Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.g. Bissinger Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
Book Review: Searing
Summary: 5 Stars
FRINDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is a deeply disturbing book. It deserves a wide audience. While outwardly, football is the focus of the book, the books delivers a devastating critique not only of false dreams and hopes, but of class and racial devides. As I was reading FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, I could not help comparing Odessa Permian with "Laketown High School"(Yorktown, West Chester NY), as portrayed in Richard Woodley's magnificent TEAM: A HIGH SCHOOL ODYSSEY (published in the early 1970s, and out of print). Like Bissinger, Woodley the journalist spent his time with "Laketown" football team. The contrast between Odessa and "Laketown" could not be more different. The difference? One can start off by the leadership and teaching roles of the two head coaches. The other factors, of course, is the role of football plays in various communities. Two weeks ago (August 1999), I drove by Odessa (it was hot and dusty) on my way back from San Diego, and I was reminded of the characters portrayed in the book: Boobie Miles (what are you doing now, Boobie?), the earnest QB with the wobbly pass, and the TE who went to Harvard.Book Review: FASCINATING BUT DEPRESSING
Summary: 3 Stars
H.G. Bissinger's account of the fortunes of a high school football team during the 1988 season is a genuinely unsettling exploration of the dominant role that sports occupies in American culture. As abrasive and uncompromising as the empty west Texas prairie that surrounds it, the racially and economically-divided oil town of Odessa is a community in decline. The Permian Panthers football team, the most successful high school team in state history, is the only stable feature around which the town, bankrupted by the boom-bust oil economy of the eighties, can base any sense of identity. Such is the unbelievable extent of the town's obsession with the team, that one often forgets that the players Bissinger writes about are not seasoned professionals or even highly-touted college stars, but 17- and 18-year old high school kids. The pampered treatment that the players receive at school and from the community is disquieting, and it becomes clear that without Permian football, the people of Odessa would have nothing with which to give their lives structure and meaning. In this way, Friday Night Lights examines the relationship between a sports team and a community that occupies such an intriguing and integral role in the American identity. Bissinger's observations moreover highlight the disturbing inadequacies of an education system continually relegated to second place behind athletic success. A fascinating, if ultimately depressing book, that is as much an indictment of life in the heartland of Reagan-era America as it is of the more general nationwide obsession with sports.Book Review: A microcosm of American life
Summary: 5 Stars
In short, this book is a highly significant piece of work (even more significant in the light of recent world events), and I would reccomend it to anyone who is interested in gaining a little more insight into why the US behaves in the way it does. And by doing so, perhaps Europeans (especially British people) will be able to let go of some of their own fanatical and misguided beliefs about this country. No way I can explore every avenue that this book opens up, elaborate on every theme, but put it is this way, its not about football, not much anyway. In essence, I think its about the effects of isolation, and what happens when the only way of relieving physical isolation (education) falls by the wayside so that one football team can beat the rest. Just read it.Book Review: "Can you be perfect?"
Summary: 3 Stars
Based on a true story, this film presents the odyssey of the Permian Panthers in their 1988 season. The Panthers are a high school football team from Odessa, Texas, that at the start of the season looks like the strongest candidate to take the state championship. The high hopes are based in great part on the presence of Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) and his incredible ability for playing football. Not only can he play his position, running back, in excellent fashion, but he can also pass, receive, block, you name it. The offers from the most prestigious universities are pouring in, and he is at the top of the world. But everything comes tumbling down for him and for the Panthers when he gets a knee injury in the first game of the season. Now the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the rest of the team: an average quarterback, a supporting cast that was used to being "carried" by the star, and a coach that some people think is earning a salary that is too high. The burden is even larger, since each player has personal issues he has to deal with. For example, the QB Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) has to take care of his sick mother who has mental problems. Others have to endure the abuse by their fathers, who see themselves in the kids and push them beyond their limits.
The movie succeeds in showing the significance of teamwork and of how important it is to believe on yourself. It also shows that in some town across the US, football is almost the only thing that counts, and high school kids end up carrying the hopes and dreams of the whole population, which given their age and maturity level may be considered unfair. A similar picture is presented in John Grisham book "Bleachers".
As to the acting, the only person worth pointing out is Billy Bob Thornton, who as usual delivers a high quality performance. Luke and Black are the other actors that get a fair amount of "acting" time and provide us with acceptable performances. This is a good movie but it is definitely not among the best football films out there. 3.5 stars
Book Review: A crescendo of failed dreams
Summary: 5 Stars
I have only limited reading experiences of non-fictional sports books, and by and large this is not something I regret. Books (ghost) written by sportman, or by biographers risk being stultifying boring - think of the collective charisma of Nigel Mansell, Nick Faldo and Alan Shearer, or, if they are written by a fan about a particular sport, club, match etc, they have the tendency to remind you of exactly what word "fan" is a derivative off - books written for the devout.All this should however be set aside when reading Friday Night Lights. The most obvious and striking thing about the book being that it should be a non-fictional account written in such emotional, at times highly charged prose that would normally be indicative of a fictional narrative. It would be perfectly possible - if you skipped the authors introduction - to read it as simply as an east-coast outsiders cliched fictional take on Texan small-town life, townsfolk worshippers at the alter of petroleum dollors, conversations peppered with references to "niggers" and other undesirables, and an unhealthy addiction to high school football, matched in fervour perhaps only by a religious adherence to the Republican party.
What makes the novel work is that this is not seen through the eyes of a condesending outsider but one who in part likes and admires those in Odessa he has been fortunate enough to live and work with whilst following the fate of the Permian Panthers. Its strange but the very parochialism and rough edges that are usually sand-papered over in books about major sports teams and athletes serves to make this particular account broader and informative, not reduced simply to a black and white rendition of athletic achievement. I hasten to suggest that someone who isn't a fan of American Football could pick up and enjoy this book in the same way I (someone interested in the sport) did, but unlike say, an account of the history of Manchester United FC I do at least think it possible.
Whereas the forces of commercialism and Satellite TV have long since severed any meaningful linkage between MUFC and the Mancunian community, robbing any comtemporary account of MUFC of any local context or comptemporary societal trends, big bucks and TV rights, are - fortunantly, if just for the sake of this broad, open range book - entirely irrelevent to the down to heel charm of the Oddessan version of football.
Think of this book as Annie Proulx for guys, a varied and interesting synopsis of not just players, teams, formations and games, but a whole way of life.