Kyle Chander, the actor who played Coach Eric Taylor for five stellar seasons on Friday Night Lights, is lending his time and talent to support Texas volunteer fire department, which have been drained by a season of intense drought and wildfires. The actor recently taped a series of “We Care” public service announcements that will begin airing this fall to help raise money for – and encourage participation in – volunteer fire departments. “Kyle is stepping up in a big way to help raise funds and awareness for volunteer fire departments all across our state,” says Chris Barron, Executive Director of the State Firemen’s and Fire Marshals’ Association of Texas. “We’re thrilled to have the added star power to draw additional attention to a critical cause.” If you’re a fan of Kyle Chandler, you might also want to check out the East Dillon Lions Football tee-shirt the actor wore on-screen – it’s available for auction at VIP Fan Clubs. The site also has wardrobe items worn on the series by other cast members, including Connie Britton, Taylor Kitsch, Minka Kelly and many others in the Friday Night Lights section of VIP Fan Auctions!

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If the end of Friday Night Lights left a void in your television-watching heart, there’s still a little more to see – sort of. An Easter egg hidden on the fifth season DVD reveals an alternate ending to the series finale. Entertainment Weekly reports that a farewell speech by Coach Taylor (played by Kyle Chandler) was originally planned to play over the final minutes showing where the main characters’ lives took them (the voiceover was ultimately replaced by the song “Devil Knows You’re Dead.”) To access the alternate ending, go to the menu screen on the Season 5 DVD, turn the commentary off, and then select the football that appears. Of course, you can also keep a piece of Friday Night Lights for yourself – literally. Check out the Dillon Panthers and East Dillon Lions gear (and other outfits) actually worn on-screen by cast members Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Adrianne Palicki, Taylor Kitsch and more at VIP Fan Auctions.

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FNL was more than a high school soap opera about a football team from the fictional town of Dillon, Texas. It was an unflinching look at a town where sports touches everything, offering a tableau of Middle America with a realism and introspection seldom seen on network TV.
Shot in Austin in real-life locations rather than antiseptic soundstages, often with hundreds of locals populating the fringes as extras, the show benefited from a rare authenticity. Untraditional methods reigned: Three cameras tracked each take, with actors free to alter their lines. The result was an organic experience that consistently elevated the show throughout its five-year run.

Football quickly became the least interesting part of the show — almost a MacGuffin — thanks to a steady diet of compelling story arcs and well-drawn characters inhabited by one of the deepest benches of acting talent in the business. An arsenal of simple but powerful storytelling elements — like sports talk radio jock Slammin’ Sammy Meade and the play-by-play announcers who oversee the action like a Greek chorus — gave FNL a timeless yet modern feel.

Choosing a list of the best moments from the series is a thankless assignment, but here are 10 of our favorites:

“We will be tested.” (Season 1, Episode 1)
The last eight minutes of the pilot deliver a cascade of indelible images, all expertly cross-cut into a tapestry of pain and wonder: the buzzsaw cutting open Jason Street’s helmet in the ER, second-string quarterback Matt Saracen leading a fourth-quarter comeback, cheer captain Lyla Garrity crying in the hospital corridor, the Smash Williams-led prayer circle dovetailing into Coach Eric Taylor’s powerful speech: “It is this pain that allows us to look inside ourselves.” The unforgettable closing sequence set the stage for one of the best self-contained seasons of television ever produced.

“Champions don’t complain.” (Season 1, Episode 3)
With selfishness and excuse-making pervading the Panthers in the wake of an upset loss, Coach Taylor buses his players to a remote location in the middle of the night and makes them run wind sprints uphill in a driving rainstorm. Lather, rinse, repeat … until Smash invokes the team’s motto — “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!” — in a galvanizing moment that saves the team from disarray. It’s one of the most memorable and symbolic scenes of the series.

