book review friday night lights

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Friday night lights: a town, a team, and a dream, common sense media reviewers.

Stunning investigation into sports mania has mature themes.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Readers find out about the ritual and discipline o

Friday Night Lights acts as a cautionary tale abou

Characters are not presented here as role models s

As an exploration of the cult of masculinity throu

A mention that in tthe past, three football payers

Frequent reference to and quoting of profanity, ra

Underage drinking is commonplace and widely accept

Parents need to know that Friday Night Lights, first published in 1990, inspired a well-regarded movie and TV series. Excellently written and reported, it investigates the perks and pitfalls of football culture in a small Texas town in the late-1980s. It deals frankly with racism, sexism, homophobia, underage…

Educational Value

Readers find out about the ritual and discipline of high school football, as well as the politics, economics, religions, and values of a small town in Texas.

Positive Messages

Friday Night Lights acts as a cautionary tale about the risks and rewards of football fever.

Positive Role Models

Characters are not presented here as role models so much as real-life representatives of small-town America, ordinary people whose lives illustrate the perks and pitfalls of sports-obsessed culture. As such the characters are realistically flawed.

Violence & Scariness

As an exploration of the cult of masculinity through sports, Friday Night Lights takes as its very premise the violent culture of football. There are frank discussions of injury, tackles, fights on and off the field, and the general rough-and-tumble existence of rural American life where education's not a priority.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A mention that in tthe past, three football payers had left school one afternoon to go have sex with a sophomore girl. The girl took Polaroid pictures at the time to prove she had "made it with three of the baddest Carter Cowboys"' and then showed them around school.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent reference to and quoting of profanity, ranging from casual, such as "s--t" and "goddamn" to stronger terms like "pussy," "whore," the "N" word, and other racial slurs like "wetback."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Underage drinking is commonplace and widely accepted in community attitudes; underage football players regularly receive gifts of pre-game six-packs. Drinking appears entrenched in the culture, with some characters drinking as early as 5th grade in full view of parents, who often encourage or enable it. There's also frank discussion of the dangers and health risks of alcoholism.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Friday Night Lights, first published in 1990, inspired a well-regarded movie and TV series . Excellently written and reported, it investigates the perks and pitfalls of football culture in a small Texas town in the late-1980s. It deals frankly with racism, sexism, homophobia, underage drinking, and the glorification of sports and masculinity. Such mature themes make it a better read for older kids, and a great launchpad for discussion.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (4)

Based on 1 parent review

Great Books

What's the story.

In Odessa, a small town in Texas, football is a way of life that galvanizes a whole community. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, the book that launched the TV show (and film ) chronicles this town in 1988 as the Permian Panthers and six of its key players make their way through a yearlong season. Caught in the endless cycle of boom and bust that plagues many oil towns, the entire city turns its gaze to the Panthers, who offer a Friday night counternarrative of glory and victory to this otherwise ordinary existence. But there's a dark side to the football fever, evident in the underbelly of entrenched racism, homophobia, sexism, and segregation in the town. Will football uplift Odessa and the team players who sacrifice their lives, academics, and bodies for it, or will it take as much from them as it gives?

Is It Any Good?

Friday Night Lights is an excellent, if uneasy, read. Anyone who attended a high school where sports seemed bigger than books -- and that would be lots of them -- will feel a familiar tug at the description of athletes loafing by on low academic expectations, on the pulse of a school that beats fastest on Friday night. But this book pulls back the curtain on football fever and offers a deeply detailed, nuanced look at the risks and rewards of such fervor -- the way racism may disappear on the field but persists the next day in the hallways, the way the very parents who themselves saw their lives derailed by physical injury encourage their sons to take the same risk, the way girls and minorities forever play second fiddle in the cult of masculinity -- and emerges with a troubling, sympathetic portrait.

This book's mature themes make it better for older kids, and great for parents to engage with those readers about the thornier issues of American life, most of which are fresh today, in spite of the book's original publication date of 1990.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about racism in small towns. How does the depiction of racism in Odessa compare to racism today? Do you think small towns are still like this, or is the book a relic of the past? How are things different now? How are they the same?

How does the balance of sports and academics measure up at your school? What are the attitudes reflected in your school about the importance of learning vs. sports?

Friday Night Lights shows football as a one-way ticket to glory and fame, but a short-lived achievement with big risks. What price do many of the team members pay for their devotion to sports? What's life like after football for them?

Book Details

• Author : H.G. Bissinger
• Genre : Sports
• Topics : Sports and Martial Arts , High School
• Book type : Non-Fiction
• Publisher : Da Capo
• Publication date : August 11, 2000
• Number of pages : 400
• Available on : Paperback, Nook, Audiobook (abridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
• Last updated : July 1, 2015

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Reflecting On Football And Addiction As 'Friday Night Lights' Turns 25

Friday Night Lights

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Twenty-seven years ago, journalist Buzz Bissinger decided that he wanted to write about the big-time stakes of small-town high school football — he just needed to find the right town. At the suggestion of a college recruiter, he visited Odessa, a west Texas town with a high school football stadium capable of seating 19,000 — and a population of approximately 90,000.

