Just as fans were wondering what happened to Coach on New Girl, Winston was introduced as the new character in the sitcom. New Girl premiered on Fox in 2011 and came to an end in 2018 after seven seasons. The series, created by Elizabeth Meriwether, follows Jess (Zooey Deschanel), a bubbly teacher who, after a bad breakup, moves into an apartment with three less-than-mature men to begin a new life. Jess’ new roommates were Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.). Winston (Lamorne Morris) ed the group in the second episode of New Girl.

Coach made quite an impression in the first episode of New Girl as a cocky yet awkward former athlete who worked as a personal trainer but was a bit too intense with clients. Despite Damon Wayans Jr's great performance and his chemistry with the rest of the New Girl cast, the character was quickly written out of the show. Coach left the loft between episodes 1 and 2, and Winston moved in. While Coach would later return to share the screen with Winston, many still wonder why Coach left New Girl.

Why Coach Left New Girl After Episode 1

Coach's Role In New Girl Was On And Off Throughout The Series

The reason Coach leaves New Girl is that Damon Wayans Jr. had scheduling issues due to also being in the cast of the comedy series Happy Endings. As he was expecting Happy Endings to be canceled after its first season, Wayans ed the cast of New Girl. However, Happy Endings was renewed for season 2, and he had to leave New Girl after just one episode.

After the first Winston and Coach New Girl swap, Coach returned to New Girl at the beginning of season 3 in 2013, which began airing a few months after ABC officially canceled Happy Endings after three seasons. It was explained that Coach originally moved out of the loft following the pilot episode to move in with his then-girlfriend.

It was quickly established by the other characters in New Girl that it was something Coach did frequently — jumping into a relationship, and then moving back into the loft if the relationship didn't work out, which is the reason given for his season 3 return. Wayans continued to play Coach for two seasons before leaving at the end of New Girl season 4 after the character decided to move in with his new girlfriend, May (Meaghan Rath).

While Coach was gone once again, he didn't disappear completely as he had before, with Wayans returning to New Girl as a special guest star in the comedy's final two seasons. Winston, on the other hand, stayed for the rest of the series. Winston went through a lot of ups and downs in his personal life but eventually settled down with Aly (Nasim Pedrad). While Coach was not as present as Winston was in New Girl, he was always present in the hearts and minds of his friends.

Why New Girl Didn't Recast Coach

Winston Cemented Himself In The Ensemble

New Girl creator Elizabeth Meriwether realized that to remove Coach from New Girl's pilot episode, about 80% of it would have had to be reshot. To save extensive production work, it was decided his character wouldn’t be erased at all. Instead, a new one would be brought in: Winston. Though the character swap was confusing at first, Winston's addition to New Girl maintained the dynamics between Jess' new roommates without trying to copy Coach's personality and erasing what he brought to the table.

Rather than ignoring the fact that Coach was in the pilot episode of New Girl, the explanation was provided that Coach left the New Girl loft because he moved in with his girlfriend. This reflected the changes in the lives of young adults, which is something the producers wanted to show throughout New Girl. Not recasting Coach also allowed Wayans to return to the show later on, so it was a win-win situation all around.

Why Not Recasting Coach Was Good For New Girl

Coach's Departure Provided Character Growth For His Return

Ultimately, the Winston and Coach swap was a better resolution than simply recasting Coach after he left New Girl. While another show might have bitten the bullet and recast Coach (meaning huge reshoots for the pilot episode), New Girl's decision was a great call for the series. Not only was the explanation for Coach leaving New Girl after the pilot authentic to the story about the lives of people in their late 20s, but it helped give the character himself a strong arc.

Because New Girl's Coach wasn't recast, he could return to New Girl later on, and his penchant for moving around and struggling to find himself while also looking for a serious relationship ended up being an interesting core component of his character's journey.

Winston And Coach Are Used To Study Black Masculinity In Sitcoms

Having Winston And Coach Together Was A Subtly Groundbreaking Sitcom Milestone

In fleshing out the respective story arcs of Winston and Coach, New Girl featured two Black male leads coexisting in a sitcom with a predominantly white cast — a slyly groundbreaking move that has led to the show becoming a case study for Black masculinity in popular culture.

In Black Masculinity and White-cast Sitcoms: Unraveling Stereotypes in New Girl — the Master's thesis of Linköping University student Marie Zafimehy — it's noted how Winston and Coach's New Girl scenes broke down a boundary in sitcom casting, even though both characters would fall back into Black stereotypes several times throughout the series.

Zafimehy also points out how New Girl season 1 ed the Racial Bechdel Test but calibrated towards studying diversity and racial representation instead. Winston and Coach — New Girl's Black male leads — may not be perfect, but they did push sitcoms in a better direction when it came to representation. More importantly, these characters opened important discussions about Black masculinity and representation in pop culture — a crucial eye-opener for audiences facing increasingly complex shows and movies in the streaming age. Zafimehy also had this to say in her analysis of New Girl:

"As media platforms reflecting society and participating in the identity building of young people, sitcoms and popular culture in general need a representation of a positive and progressive Black masculinity, breaking from stereotypical traditional patterns of racial and gendered representations."

New Girl Was Often At Its Best With Both Winston & Coach In The Cast

The Sitcom's Best Seasons Include Both Characters

While having Winston replace New Girl ended up working well for the character of Coach in the long run, one of the other benefits of not recasting the role is that the show was eventually able to use both characters. Coach was a full-formed character in the pilot with Damon Wayans Jr. bringing enough to the role to make him memorable in only one episode. By contrast, Winston was an entirely new character who had to be developed and worked into the show as it was already moving forward.

There were issues with the character of Winston early on where it was clear the show didn't know exactly how to use him. However, by the time Coach returned, Winston was his own character and Coach slid back into the ensemble easily, making it even stronger. Seeing all four of the male stars bouncing off each other and ing Jess as the main character made for some of the best seasons of the show. Not only that, Wayans and Lamorne Morris proved to have wonderful chemistry together.

Coach and Winston's scenes together played on the absurdity of both characters, with each of the actors taking the personalities to extremes and making them even funnier. While the show was funny before and after Coach's return, seeing him share the screen with Winston and have them not battling for screen time but rather elevating each other helped to make New Girl a success.