Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream is a 1990 non-fiction book written by H. G. Bissinger. The book follows the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team from Odessa, Texas, as they made a run towards the Texas state championship. While originally intended to be a Hoosiers-type chronicle of high school sports holding together a small town, the book ended up being critical of life in the town of Odessa. It was later adapted into a short-lived 1993 television series, a 2004 feature film, and a second 2006–11 television series.
Author
English
1990
United States
419 pages
796.332/63/09764862 20
GV958.P47 B57 1990
A Prayer for the City (1998)
Inspiration[edit]
Bissinger was a journalist for The Philadelphia Inquirer when he was selected as a Harvard Nieman Fellow. It was while he was at Harvard that the idea to write a book focused upon the role high school football plays within American society, in particular rural society, took hold. Bissinger returned to The Inquirer briefly, received a Pulitzer Prize, and then took off in search of a community for which high school football was paramount. He settled on Odessa, Texas. Permian High School and its football team, the Permian Panthers, had a substantial, rich history of winning in Texas' 4A and 5A divisions,[a] having won championships in 1965, 1972, 1980, and 1984. Bissinger moved his family to Odessa and spent the entire 1988 football season with the Permian Panther players, their families, their coaches, and even many of the townspeople in an effort to understand the town and its football-mad culture.
Summary[edit]
In the 1988 5A playoff semifinals, Permian meets Dallas Carter Cowboys, a predominantly black team. In a hard fought game in the rain at Memorial Stadium in Austin, the Panthers are defeated 14–9. Dallas Carter, led by future Miami Hurricanes and New York Giants linebacker Jessie Armstead, goes on to win the state championship, 31-14 over the Judson Rockets from Coverse; Dallas Carter soon faced severe penalties for their grade tampering, giving the 1988 state championship to Judson.
Investigation[edit]
While Bissinger, who had taken a leave of absence from reporting for The Philadelphia Inquirer to follow the team and write Friday Night Lights, was writing the book, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) investigated the Permian Panthers football program, alleging that Bissinger took players out to eat and paid for the meals while interviewing them for the book, a violation of amateur rules. It was reported that he also paid for Boobie Miles's car in exchange for an interview.[2]
Legacy[edit]
The book inspired the short-lived television series Against the Grain (1993) starring a young Ben Affleck.
A movie version of Friday Night Lights was made and then released in the United States on October 6, 2004. It starred Billy Bob Thornton as Permian Coach Gary Gaines. The film was a box office and critical success and, in turn, spawned the NBC television series of the same name, which ran for five seasons from 2006 to 2011.[11]