"Odessa is just kind of a dusty, gritty place," Bissinger tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "And I see that stadium ... and it's like a rocket ship on the desert."

In 1988, he moved his family to Odessa so he could spend a year following the Odessa Permian Panthers, their families and their fans. The resulting book, Friday Night Lights, sold 2 million copies, and inspired a movie and a TV show.

Now, in a 25th anniversary reissue Friday Night Lights, Bissinger checks in on the players from Odessa's 1988 team to find out how they fared after their playing days were over.

"For a lot of kids, life peaks at 18 in Odessa, it just does. You're playing in front of 19,000 people, you're the god of the town, you're a rock star, but you don't spend the rest of your life being that kind of star," he says.

Bissinger discusses his own struggles following the success of Friday Night Lights , as well as his addiction to buying leather clothing and his recent Vanity Fair cover story on Caitlyn Jenner.

Interview Highlights

Buzz Bissinger is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Dom Savini hide caption

Buzz Bissinger is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.

On the role of football in Odessa, Texas

When they would travel to the school, to the stadium there was a caravan of police cars, you would've thought it was the president, basically. ... When they flew to certain away games, particularly — Texas is a big state — chartered jet. I'm talking chartered jet. ... I think the year I was there it cost about $60,000 ... paid for [by] boosters and I think the school kicked in some money. More money was spent on getting rushed game tapes — so they would get them that Saturday overnight — than was spent on books and supplies for the English Department. ...

I heard that they preempted a national league baseball playoff game because the [Odessa] Permian [vs.] Midland Lee game was put on television, and on and on it went.

On the controversy of the book in Odessa and some of the town feeling deceived by him

I was there for a reason. I was first and foremost a journalist. They knew I was a journalist. ... Did they trust me? Of course. Did [I] want them to trust me? Of course. But when I heard the n-word used repeatedly, when I heard the n-word used to describe a tragic black running back ... who is now in prison, when I heard those things, what am I going to do? Not put it in? Issue a Miranda warning saying, "Don't say that anymore! Don't go there!" ...

More On 'Friday Night Lights'

Kyle Chandler: Playing A Coach On 'Friday Night'

Behind The Scenes Of 'Friday Night Lights'

Connie Britton, Lighting Up Friday Nights

There's total truth in the book and I've made my peace with Odessa. Frankly, I don't think they've made their peace with me. I'm going down there for the 25th anniversary edition and Odessa College and the university there said, "No, no, he can't speak there, it's still too controversial." I will not take back a single word of it. ... There's a lot of love in this book. There's a lot of love for the scrappiness of Odessa and there's a lot of love for those kids, the sacrifice, the burden, the pressure, and there's a lot of love for those games. I actually think it's a very even-handed portrait.

On the difficulties high school football stars sometimes face once their playing days are over

For a lot of these players [they have] sort of this glazed look in their eye saying, "What happened? What happened to the crowds? What happened to the attention?" Because no one is more lonely and isolated than a former player who comes back to the locker room. There's a pat on the back and the coach says, "Hey, it's great to see you, man," but then no one cares, nobody cares. They get shell-shocked.

On former running back Boobie Miles, who is now in prison

Boobie was basically treated as a football animal. He was pushed through school without any demands. He basically had a tutor who gave him the answer to all the questions. There was no attempt to educate him at all. I never saw him play because in a preseason scrimmage, in a silly play that was meaningless, his cleat got caught in the turf, he blew out his knee. ...

Boobie lived for football. He was told to live for football. His uncle who took care of him, he lived for football. That was his only persona in school and when he lost that I saw him dissolve. I saw him fall apart. I saw every dream he had fall to pieces and I saw that town, and I will never take this back, I saw that town turn totally against him after loving him and extolling him when they found another running back who was good or maybe better named Chris Comer and that's when the n-word came out.

"A big, dumb ol' n-[word]" — and that was a coach, that was an assistant coach who is a nice guy ... and I heard boosters laughing one day on the sidelines and sort of comparing Boobie to a horse. "What do you do when a horse is pulled up lame? You shoot 'em. You shoot 'em."

I saw this over and over and I've kept in touch with Boobie since the book in 1990 — for 25 years and I don't think he's ever, ever, ever recovered. The last time I saw him, it's in the new afterword, the last time I saw him [he] was wearing a white prison uniform. I think collectively, because of the way we view sports and the way we view African-Americans, we all bear responsibility.

On feeling like a "one-hit wonder" with Friday Night Lights

It reached a point that I hated hearing about Friday Night Lights. I heard about it all the time. I still hear about it all the time. People ask me, "What did you think about the television show?" I say, "I don't watch it." They say, "Why don't you watch it? It was inspired by your book!'

Because I didn't want to hear about it anymore, because when the book came out, writing the book was delicious, what I miss the most is that magic moment of being young and innocent and my kids are young and here you are, you know it's a great story. I miss that intensity of connection.

But the book came out, it was a big best-seller, it came out of nowhere, the reviews were incredible, it kept selling and kept selling and kept selling, then the movie comes out, and it sells more and more and more, about 2 million copies, but I've written other books! ...

