from extensive field work, is that forests are complex systems driven by what could be considered social behaviors. The trees within these systems cooperatively interact and adapt, Simard argues, so that together they thrive. At the heart of each system is what Simard calls the Mother Tree, an anchor tree that serves as a hub for the nutrients that circulate in a vast underground fungal network. Reviewers note that the beauty of Simard’s book is the way she weaves her own story into the story of the forest, impressing upon readers that we are embodied and embedded creatures, ourselves intimately linked to our place and community. We are formed by them, and we in turn exert our own influence, for good or ill. Nate is now coming to terms with this truth. Rebecca has been learning it all along, though we do see in episode 10 a new breakthrough in her growth.
This season, there’s been a mystery surrounding Rebecca. What does it mean, as the psychic predicted, that she will become a mother? If this bears out, it won’t be in any traditional sense, given her disappointing test results. Personally I had been drawn to the idea that something might happen to Sassy and Rebecca would take charge of Nora. But (much as I’d like to see Sassy go) a tragic loss like that was always unlikely, given the show’s comic structure, and it’s increasingly unlikely as the series draws to a close. Simard’s book coinciding with Rebecca’s command performance at the Akufo meeting introduced a new possibility — that Rebecca has taken on a maternal role for the team and by extension for the Richmond community. In fact, the beneficiaries of her fierce resistance to Akufo’s money grab extend far beyond Greyhound fans to all who enjoy the Premier League. We might say that she has come into her own as this community’s “mother tree.”
It’s a beautiful scene. Rebecca, who has confessed to feeling insecure as a female club owner in a room full of men ogling her (“Rainbow”), now sees them as greedy immature boys who need to be snapped back to reality. “What do you think you’re doing? Just stop it! I mean, how much more money do any of you really need?” she asks. Then reminds them of the responsibility that comes with their privilege: “Why would you ever consider taking something away from people that means so much to them? This isn’t a game. Football isn’t just a game.”
How far Rebecca has come. Three years ago, she was scheming about how to torpedo the team to enact revenge on Rupert. Now she passionately urges others to think beyond themselves: “Just because we own these teams doesn’t mean they belong to us. And I don’t want to be part of something that could possibly destroy this beautiful game. Because I would hate for a all those little kids and grown-ups out there to ever lose access to that beautiful, passionate part of themselves.”
Before this point, we have seen Rebecca “be the boss” in the best sense of the word. She steps up when Richard Cole tells her to fire Sam after he refuses to participate in the Dubai Air campaign. She provides cover for the team’s principled stand against the destruction Cerithium Oil is causing in Nigeria and absorbs much of the risk. This season she has reverted a bit, fixating on beating Rupert rather than elevating the community through her part in it. With this new development, however, as Rebecca positively embraces her power and directs it toward the good, we see her operating fully in her gifts — to truly nurture and support all of those entrusted to her care. “I still want to win,” she tells Ted. But now it’s “for all of us. For Richmond.”
[1] The other book featured in “International Break” is Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg’s The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports. Based on the Amazon description, I suspect that the true story of the Premier League bears closer resemblance to Akufo’s vision than to Rebecca’s: “This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold.”
Other Installments of “What’s Beard Reading?” (for Season 3):
Episode 1, “Smells Like Mean Spirit”
Episode 2, “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”
Episode 7, “The Strings That Bind Us”
Episode 8, “We’ll Never Have Paris”
