Gary Gaines, the real-life high school football coach who inspired Kyle Chandler’s character in NBC’s beloved Friday Night Lights TV series, has died at age 73. TV cc
Gaines died Monday in Lubbock, Tex., after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease, AP News reports.
A tweet from the team Gaines previously coached also confirmed the news: “RIP Coach Gary Gaines. We lost a great coach and a better man,” the Odessa Permian Panthers’ Twitter account shared after his death.
Though Gaines had a 30-year career as a football coach, his initial four-year tenure with the Panthers — including the team’s memorable 1988 season — inspired Buzz Bissinger’s 1990 book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream. His record from 1986-89 included 47 wins and only six losses, reports AP News.
Director Peter Berg later adapted the nonfiction account into a movie in 2004, with Billy Bob Thornton portraying Gaines. Berg then worked with NBC to bring the story to television in 2006, helping create a series that lasted five seasons, with Chandler playing a fictionalized football coach, Eric Taylor, inspired by Gaines. (EW)