I wrote a book about Philadelphia that I feel was my best book, A Prayer for the City . Friday Night Lights — 2 million copies, A Prayer for the City — about 42,000 copies. It was hard, it was hard, because I felt like a one-hit wonder. I felt like sort of the nonfiction equivalent of the high school quarterback. All these cheers, all these accolades. ... It got to me, it gnawed at me and that feeling increased where I felt an intense feeling of failure.

On his shopping addiction

It's a shopping addiction but it's a sexual addiction. ... It was leather. I have a leather fetish, which is fine, but my shopping became compulsive. I had to get packages. It's much better, but it's still there. Three, four packages a day. I bought a lot of women's clothing, and you know what? I like women's clothing. I've cross-dressed. I like cross-dressing. My wife knows it, my kids know about it. ...

I bought a lot of boots. I bought stiletto boots. I bought leather jackets. I had over 100 leather jackets, and probably close to 100 pairs of leather pants. I mean, in your lifetime you probably can't wear all that stuff. I spent over $500,000.

On how the leather addiction is a sex addiction

Leather has become kind of a sexual icon to me. The reason why? I became obsessed with it at a very young age. I had a difficult relationship with my mother, who always wore leather gloves. There was a teacher in kindergarten who wore leather gloves and thought I was stupid, so I fixated on that. Why? I don't know. But I fixated and I tried to repress it. And I did not wear a stitch of leather until I was 40 years old. I was very good at repressing things. And then I began when I was 40 and in my 50s it became completely out of control. It was a complicated sexual addiction — that was the diagnosis when I went into rehab ... and also I was going through an all-purpose breakdown. I was playing around ... with S&M by myself, wearing paraphernalia that could be very dangerous, could've killed me, and I didn't really care. I didn't really care.

On how his gender identity relates to Cait lyn Jenner, whom he profiled in Vanity Fair

I think I do have some gender confusion, but actually, in doing the Vanity Fair piece on Caitlyn Jenner I learned a lot about transgender men and women and I learned about various psycho-sexual conditions, because I remember asking Caitlyn Jenner, "Do you get a sexual charge from wearing women's clothing?" And [Jenner] said, "No, not at all. For me I was born a woman, I happen to be in a man's body, so to speak, but I was born Caitlyn Jenner."

So what [Jenner] is going through is much, much deeper. For me it is related to a kind of sexual turn-on. ... Do I have gender confusion? Definitely. Am I more open about this because I feel that we should gender-bend? I don't know. Men have women characteristics, women have men characteristics, I hate going to clothing stores and there's a men's section and women's section because you become stigmatized. I mean who the hell cares? ... It's very hard to be different in this country, extremely hard.

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An appalling but altogether engrossing appreciation of why high-school football is not just a game in one all-too-typical...

READ REVIEW

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

by H.G. Bissinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 28, 1990

An appalling but altogether engrossing appreciation of why high-school football is not just a game in one all-too-typical Texas city.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer , Bissinger took a year's leave of absence to settle in Odessa, a down-at-the-heel oil town (population ca. 100,000) in the western part of the Lone Star State. While the municipality's economic fortunes wax and wane with those of the energy industry, its heart is ever true to the Permian Panthers, one of America's premier high-school football teams. Since 1964, Permian has won five state championships and made the playoffs 17 times. Few of the overachieving teenagers who compiled these records, however, have gone to to college, let alone professional, gridiron careers, and many have suffered debilitating injuries as well as psychological traumas on the hard road to short-lived glory. Bissinger offers a tellingly detailed account of Permian's 1988 season, which extended from August through mid-December, when the squad lost a semifinal title contest by one point. Letting the facts speak largely for themselves, he documents how community pressures force educators to turn a blind eye to the means used to keep youthful athletes eligible to compete on Friday nights throughout the fall and early winter. The author also shows the insidious ways in which the tradition of autumnal madness affects students, their parents, elected officials, and the local populace as well as teachers. In brief, he demonstrates, to say that Odessa--with its pep rallies, motorcades, wildly cheering crowds at a stadium that seats 20,000, and insistence on nothing less than total victory--overemphasizes the so-called sport of high-school football is vastly to understate the case.

A sorry tale, well told, of a fearful misallocation of resources, human and otherwise.

Pub Date: Sept. 28, 1990

ISBN: 0306809907

Page Count: -

Publisher: Addison-Wesley

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1990

Categories: NONFICTION

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Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger

• Publication Date: October 3, 2012
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• ISBN-10: 0306809907
• ISBN-13: 9780306809903
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Friday Night Lights

Buzz bissinger, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

In Friday Night Lights , reporter and writer Buzz Bissinger , from Philadelphia, moves with his family to West Texas during the 1988 Permian High School football season. Bissinger intends to document that team’s ups and downs as it pursues a state championship. Located in Odessa, near the much larger and more affluent city of Midland, and in the middle of West-Texas oil country, Permian High has a long tradition of football excellence, and much of the school’s energies are devoted to football—occasionally at the expense of academic rigor, and of fairness to students who do not play.