“Why don’t you take your Members Only jacket off and hang it on the coat rack?” (Season 1, Episode 9)
The entire sequence of Saracen’s first date with Julie Taylor is one of the show’s best, capped by the poignant scene of Saracen getting called home prematurely to lure his grandmother out of a locked bathroom by imitating his grandfather singing Mr. Sandman. (“It was the first time I got to see the real Matt Saracen,” recounts Julie in a post-date debriefing with Tami.) But it’s the moment when Chandler opens the door for Matt and prods his jacket, with a blend of incredulity and thinly veiled anger, that captures the disarming, wrong-footing humor that made Coach Taylor such an unforgettable character.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with you at all.” (Season 2, Episode 14)
Spurned by Julie, seemingly forgotten by his father abroad and wasting away on the Panthers’ bench, Saracen shows up to school directionless and drunk. When Coach grabs the quarterback and tosses him into the shower, Gilford delivers a scene of raw catharsis, asking why everybody in his life abandons him. It’s an emotionally stripped-down scene that helped restore faith in the series after an uncharacteristic sophomore slump early in a season abbreviated by the Writers Guild of America strike.

“I’m goin’ to college, Momma.” (Season 2, Episode 15)
As FNL progressed from year to year, the producers did an excellent job of integrating new characters as old ones graduated and moved on. When Smash’s fate is jeopardized after he loses his scholarship to the prestigious TMU because of a race-related fight in a movie theater, a deus ex machina comes in the form of an unlikely scholarship offer from Whitmore College, an HBCU whose coach has scouted Smash since middle school. Smash’s tearful exchange of the news with his mother is one of the series’ most satisfying payoffs.

“It’s not that I think I’m going to get all these things, I just want the possibility of getting them.” (Season 3, Episode 13)
When Tyra Collette reads the college admissions essay to the University of Texas she worked on with Landry Clarke during the drive up to Austin for the state championship game, it offers a pleasing farewell to one of the series’ most beloved characters. The entire episode — written as a series finale during one of the show’s multiple cancellation scares — is golden, capped by a powerful speech from Coach Taylor after a Saracen-led rally (following freshman phenom J.D. McCoy’s halftime benching) comes up short.

“I’m just having a moment here.” (Season 4, Episode 5)
Saracen’s pent-up grief over the recent death of his father in Iraq bubbles throughout this powerful episode, climaxing when he breaks into a funeral home to see the face of his father, gruesomely disfigured by an IED and hidden within a closed casket. The compulsively reserved Saracen finally breaks down during a dinner at the Taylor house, confessing that he hates his father and wishes he could say so to his father’s face — only he doesn’t have one. Critics everywhere hailed it as the consistently strong Gilford’s finest work.

“I did it. I did it all. You did not do anything.” (Season 4, Episode 13)
From the moment we’re introduced to a half-drunk Tim Riggins at the Dillon Panthers’ media day in the pilot, we know we’re dealing with one of TV’s all-time great self-defeating antiheroes, whose days and nights of heroic drinking uncannily never affected his conditioning. By agreeing to take the fall for his brother’s chop shop to ensure Billy’s unborn son won’t grow up fatherless, a character dogged by a state of arrested development manages to achieve manhood on his own difficult terms.

“We’re getting there. Slowly but surely, we’re getting there.” (Season 5, Episode 5)
When the Lions set off for a rematch of a game they forfeited early in Season 4, it’s a scene from the hotel on the night before the game that shows how far these East Dillon outcasts thrown together by circumstance have come. Luke Cafferty joins Vince Howard on his hotel balcony, and they’re soon joined by Dallas Tinker and Hastings Ruckle for a late-night bull session about porn and fried food, memories and hopes. All the while, Coach Taylor sits in the shadows eavesdropping from his own patio — listening with satisfaction as a palpable camaraderie forms between these boys who would be a team. The touching, understated moment is among the high points of the East Dillon years.

“Eighteen years…” (Season 5, Episode 12)
The Taylor marriage was always the heart of FNL, particularly the brilliantly wrought arguments and discussions that captured the depth of their friendship. At no point was that more evident than in the finale, when Tami is weighing an offer to be Dean of Admissions at Philadelphia’s Braemore College while Eric contemplates the future. “I have been a coach’s wife for 18 years,” Tami says. “I don’t see why we can’t look at something else beyond football.”

Used with permission. Copyright 2011 Sports Illustrated/CNN.

Bid on props and wardrobe from all five Friday Night Lights seasons at vipfanauctions.com

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On the block this week are two items that I’m shocked aren’t attracting more attention.

