Friday Night Lights

Unemployment didn't last long for Austin Nichols, the Austin-based actor who starred as the surfing savant in HBO's short-lived "John From Cincinnati." He will be appearing on the Austin-filmed Friday Night Lights this fall!

Nichols, who also appeared in HBO's "Deadwood," has come home for a guest role in the Austin-based NBC series about high school football and teenagers growing up in an often turbulent small town environment.

Austin will not appear in the October 5 Season 2 opener, "Last Days of Summer," but his multiple-episode story arc will begin soon after.

Friday Night Lights executive producer Sarah Aubrey will reveal few details but confirms that Nichols will play a teacher at Dillon High.

Best known in Central Texas as a water skiing champ, like his mother Kay Nichols, Nichols grew up on Lake Austin, attended Casis Elementary and McCallum High School in Austin before heading to the University of Southern California where he earned a degree in creative writing in 2002.