Bissinger introduces several key players for the Permian Panthers, also known by their nickname MOJO: Ivory Christian , a gifted middle linebacker; Boobie Miles , a mercurial running back, whose season is cut short by a knee injury; Brian Chavez , whose excellent defensive abilities are matched only by his strong academic performance in the classroom; Jerrod McDougal , another defensive player, whose father has experienced professional trouble after the oil bust of the late ‘80s; Mike Winchell , a talented but anxious quarterback; and Don Billingsley , a running back whose father, Charlie , was once a star on the Permian team, and is now a troubled alcoholic.

As the season progresses, Bissinger tracks the performance of each of these players, and of their parents and guardians (most notably, Boobie’s uncle LV ), as they cheer on the Panthers. Permian begins the season well, with a blow-out victory, but loses a tough game out of conference to Marshall, only to bounce back with another blow-out win, only to lose a close game to Midland Lee, perhaps Permian’s closest rival. Permian wins out the remainder of the season, going 7-2, but its coach, Gary Gaines , must win a coin flip with the coaches of Midland Lee and Midland High, in order for Permian to make the playoffs. Gaines, along with the Midland Lee coach, win the flip, and Permian makes a run toward the state title, ultimately into the final four, where it loses a tough game to a Dallas school, Carter High School, in the state semifinals.

Throughout this narrative, Bissinger tells the twin story of the ups and downs of the town of Odessa: its rivalry with local economic power Midland, where George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara once lived; its difficulties with issues of race ( black-white tension) and segregation; the educational compromises school districts in Texas make in order to favor their football teams. By the end of the book, Bissinger’s commentary on football in Texas is mixed. Although he identifies it as a source of pride for many Texas communities, he, like some local politicians and advocates, fears that far too much pressure is placed on the shoulders of 17 and 18 year-old boys, who feel that, once football is gone in high school, their lives are over. Bissinger wonders whether it is healthy for societies to claim that, for some of its “chosen” players, life never gets better than their senior year in high school, and, also, whether it is healthy for the communities themselves that they place so much more emphasis on football as opposed to other things.

Friday Night Lights

By h. g. bissinger.

• Friday Night Lights Summary

The story begins in the middle of August 1988, just before the football season begins. Inside the field house is a picture of each player who had made All-State during the last 29 years. They hang immortalized in a picture frame, a reminder of what glory looks like. The field house is also draped in Permian white and black with various nostalgic items carefully placed. To the people of Odessa, this field house holds more significance than any museum or cultural landmark. Odessa Texas was settled in the 1880’s by a group of men from Zanesville, Ohio. They had lofty dreams of turning Odessa into a destination town complete with electric trolley cars. Unfortunately the land was useless to farm and risky to even raise livestock. Odessa’s future would not be realized until oil and gas deposits were found beneath its desert-like fields. Consequently Odessa became an oil town subject to the boom and bust periods of the international energy economy. Odessa is colloquially described as the “arm pit of Texas,” with the atmosphere of “a place rooted in the sweet nostalgia of the fifties” (64). Whatever Odessa lacks in wealth or amenities, it always has high school football. Expectations were always high that the team would make the state championship. Coach Gaines realizes what the town expects of him and his team, but he also knows that nothing is a sure thing in the crazy world of American high school football.

Chapter two begins with the annual school “Watermelon Feed." The event is designed to showcase the team for that year. People come to this event like their civic duty of the utmost importance. Bissinger describes the atmosphere as part pep rally and part hero-worship of young gladiators. Bissinger is quick to add that there is a tradeoff for these young athletes. In exchange for broken bones and pulled tendons, they are treated like royalty in the school. The cheerleading squad, the Pepettes, hover over the players like their personal geisha girls. Boobie Miles is introduced as the player who will take this team all the way to the state finals while his uncle L.V looks over the spectacle gushing with pride.

Boobie is a black player from the poor side of Odessa. Being a football player who seemingly has it all, he has transcended many of the racial roadblocks that plague less gifted young Negro mortals. American colleges and universities had been courting Boobie since his junior year, despite the fact that the boy reads at a grade five level. Permian is involved in a scrimmage game against the Palo Duro High School Dons. As always Boobie is having a spectacular game except this time something happens.

Boobie’s invincibility is shattered during a pre-season scrimmage against the Palo Duro High School Dons. As usual Boobie is flying across the field, seemingly unstoppable. This time one of Boobie’s coveted black Nike cleats gets stuck in the turf and another player falls on Boobie’s left knee. Trapper , the team trainer feels Boobie’s knee and is worried that Boobie will never play the same way again. Boobie’s Uncle L.V. watches in the stands, his greatest fears are coming true. LV. Knew that Boobie was one significant injury away from becoming damaged merchandise and cast aside like a used up battery. L.V. was knew how the only respect a black boy could get in Odessa was through football. L.V. grew up in a separate part of town known as “Niggertown." Everything was segregated back then, even high school sports. L.V dreamed of playing football but the closest he would ever get to the Friday Night Lights would be to live vicariously through his nephew some twenty-five years later. LV. Had taken Boobie in from being bounced around foster homes. When desegregation became law, Boobie attended high school and his football majesty seemed almost foreordained. Boobie was classified as learning disabled. This allowed Boobie to escape the regular classes and College Board exams. It, however, meant that he would have to wait a year after high school to improve his academics before going to college. This didn’t stop some major institutions of higher learning from courting Boobie, even though he could barely read their letters to him. One coach’s sentiments, echoed by the general white community, suggested that if Boobie’s injury took him out of football, he would just be another, “big ol’ dumb nigger” (67). Boobie’s injury also spelled tragedy for coach Gains who had built his offence around Boobie’s athletic abilities.