The Dillon Panthers state championship shadowbox was auctioned once before. The buyer had second thoughts and sent it back. The familiar white #1 Panthers jersey is mounted in a large wood-framed shadow box along with a special oversized game ticket. Coach Taylor, Tim Riggins, Smash Williams and Matt Saracen won the state championship in a year when the team watched their highly recruited starting quarterback Jason Street laying paralyzed on the field in the season’s first game. This is truly a one-of-a-kind momento and it’s an absolute steal right now.

Coach Taylor has been a success coaching every team at every level. Seasons 1-3, he led the Dillon Panthers. In Seasons 4 and 5, he led the upstart East Dillon Lions from, literally nowhere, to a Texas High School state championship. At the end of Season 5, we see Coach in eastern Pennsylvania heading up the program at Pemberton High School. We’ve assembled a collection of playbooks from each of Eric Taylor’s coaching stops…one three ring binder from each school. No one will have all three…together…in one collection…except one, single, lucky fan.
Bid now at vipfanauctions.com for auctions closing Tuesday, August 2nd.

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Friday Night Lights fans…here is an opportunity to pick up a truly unique collectible package from one of television’s greatest dramas.

Up this week at vipfanauctions.com is a set of tickets to Coach Eric Taylor’s (KYLE CHANDLER) two state championship games. The first, as coach of the Dillon Panthers came in Season 1. Tim Riggins (TAYLOR KITSCH), Matt Saracen (ZACH GILFORD), Smash Williams (GAIUS CHARLES) and the Panthers defeated the West Cambria Mustangs on the game’s final play. Then, in Season 5, Taylor led the East Dillon Lions to victory over the Hudgins Hawks, also on the game’s final play.

This package includes one ticket to each game. Framed and with the certificate of authenticity, this collection is not only rare, but it guaranteed to get a reaction from visitors to your man cave.

At the time of this post, 24 hours remain in this auction and this incredibly iconic collection has just 10 bidders. The price stands at about a hundred bucks. Wow! Own a piece of television history…these rare tickets “bookend” FNL’s five glorious seasons…and they can be yours. Join the bidding now at vipfanauctions.com

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Congrats to Friday Night Lights. The drama, whose final episode airs Friday July 15, was nominated for Outstanding Drama, along with ‘Boardwalk Empire’, ‘The Good Wife’, ‘Mad Men’, ‘Dexter’ and ‘Game of Thrones’. For ‘FNL’, this is the show’s 10th Emmy nomination overall. It’s only win was for Outstanding Casting in 2007.

Also nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series are Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton as Eric and Tami Taylor.

Chandler, who plays East Dillon High School football Coach Eric Taylor, is up against Michael C. Hall of ‘Dexter’, Steve Buscemi of ‘Boardwalk Empire’, Jon Hamm of ‘Mad Men’, Hugh Laurie of ‘House’ and Timothy Olyphant of ‘Justified’. This is Chandler’s third nomination.

Britton faces some formidable competition, as well. Elisabeth Moss of ‘Mad Men’, Mariska Hargitay of ‘Law and Order SVU’, Mireille Enos of ‘The Killing’ and Julianna Margulies in ‘The Good Wife’ round out the nominees. This is Britton’s second nomination.

Overall, ‘Mad Men’ led with 19 nominations, followed closely by ‘Boardwalk Empire’ with 18. ‘Modern Family’ led sitcoms with 17.

The Emmy’s air Sunday, September 18th on FOX.

Find one-of-a-kind screen-used collectibles from Friday Night Lights and dozens of other shows at vipfanauctions.com

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Luke Cafferty (played by Matt Lauria) wanted to play ball for Dillon High School so much that he fudged his address to play for the prestigious Panthers program, but talent draws attention – and when it was discovered that Cafferty lived in the East Dillon district and, ultimately, showed that he had the heart of a Lion by helping to lead his team to a state title.  Whether you’re a fan of the show, a fan of the character or a fan of the actor, VIP Fan Auctions is now offering shorts and a hooded sweatshirt worn on-screen by Cafferty – as well as a bunch of other unique wardrobe items and props from the series. Place your bid today!

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