Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

“There is nothing to replace it. It’s an integral part of what made the community strong. You take it away and it’s almost like you strip the identity of the people.”

This quotation is from Brad Allen, past president of the Permian Booster Club. He praises Permian football for its ability to unite the town of Odessa and strengthen their community bonds and claims that it is a cornerstone of their culture and identities.

“The Pepettes supported all teams, but it was the football team they supported most. The number on the white jersey each girl wore corresponded to that of the player she had been assigned for the football season. With that assignment came various time-honored responsibilities.”

The author explains that the Pepettes, who were informally referred to as “geisha girls,” were assigned to individual football players. Each was responsible for making posters and signs for her player to display on his lawn, bringing treats on game days, and supporting them publicly.

“He had taken his first drink in the fifth grade, and by the time he was a senior had built up quite a reputation for drinking. There was nothing exceptional about that in Odessa, where kids drank freely, often with the tacit blessing of their parents, who saw it as part of the macho mentality of the place.”

Bissinger reveals more about the culture of Odessa while discussing Panthers player Don Billingsley. While Don was an unusually heavy drinker, it was quite common for teenagers in Odessa to drink despite it being illegal. Bissinger explains that parents raised their kids to have a tough demeanor and were not very concerned about alcohol consumption.

“What was wrong with the use of that word? Wasn’t that what they were? Wasn’t that what they had always been? Let a judge shove desegregation down their throats. Let the federal government have all the free hand-out programs it wanted. It wasn’t going to change the way they felt.”

When analyzing racism in Odessa, Bissinger shared how white townspeople freely and unashamedly used racist slurs. He claims that while some of the town’s segregationist policies had been undone due to federal court rulings, most white townspeople stubbornly held racist beliefs and viewed Black people as inferior to them.

“It was the minorities who had lost their neighborhood high school, Ector High, not the whites. Other than giving some Blacks the opportunity to rub shoulders with some whites for several hours a day, what had integration accomplished?”

Bissinger acknowledges that while the Black community had wanted Odessa to become integrated, they were upset at losing their high school, Ector High. By being forced to attend either Odessa High or Permian High, Black students lost their old Ector community and were not integrated into other aspects of society. As such, Bissinger reports that many locals regarded integration as a purely bureaucratic process and questioned what good it had done for the community.

“Desegregation had not altered the essential character of the Permian Program. It was still a white institution. […] But those few Blacks attending Permian had made enormous contributions, one after another shipped across town to Permian for the mass enjoyment of an appreciative white audience and then shipped right back again across the railroad tracks to the Southside after each game.”

The author argues that Black players were valued for their athletic skills. While this earned them football opportunities, Bissinger considers the exploitative dynamic between the white coaches, school board members, and fans, and the Black players who gave so much to the game.

“We fit as athletes, but we don’t fit as a part of society […]. We know that we’re separate, until we get on the field. We know that we’re equal as athletes. But once we get off the field, we’re not equal.”

Nate Hearne, the only Black coach at Permian High, expressed frustration at the lack of true equality between white and Black residents in Odessa. He acknowledged that sport provided opportunities for advancement but was clear that the respect shown to Black athletes did not extend to all parts of their lives but was limited to the time they spent contributing to the sport.

“They would still be gladiators, the ones who were envied by everyone else, the ones who knew about the best parties and got the best girls and laughed the loudest and strutted so proudly through the halls of school as if it were their own wonderful, private kingdom.”

At Permian High, being academically gifted was often more of a social hindrance than a help. To scale the school’s social hierarchy as a male, it was important to excel at sports, with football being the most important.

“Most of the time the Odessa High supporters did their grumbling in private, but once a year it all came out in the open. […] They wanted revenge. They wanted to feel the superiority and invincibility that had once been theirs, to stake a claim once again to Friday night.”

The author examines Permian High’s rivalry with neighboring school Odessa High, which did not have the funds or community support to develop their football program as much as Permian. While Odessa High had once had the only football team in town, the Permian Panthers had dominated for decades and won the hearts of most of the townspeople, which Odessa High greatly resented.

“But for the moment the town was very much dominated by whites—the mayor was white, the head of the school board was white, the chief of police was white, the superintendent of schools was white—and while Hispanics were accepted as part of the community, there was little evidence of whites embracing them beyond the widespread opinion that they generally worked harder than Blacks did.”

Bissinger explains that while the Hispanic community was a fast-growing demographic in Odessa, they continued to be marginalized by the white population and rarely held positions of influence. The author’s nuanced examination of the town’s Hispanic population helps the reader further understand the racial hierarchy in Odessa and the obstacles the Hispanic population faced.

“People liked hearing that Texas was back, that they were tough and could take it and were up on their feet again. Fact and fiction merged. They liked George Bush in the same way they absolutely worshiped Ronald Reagan, not because of the type of America that Reagan actually created for them but because of the type of America he so vividly imagined.”

Bissinger examines the politics of 1980s Odessa, which he reports were staunchly conservative. The townspeople could not be swayed by Michael Dukakis’s economic arguments and instead were drawn to the oratory style and traditional Texan aura of George Bush. The author claims that Reagan’s policies hurt Odessan families economically, yet they felt the Republican Party was good for Texas and continued to support the Republican Party’s brand of conservative politics. Bissinger felt that most Odessans demonized liberal politicians as monsters that threatened the American cultural fabric and way of life.