Mike Winchell ’s father is dying. Mike is in his thirteenth year and football is difficult to concentrate on while his father’s life slips away. Mike’s father had been the cornerstone of his sporting mindset, a mindset built on respect and perseverance. Mike’s father had started coaching him in little league instilling these qualities in his son. Although Mike was going to play Permian football instead of baseball, the virtues he possessed would remain the same. After his father died, Mike’s brother Joe Bill refused to let Mike leave Odessa to come and live him. Joe Bill argued that their father would have wanted him to stay and play Permian football, his father would have wanted him to go to college.

Mike would stay on in Odessa, living with his sick mother in an old dilapidated house. We are next introduced to Don Billingsley , the starting tailback for Permian. On this day Don scores a touchdown and his father, Charlie Billingsley , looks on in admiration. Charlie had been a legend in Permian football twenty years prior to watching his son skirting across the field in black and white. Charlie had worn the black and white of Permian 20 years before this point: he was as a star, a legend. He was a tough kid who used to fight a lot but his football skill kept him out of any major trouble. Charlie had high hopes even after high school football. He signed on with Texas A & M University only to discover he was no longer special on the field. At university Charlie was not worshiped, he was easily expendable if he did not perform. Despondent at his lack of status, he transferred to a small College in Oklahoma. A few drunken bar-fights later, Charlie dropped out of college and went into the tavern business. Don would come to live with him in order to play for Permian. Every day Don would get an overstated pep talk about his father’s football glory days and what could have been. After a series of mistakes on the field, Chris Comer replaces Don. Chris happens to be black and Don reverts to racist rants that seem to come so easy to many whites in Odessa.

It is difficult to understand how the derogatory word “nigger” remains firmly entrenched in Odessa vocabulary in 1988. Still it remains because people don’t believe that saying the word means they are racist or that they even dislike blacks. Many whites believe that there are two versions of black people: hard-working blacks who are thought of as white, and dependent, needy, thieving blacks. Blacks are treated as inferior to whites, with Hispanics inhabiting that dubious space in between. Lanita Akins is one of the few whites that find racism offensive regardless of how it is justified. She points to the railroad tracks that run through the center of town. These tracks are Odessa’s version of the Berlin Wall. Although segregation in America officially ended in 1964, apparently Odessa never got that memo.

Anyone visiting Odessa from more populated centers might think that they were caught in a time warp. The town refused to acknowledge or validate desegregation until they were forced to in the early 1980’s. Of the three high schools in Odessa, one was 90 % minority based and the other two were 90% plus white based. As it turns out the lack of desegregation was based more on what would happen to the Permian football team rather than just “good old Southern racism.” There was some irony in this situation as well. Black parents from the non-white school of Ector were against desegregation if it meant the closing of their school. Permian parents were worried that desegregation would destroy their football team, their last bastion of white glory. It wasn’t until the obvious finally dawned on the white population of Odessa. Desegregation would transfer some fabulous black athletes to Permian. The racial rhetoric waned and finally, in 1982, Odessa adhered to a federal law that was instituted eighteen years earlier.

Bissinger turns his attention to Ivory Christian . Ivory is ambivalent about football. For Ivory, the game is a curious paradox of loathing the game with being obsessed with it. Ivory had grown up in the Southside where Permian Mojo was waved in front of the black population like some exclusive white fraternity. Ivory doesn’t see a future in college football so he doesn’t take ACT or the SAT entrance exams. He is also furious when he is temporarily relieved of his position because of lack of enthusiasm. Still football is in his blood and no pre-game preparation is complete without the sound of Ivory vomiting somewhere in the locker room. The game against Marshall is a good example of the pressure that coach Gaines is under. After a silly mistake by the player Johnny Celey, Gaines uncharacteristically screams at Johnny. This is an example of the unrelenting pressure placed on coach Gaines to win at any cost. Marshall eventually wins the game; it is Permian’s first non-conference loss in nine years. The loss provides enough fodder for the town sling at coach Gaines.

The character of Don Billingsley is explored further. Despite the pep rally Don’s mind is on the evening game. Don breezes through his classes, paying little attention to the lessons. His lack of motivation is tacitly accepted by most of the school’s staff. Don Billingsley’s lack of motivation represents the wider failure of the school as an academic institution. The SAT scores have dropped since the seventies and the school had only one National Merit Scholar that year. Some blame the influx of Hispanics to the community and others blame desegregation for the school’s lack of academic success. Apparently nobody blames the community’s rabid obsession with football as a contributing factor.

The girls at Permian follow gender roles reminiscent of 1950’s America. Virtually every girl at Permian dreams of being a Pepette. These are girls who exclusively devote themselves to the football players. Each Pepette is assigned to a specific player. They act as domestic servants for their appointed player by cooking them football themed deserts or making signs for them. If a girl is blessed with a keen intellect, they simply “dumb down” themselves to fit into Permian school culture. Players like Don Billingsley enjoy a bizarre hero status among many girls at Permian; it is a status that affords them everything from getting their books carried to getting paid for sex.

