Friday Night Lights

There is perhaps no better testament to the limited amount of reading that I did from about junior high until last fall then the fact that I just now got around to reading H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, a book that was published in 1990 when I was all of 10 years old. The book was a bestseller that has since been made into a highly successful movie (in 2004) and most recently spawned a TV show on NBC that has been critically acclaimed (and personally my favorite show on TV) but has not met with significant success, and was fortunate to get any kind of renewal for a 3rd season.

The book chronicles the story of the 1988 Permain Panthers, a high school football team from Odessa, Texas. At the time the book was written, Permian was one of the premier high school football programs in the state of Texas. The program fell from glory in the late 90s, and is only now starting to recover.

Much like the TV show, Friday Night Lights is not as much a football book as it is a book about the culture of high school football and it's impact on the community around it. The book looks at the impact the football culture had on racial relations, gender relations, education, and politics, among other aspects. While the author seems to view the players and the team itself with a reverence and nostalgia, he does not paint a particularly flattering portrait of the Odessa community and the Permian school system, and that has been a source of controversy since the book's release.

For my part, I've heard Bissinger on other topics before, and he's made his own politics rather evident. They would starkly in contrast with what you'd expect to final in the midst of West Texas. Given that, and the simple tendency of any writer to "juice things up", it wouldn't surprise me to find that some of the characterizations went a bit too far. And yet, much of what he gets into, particularly as it relates to the educational aspects, is consistent with what you see cropping up around major college football, so it's really not that hard to believe the same would apply at a football mad high school. If you want a really study in the tension between football in education, look into the story of Gary Edwards of Dallas Carter High School, the school that defeated that 1988 Permian team in the state semi-finals. It's pretty incredible, and a matter of public record due to the various court proceedings involved.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and found it quite a fascinating look at impact sports (obviously football in this case) can have on society. It also joins the list of books that I've finished in just over a week, evidence that I found it a pretty compelling read. The next book on my list is Last Dance, by John Feinstein. The book promises a behind the scenes look at college basketball's Final Four, and Feinstein is one of the more prominent sportswriters/authors of the last 20 years or so, though this will be the first book of his that I have read. I'm very much looking forward to it.