Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, Diana makes history!

Episode 1.6 “You Are Who You Eat”

(Dir by Bruce Seth Green, originally aired on December 30th, 1984)

Coach Denardo has a heart attack and is laid up in the hospital.  It looks like Diane is going to have to coach the team!

Wait?  What?

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about football but I do know that there is such a thing as an assistant coach.  And there’s also coordinators.  There’s a lot of coordinators and a lot of assistants and I imagine that a part of their job entails coaching whenever the head coach is in the hospital.  So, I’m not really sure how this episode went from “Coach Denardo can’t coach this weekend” to “The owner is going to have to do it!”

Still, Diana ends up on the sidelines as the “first female head coach in history!”  I remember that a few Super Bowls ago, they made a big deal about one of the teams having a female assistant coach and I was like, “Well, they better win or they’re never going to hire another woman.”  I think the team lost.  I don’t really follow football.

Anyway, Coach Denardo is on the phone with Diana for most of the game but, towards the end of the game, the connection goes down.  Denardo runs out of his hospital in his hospital gown and takes a taxi to the stadium.  Luckily, even without his help, Diana knew exactly which play to call and the Bulls win another game.

Yay, I guess.  This episode was pretty dumb.  If I was coaching a football team, I would just be like, “Have that guy run to the touchdown area and then throw him the ball.”  I think we would win easily.