Like Don Billingsley, Brian Chavez is a jock. This is where the similarities between the two end. Unlike Don, Brian is academically at the top of his classes. He is fearless on the field and in his studies. Unlike most players who don the Permian colors. Brian holds the distinction of potential success regardless whether football works out or not. Brian’s favorite teacher is LaRue Moore. She is a dynamic English teacher who laments the priorities of the school and the community. Although a fan of Permian football, she regrets that academics have been largely been sacrificed for football glory. The narrative shifts back to Boobie Miles as a perfect example of what is wrong with Odessa’s education system. A typical day for Boobie at school involves joking around in his classes or playing with an object for his amusement. Boobie is at least two years behind than his peers in all his subjects. This doesn’t seem a concern for Boobie or the school as he breezes through his classes without having to write a sentence or subtract a number.

The night before the fourth game of the season, Coach Gaines makes an impassioned speech to his staff and team. Gaines gives one of his parables to inspire his kids: this one being about a Confederate scout during the Civil War. The theme of his story has to with friendship and loyalty. The boys seem to understand but they also feel the vulnerability of having been defeated during the season. This game has added significance; the match pits the predominantly Hispanic West side, represented by Odessa High, against the predominantly white working class East side, represented by Permian. The author then goes into a short socio-political history of these cross- town rivals. Ethnic divisions certainly play a part in this rivalry. Permian will eventually win this game by a score of 35-7.

Permian’s next game is against the Midland High Bulldogs. Many Permian fans camp outside of Ratliff Stadium on Sunday night to get a jump on buying tickets. There is the usual tension in the air before the game. Coach Gaines gives his usual pep talk and parable followed by the requisite group chant, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” By half time Permian has a commanding 35-0 lead over Midland. Tony Chavez watches over his son from the stands. Brian Chavez has been unrelenting in this game, he barely allows his opponent to breath before hitting him with a bone crushing tackle. Tony Chavez is unlike much of this Odessa crowd. He is a successful lawyer with his own busy practice. Although he supports Mojo football financially, his political views are a lot more liberal than the largely staunchly conservative community of Odessa. The game ends with a decisive Permian victory. The boys line the field like Spartan war heroes basking in the endless adulation of the people. It is difficult to forget that these are merely boys going to high school.

The next day George Bush visits Odessa. Unlike the realities of Odessa, the town looks happy, united and white. The social and economic tragedies that pervade blacks, Hispanics and low income whites have been tucked away long enough for Bush to make his speech and fly out a few minutes later. Everyone is happy with Bush’s speech that was filled with “white” Southern values. To most white Odessans, George Bush represents Republican conservative decency where as Michael Dukakis represents hoards of Democratic race mixing liberals wanting a free handout.

It has been five weeks since Boobie Miles has left the field, five weeks in which he would agonize over the prospect of personal oblivion. When Booby steps onto the field again, he is an afterthought. Booby wears the shame of the white jersey that is meant for second-string players. The coaches have little faith that Boobie’s knee will hold up in a game. Boobie suits up for a match against the Abilene High Eagles. Boobie shows glimpses of his former greatness but they are short lived. Boobie is tentative on the field. He has lost the reckless abandon that allowed him to score 232 yards in a single game. His knee is vulnerable, visible to any player that wants to take a shot at it. L.V watches his nephew uneasily from the stands. He fears his nephew is one accident away from a career ending injury; he also fears that Boobie will loose himself if he doesn’t play. While Boobie’s football career seems to be coming to an end, Mike Winchell’s play is beginning to soar. Through the first eight games of the season, he has scored seventeen touchdowns. Still Mike second-guesses himself. Mike knows there is still a long road ahead and that he is always one game from disaster.

The narrative turns to the folklore of different towns. Towns in West Texas are given reputations based largely on their cultural and socio-economic makeup. The author also explores some of the more colorful characters from Odessa that had made and lost fortunes during the endless cycles of boom-and-bust economics. We are introduced to people like Aaron Giebel of Midland. He is one example of the many powerful men in West Texas that felt they were captains of their own capitalist fortunes. They one and lost millions of dollars. Despite their belief as masters of their own destinies, they were really always at the mercy of OPEC oil and the global market. By 1988 the oil economy is a bust. While oil machines lie in the wasteland like rotting carcasses, people like Aaron Giebel know that he is just one Middle East conflict away from reclaiming his destiny. When it is time to play Midland again, Coach Gaines comes up with another parable for his players. This time it is about a swimmer who competed in the 1972 with a collapsed lung. The boys understand the metaphor of pain equaling glory: they have heard it before.

The narrative forwards to the beginning of the book and Permian’s loss to Midland Lee. The atmosphere in the field house is the opposite of the usual victory hoots and hollers; the agony of defeat is setting in. Boobie leaves the field house almost immediately, incensed that he had to sit on the bench in front of thousands of fans who used to adore him. Sharon Gaines meets her husband in the field house to give him his medicine. She realizes his time spent away from the family and the constant stress of his job has taken a toll on the whole family. Sharon Gaines laments the fact that these players are still children is lost on most of Odessa. Now there is a three-way tie for first place in the district and the two finalists will be decided by a three-way coin toss at an undisclosed location.

