Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream, Book Review Example

The original source material for both the movie and the subsequent television show Friday Night Lights  is  considered with good reason to be an American sport’s classic, in fact Sports Illustrated  voted it one of the top ten sports books ever written.(Sports Illustrated.)

Written by Pulitzer prize winning author H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger, who is also known for the article “Shattered Glass“ (the source material for the 2003 movie about disgraced journalist Stephen Glass), Friday Night Lights is  a chronicle of a high school football teams struggles to make the state playoffs in the 1988 season.

The journey to Friday Night Lights started with Bissinger’s search for a small town in Middle America held together by high school sports. His search of the nation led him to the town of Odessa, Texas, where on an average Friday night 20,000 or more of the locals watched the Permian Panthers play football. Specifically he was looking for a place full of people like Bob Rutherford a realtor who encapsulated the Odessa spirit when he said, “life wouldn’t be worth livin’ if you didn’t have a high school football team top support.” (Bissinger Preface xliii)

In order to tell this story Bissinger left Philadelphia to embed himself in Odessa and chronicle the team for a complete season. As a self-professed sports addict and often contributor to Sport Illustrated, and sports writer with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Bissinger qualifications for his undertaking, are only surpassed by his zeal for the material. His eloquence paints a perfect picture of life in Odessa, which as the book exemplifies is far from perfect. Racism, subpar academics, neglect, and poverty abound in the city and become an important part of the story.

In the preface, the Panthers are battling though their last games of the season, a game that they lose and fail to make the state championships. The story follows the Panthers throughout the season leading up to that crushing loss. Once a boomtown built on oil, when the oil dried up Odessa sunk into poverty, who‘s primary joy is Permian High School football. As Bissinger leads us through the football season in Odessa, we find that many of the people are possessed with football, personifying Bob Rutherford’s words to idealist and unfortunate ends. Nothing is more important to many of the Odessa residents. We see racism and poverty divide a town, while football unites it for brief moments.

Written as a collective memoir of the players, coaches, and fans, Bissinger utilized multiple interviews from all manner of Odessa residents, in addition to his own observations to form the backbone of this narrative. Though he weaves in and out of characters to create a framework there are several people who standout: Gary Gaines, the head coach for Permian; the quarterback Mike Winchell, the running back James Miles aka “Boobie”, and Ivory Christian a linebacker.

Focusing on these individuals Bissinger is able to highlight the best and worst elements of Odessa. For example, the strength of Gary Gaines who is under what seems to be insurmountable pressure on a constant basis, always finds a way to persevere through losses. Or  Ivory Christian a deeply religious player who longs for a life outside of football and who’s ambivalence toward the sport is best defined in the opening sentence of the chapter dedicated to him: “there were moments when Ivory Christian loved the game he tried so much to hate“(Bissinger 119).

It seems at moments that Bissinger is disillusioned with his subject as the book unfolds. For example, early on he learns that the town is not completely united under the banner of the Permian Panthers because half of them supported the in-town rival Rebels. This is clearly demonstrated in chapter five entitled “Black and White.” Before this chapter, there were several indications of racism and poverty issue, but overall the preceding chapters focused on the charm of Odessa and several of the football players themselves. Starting with a racial epithet, this chapter delves into the deep racism that runs through Odessa. Reading through it one learns that school integration did not fully occur until 1982 (Bissinger 93). However even though Bissinger is clearly disenchanted with the blatant, graphic, racism, he never alters his tone to insult or talk down to his subjects.

Written in 1990, this book still holds as a great work of sports nonfiction and as a great unintentional commentary on socio-economic issues and race in America. In fact, after the preface and the introductory chapter Bissinger removes himself almost completely to serve as a camera recording the events in Odessa, unless the people he is documenting draw him into the story making him an active character, rather than merely an observer. As a result, this book is never schmaltzy or didactic, and instead is a smart heartfelt memoir of a sport’s team, whose captivating spirit embodies the hope, despair, successes, and failures that exist in every small American town.

References

Bissinger, H. G. (2006). Friday Night Lights: A town, A team, and A dream. New York: Da Capo.

Bechtel, McEntegart, Menez, Wertheim, (2002)The Top 100 Sports Books of All Time. Retrieved November 12, 2009 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/features/2002/top_sports_books/1/

Official HG Bissinger website http://www.buzzbissinger.com/bio.html