Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream
by H.G. Bissinger
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Book Summary Information
Author: H.G. BissingerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07
ISBN: 0306809907
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780306809903
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream
Book Review: Classic Tale of Perils of High School Sports Run Amok
Summary: 5 Stars
H.G. Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights" should be required reading for all fans of high school sports -- from the die-hard to the casual. Bissinger is equally adept at describing the highs and lows of the actual game of football -- a delight to all fans -- but the book's true power lies in its cautionary tale about placing high school football on an impossibly-high pedestal.
Granted unparalleled access to the key players in this drama, Bissinger tells a magnificently-detailed story of the 1988 Permian (Odessa, Texas) high school football team. Players, coaches, spouses, alumni, school officials, and others finds their way into this important story of misplaced priorities and hypocrisy interwoven with absolute devotion to the game of football.
Permian High may have the most successful football program in the country. Stuck in the middle of the Permian basis of west Texas, Odessa has nothing going for it in 1988 except football. Bissinger describes in hilarious, infuriating detail the economic wreck that is Odessa, circa 1988, following the colossal oil boom of the preceding years. (The descriptions of the west Texas spending spree are hilarious and shocking at the same time.) One of the most enjoyable chapters in the book, "Sisters," actually has little to do with football but instead focuses on the intense rivalry between hard-hat Odessa and Polo-shirt Midland, Texas (hint at the dynamics: you go to Midland to raise a family and you go to Odessa to raise hell). Odessa's 20% unemployment and silent oil rigs give the residents little to cheer about except the magnificent Panthers, who always compete for the 5-A state title despite fielding teams invariably smaller and shorter than their opponents.
Players are treated like gods, coaches are expendable unless they bring championships, and a (rare) loss finds 20,000 fans second-guessing every coach and player in blunt, profane language. Alumni recall glory days with equal parts fondness, pain, and anger. And teachers wonder why nobody cares about school anymore.
As the team marches towards the Holy Grail, the state championship, Bissinger explores several tough issues. Perhaps most shocking is the rampant racism that permeates Odessa. This features prominently in the story of running back Boobie Miles, a black kid literally from the wrong side of the tracks who has had everything given to him because of his astounding ability to run with the football. What happens to this pampered, spoiled, under-educated child when he blows out his knee is heartbreaking on about fifteen different levels. Other players have their own crosses to bear, each of which has its own poignancy. My favorite story involves Harvard-bound Brian Chavez and his father, but there are several fascinating sub-plots here.
But possibly the most shocking story in the book only indirectly involves Permian High. The mightiest team in the state is from Dallas, populated with super-spoiled jocks destined for Division I scholarships. This squad gets imbroiled in a grade-fixing scandal that rocks the state, and one cannot help at be disgusted with the priorities of several players, parents, school officials, and colleges in this immorality play. (And then, after the season, the Dallas team tops itself in the halls of shame in spectacular fashion that must be read to be believed.)
Through it all, Bissinger writes extremely well, using flashbacks and leapfrogging through time to keep the reader flipping those pages. Equally at home writing about the actual game of football as he is describing the off-field antics and history, Bissinger's book is one for the ages.
Full disclosure - I saw the film version of this story before reading the book. The film is excellent, but is an incredibly streamlined version of the tale (virtually no discussion of the oil boom, for example) that was also slightly altered for dramatic effect. If you have seen the movie, you must read the book to get the full story, and this is an important story.
A must-read for all parents of kids playing high school sports (or destined to play high school sports)!
Summary of Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream
Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa--the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday night from September to December, when the Permian High School Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, H. G. Bissinger chronicles a season in the life of Odessa and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires--and sometimes shatters--the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms.
Secular religions are fascinating in the devotion and zealousness they breed, and in Texas, high school football has its own rabid hold over the faithful. H.G. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, enters into the spirit of one of its most fervent shrines: Odessa, a city in decline in the desert of West Texas, where the Permian High School Panthers have managed to compile the winningest record in state annals. Indeed, as this breathtaking examination of the town, the team, its coaches, and its young players chronicles, the team, for better and for worse, is the town; the communal health and self-image of the latter is directly linked to the on-field success of the former. The 1988 season, the one Friday Night Lights recounts, was not one of the Panthers' best. The game's effect on the community--and the players--was explosive. Written with great style and passion, Friday Night Lights offers an American snapshot in deep focus; the picture is not always pretty, but the image is hard to forget.
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