By the end of the season Permian, Midland Lee, and Cooper High School have identical records. The tiebreaker rule involves a simple coin toss: heads or tails. The first odd man out forfeits his team from the playoffs. Coach Gaines hates the fact that everything comes down to a situation where he has no control. When Gary arrives at the truck stop, he sees the KMID–TV van parked outside; the outcome of this meeting may be known to the public before he even knows what it is. Both coaches are inside waiting for the coin toss. The first toss is a tie, all three coaches tosses heads. At first it looks like all three coaches have heads again but upon closer inspection, it turns out that Miller has tossed a tails. Permian and Midland Lee are in the playoffs.

While Permian fans and players are ecstatic, Booby sits at home in despair. He wonders how God, the controller of all fates, could let this happen to him. The irony is that after surgery Boobie needs intense physical rehabilitation and he could possibly play top-level football again. Unfortunately Boobie’s time is done with high school football and there is nobody left who cares enough to put him through the expensive rehabilitation needed. Boobie’s uncle L.V. has little money so Boobie is left behind to rot in his reflections about what could have been. The stress of it all causes Boobie and L.V to have another argument. They really are not angry at each other; they just can’t live together with the same shattered dream. Boobie moves out.

The very meaning of life in Odessa turns to football. Permian breezes through the first round of playoffs. A jet is chartered to carry the team to their next game against the Andress Eagles. The irony of a cash strapped town chartering a jet for their high school football team seems lost to most football crazy Odessans. The boys handily win their game against the Andress Eagles 41-13. Despite coach Gaines’s lecture on discipline on and off the field, the boys go out and get drunk.

When the boys return to practice after Thanksgiving break, they see an anonymous letter in their lockers. It berates them for their lack of proper moral conduct off the field and accuses them of being unable to win when the stakes are high. The letter goes on to call them “losers” who are unworthy to wear Permian colors. By the time the boys face off against Irving Nimitz, coach Gaines, the probable author of the letter, has the boys riled up and wanting blood. Permian humiliates Irving Nimitz 48-7.

The narrative shifts to yet another pep rally where previous players of distinction, now lost in the haze of past glories, give several motivational speeches. We are introduced to Daniel Justis, a former All-Stater who doesn’t share the same enthusiasm as other Permian football alumnus. He is quick to remind his son that nothing can match the high of being a Permian football player at the top of his game; life’s climax is making it to the state finals and everything else that comes after is a let down. Trapper understands this sentiment. Every year he sees these heroes of Permian football turn into teenage boys again after their final season is over. One or two lucky ones get a shot at college football but the majority of them are cast aside as fond memories. In the end these boys become a product of decent football training and a mediocre education. We next see Permian play the Lamar Vikings. Ivory Christian staggers off the field, complaining of cramps and muscle fatigue. Instead of being relieved from playing, he is given an IV full of a lactose concoction and is essentially told to “man up” and finish the game. Christian again feels his old ambivalence for football return but he goes out and performs as he is expected to.

The narrative shifts to the players of Carter High School in Dallas, Permian’s final opponent for the state semi-final championship. This is a middle class school that is primarily black. There are few if any rules for football players at Carter. Teachers or administration regularly doctor the players’ marks to make them eligible for the state’s new 70 percent grade average to play rule. When one teacher refuses to fall into line and manipulate Carter’s star player’s marks, there is a tornado of controversy. After much racially charged debate between the all the stakeholders, a final verdict comes down from the Texas State Court: Carter will be allowed to play Permian in the state semi-final.

After arguing about where to hold the final game, both Permian and Carter decide on a neutral site. Memorial Stadium at Texas A & M will be the place where the two teams battle for football dominance. Mike Winchell always dreamed of playing at Texas A & M. Unfortunately, he knew this would be his only chance to play at such a place. Despite his tenacious work ethic, he lacked the size and speed to be a college football prospect. Because of the antagonism between both schools, the teams and crowd were kept in separate parts of the stadium. As predicted, the game turns out to be one of Permian’s toughest. The Carter High School boys are bigger and stronger than Permian’s boys. There is much verbal baiting towards the Permian players from Carter. The game is close and is decided by a final Permian throw from Mike Winchell to Robert Brown. The pass fails and Permian looses the game 14-9. The boys of Permian are heartbroken. Coach Gaines tells the boys how proud he is of them and the players slowly filter out of the football locker room, many for the last time.

Friday Night Lights Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Friday Night Lights is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why will Jerrod McDougal not be playing college football?

In context, Jerrod was far too small to play football at the college level. Recognizing this, he decided that he would focus on coaching and mentoring high school athletes.

Who is the protagonist?

I would have to say that each of the six football players, on whom the book is focused, would be considered the protagonists.

Friday night lights

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Study Guide for Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights study guide contains a biography of H.G. Bissinger, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Friday Night Lights
• Character List

Essays for Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger.

