Book of the Week

Friday Night Lights: a Town, a Team and a Dream by H G Bissinger

Recommended by Joe Hill

Friday Night Lights documents the Permian High School football team, otherwise known as the Permian Panthers, throughout the 1988 season. It is not just a football book, however; it is a book about American society in general. Permian High School is situated in the West Texan town of Odessa, where crime is high and race is an ever-prominent issue. The book details the high percentage of whites living on the more affluent side of town, while the black and latino percentage, with a few exceptions, live on the less desirable, ‘north of the tracks’ part of town. The book is not only about the school, it is about the town, and in a broader sense, America.

In Odessa, and indeed Ector County, where Odessa lies, football was the one thing that distracted people from the stark reality of their lives. The lucrative business in Odessa and Texas in the 1980’s and 1990’s was oil: unfortunately for the working class, that period was the time when oil was being discovered in huge quantities in the Middle East and being sold for low prices that American oil businesses could not compete with.  A quote from player Jerrod McDougal sums it up nicely: 'we got two things in Odessa.  Oil and football.  And oil's gone.'   Despite these evident hardships, the residents were still happy with Ronald Reagan, president at the time, and then the next Republican candidate, George H.W Bush, who visited the town shortly before his election.

The football team is portrayed as the beating heart of the town. Often drawing crowds of over 10,000 people, the pep rallies alone attracting a couple of thousand people, the team is expected to do well, and things can get ugly if they don’t. After one loss, coach Gary Gaines tells of For Sale signs being stuck in his front garden, highlighting the raw animosity and will to win of the Permian Panthers' fans. The pressure put on the player’s shoulders, especially at such a young age, is immense. The town has the football and not much else. At the time when the book is set Odessa was voted the 5th worst out of 300 American cities to live in. The school's SAT scores were well below the national average, and yet from the book radiates a feeling that there is a sense of well being in the town and a general atmosphere of happiness.

The book tells the story of the players: Brian Chavez, Boobie Miles, Mike Winchell, Ivory Christian, Don Billingsley and Jerrod McDougal. Whether they are poor or rich, big or small, Bissinger manages to make one thing clear about them - they love football. The privileges of being a Permian player were colossal. They were almost hero-worshipped by younger students and were given ‘Pepettes’, who would help the footballers get what they needed. In their time at Permian, the footballers barely did any work: their homework was either done by others or they were given an automatic grade. To play football, they needed an average grade of 70, and so they were given that grade. In another school in Texas, a maths teacher was sacked because he refused to give the star football player a passing grade. This is an example of how the book is good at pointing out how influential being a footballer was, and it is continued throughout the book.

I think that the book is generally very good, and, although the town is portrayed negatively in places, I believe that the author does try to include some good points about society. I think that you should read this if you are interested in football, or America, or interested in writing. Bissinger’s elegant but gritty style grips from page to page and is what makes the book such a winner.