• Analyzing Friday Night Lights: Like Father Like Son?
• Society and It's Status Quo

Wikipedia Entries for Friday Night Lights

• Introduction
• Inspiration

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

‘Friday Night Lights’ actress Minka Kelly is ready to stop burying her past

In her new memoir ‘Tell Me Everything,’ Kelly delves into her troubled childhood with her addiction-afflicted single mother

Despite her stardom, Minka Kelly has never been one for hogging the limelight. As an actress, the 43-year-old is known for her portrayal of the supportive girlfriend Lyla Garrity on “Friday Night Lights,” and her celebrity has similarly been tethered to the A-list loves in her life — Derek Jeter, Chris Evans and John Mayer among them. Even when it comes to writing about her personal life, she’s willing to play second fiddle: Much of her poignant new memoir, “ Tell Me Everything ,” is an intricate portrait of her addiction-afflicted single mother, Maureen, who raised her while drifting through a haze of stripping gigs, volatile relationships and tenuous living situations.

It’s not that Kelly is shielding herself from scrutiny. Vulnerable, self-aware and admirably introspective, she confronts her childhood trauma to decipher how it shaped her — first into an aimless teen and industrious 20-something, then into a middle-aged woman still unpacking that pain. At one point, Kelly and her mother lived in a Los Angeles apartment complex storage unit. Later, Maureen disappeared for months while her daughter was passed from one erratic household to another. At 16, Kelly’s mother skipped town and signed away custody of her daughter to a stranger. As Kelly writes, “The harmful lessons sometimes picked up in the process of practicing that resiliency can take a lifetime to exorcise.”

For all its candor, Kelly’s book is short on details about her acting career. Although she provides intriguing insight into the mind of “Friday Night Lights” creator Peter Berg and opens up about a tumultuous romance with co-star Taylor Kitsch, who played Tim Riggins on the show, she mostly uses her Hollywood experience as a backdrop for the familial strife behind the scenes. Other than Kitsch, Kelly is not interested in dishing on her romances that have fueled many a tabloid headline. It’s clear she’d much rather reflect on her less glamorous early 20s, when she climbed her way out of poverty by working as a scrub nurse.

Kelly begins the book with a bleak memory, when at 17 she used a fake ID to dance for cash at an Albuquerque peep show. “I’ll go to high school during the day and come here in the evening,” she explains. “I feel queasy, afraid I might be crossing a threshold, the one that lured my mother down a rabbit hole, but I’m desperate.” She then rewinds to her childhood and chronologically lays out her story. “This narrative,” she says in an author’s note, “tells my experience from the point of view of a scared and traumatized child.” Those early recollections, as a 7-year-old tagging along for mother’s stripping shifts, are vivid. Recalling her visits to a particularly seedy club, she writes: “The room reeked of makeup and Victoria’s Secret lotion mixed with spilled whiskey and stale cigarette smoke.”

Even with the help of a professional she credits in her acknowledgments, Kelly’s clipped prose isn’t always so colorful, as she too often leans on stilted dialogue recollections and ham-handed turns of phrase. But the lack of lyricism can be forgiven in light of her raw soul-searching. Case in point: She expresses guilt for not speaking out when Harvey Weinstein made an inappropriate advance at her. “When all the #MeToo details emerged, I realized I’d been complicit in protecting him,” she writes. “I was also complicit in making him feel okay about the gross proposition he’d made. At the time, the only safe route I saw was to say I was flattered.”

When it comes to the questionable characters who have shaped her life, she approaches them with empathy. There’s her father, former Aerosmith guitarist Rick Dufay, whom she portrays as an absentee dad with his own dreams and intermittent interest in her existence. Her surrogate father, only referred to as David, is first depicted as commendably dedicated to a girl to whom he had no biological or legal connection, then exposed for unforgivable actions.

Still, in this journey of working-class consternation, female empowerment and adulthood actualization, Kelly’s mother is never far from her gaze. She describes Maureen as a complicated woman haunted by mood swings, an impulsive edge and deep-seated demons. Despite their eventual estrangement, Kelly reconnects with her when Maureen receives a fatal diagnosis.

Looking back on her troubled upbringing, Kelly explains her “survival mechanism”: “It wasn’t ‘forgive and forget’ but ‘avoid and bury.’” With such an exceptional excavation, she seems to have put that mantra in the past.

Thomas Floyd is a writer and editor for The Washington Post.

Tell Me Everything

By Minka Kelly.

Macmillan. 288 pp. $29

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Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition): A Town, a Team, and a Dream Kindle Edition

• Print length 434 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Da Capo Press
• Publication date August 11, 2015
• File size 17661 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00X2ZW684
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Da Capo Press; 1st edition (August 11, 2015)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 11, 2015
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 17661 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 434 pages
• #19 in Rural Sociology
• #63 in History of Southwestern U.S.
• #83 in Football (Kindle Store)

About the authors

Buzz bissinger.

Buzz Bissinger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of four books, including the New York Times bestseller 3 Nights in August and Friday Night Lights, which has sold two million copies and inspired a film and TV franchise. He is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a sports columnist for The Daily Beast. He has written for the New York Times, The New Republic, Time and many other publications.

H. G. Bissinger

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