“As part of a long-standing tradition, the Permian starters wore black shirts during practice and the subs wore white. In the life of a player few single moments were more stirring than to open up the locker one day and find a black practice jersey hanging there like a gilded, sacred robe in the middle of a foul-smelling pile of pads and pants and shoes and jocks. Conversely, few single moments were more humbling than to have that black shirt taken away and given to someone else.”

Permian starters and subs were distinguished by the color of their jerseys. Players in black shirts had the pleasure of knowing that they were among the best on their team and had earned time to play each game, while subs may not be called on to play at all. The author describes these distinctions to help the reader understand Boobie’s crushing disappointment at being downgraded from a starter to a sub after his knee injury.

“Sometimes it sounded as if they were talking about a pro player making a million dollars a year with a contractual obligation to play, not an eighteen-year-old kid playing for his high school team who, to be here at all, had overcome abandonment by his mother and foster homes and learning disabilities.”

This quotation is Bissinger’s commentary on the Permian coaches’ attitudes toward Boobie and his ability to cope with his injury. His comments hint that he felt there was too much pressure on Boobie to succeed, especially considering his young age and significant personal challenges.

“Greed, delusional visions of grandeur, the mercenary mercilessness that made every relationship expendable-Midland perfected all these long before they became the standard of the eighties around the rest of the country.”

Bissinger explores the recent history of the Texan town of Midland to illuminate the intense rivalry they had with Odessa. While Odessa was populated with many oil industry workers, Midland was home to corporate oil employees whom Bissinger characterizes as immensely greedy and elitist.

“The bust had extracted a terrible toll, and the list of people and institutions that had been destroyed read like a horrible casualty list. […] All around were signs of what now wasn’t—office buildings of darkened glass in downtown Midland and Odessa that were virtually empty and had the scent of unopened boxes, streets where three-quarters of the houses were for sale, warehouse lots filled with beautiful new rigs that had never been touched.”

The author describes how the 1980s drop in oil prices abruptly devastated communities like Odessa and Midland, leaving many residents out of work and dramatically changing the once-prosperous aesthetic and energy of the towns.

“What would life without football be like? He knew he would be lost, just like his senior friends before him had been lost. He would feel as if it was no longer possible to keep balance anymore, as hopeless as if he was trying to ride a seesaw by himself.”

Discussing Jerrod McDougal’s anxiety about graduating and leaving the football program, Bissinger paints a picture of players’ psychological struggle to move on from participating in the Permian Panthers. Most players did not play college football, and their athletic careers were over at 18. Most Permian Panthers players had made football their priority in their senior year and did not graduate with strong academic skills or career plans.

“This hadn’t been one of those underachieving teams whose only hope was a fantastic combination of luck and miracle. This had been a can’t-miss team, and if it didn’t make the playoffs, it was scary to imagine the enmity that thousands in town would feel for him.”

As head coach of the Permian Panthers, Gary Gaines felt immense pressure from the people of Odessa to lead the team to the playoffs, with the town hoping that they would win the State Championship. Gaines and his family were accustomed to being judged, harassed, and socially ostracized when the team did not perform well, and Gaines knew that if Permian failed to reach the playoffs, he might lose the respect of the townspeople and possibly his position as coach.

“By the time he got out of the hospital the town had come alive again, like the miraculous re-blooming of a withered desert flower that all but a handful had given up for dead. There was no more talk of Gaines’s getting fired, no more for sale signs on his lawn, no more pumpkins smashed into his car, no more petitions passed around. […] Goin’ to State was in the hearts and minds of everyone again, still at the center of the universe.”

By the end of the season, Boobie Miles had quit the team and undergone yet another knee surgery. He missed out on the Permian Panther’s admission to the playoffs, which greatly improved the mood in Odessa. Bissinger describes how cheerful and hopeful the townspeople became due to the team’s success and that they refrained from harassing the head coach.

“On the practice field, a trio of men gathered one afternoon to joke about his plight. One of them suggested that maybe it was best for Boobie to just kill himself since he didn’t have football anymore.”

Bissinger uses conversations with locals to demonstrate the cruelty that Boobie faced in Odessa as a Black player. Not only did white townspeople not generally express sympathy for Boobie’s injury, but many of them also expressed happiness that he could not reach his goals and overtly dehumanized him in their conversations.

“There’s no other feeling like it that you can feel from being on a championship team and playin’ with a group of guys like you’ve played with. It’s some-thin’ you always have. Later on in life they can take your money away from you, they can take your house, they can take your car, they can’t take this kind of stuff away from you, some-thin’ that you’ll always have and you’ll always be proud of.”

Assistant Coach Mike Belew motivated the team before a playoff game by persuading them that their experiences playing for Permian would be a defining achievement and part of their identity for the rest of their lives.

“Jerrod McDougal was right. It was like imperial Rome, like the Christians and the lions, violent, visceral, exciting, crazy.”

Bissinger characterizes the high school playoffs as chaotic and bloodthirsty. He reminds the reader of player Jerrod McDougal’s comparison of Permian Panthers players with gladiators and reiterates the parallels between violent entertainment in ancient Rome with football in Odessa.

“He felt it in the mornings when he couldn’t bend over to tie his shoes. He felt it when it became painfully difficult to throw a ball. He felt it when he had to stop playing flag football because his body couldn’t take it.”

Bissinger examines the life of Joe Bob Bizzell, a former Permian Panthers player who at one time was going to play college football. Like many former players, Joe Bob suffers from chronic pain due to football-related injuries. By including details about the less glamorous side of the sport, the author reveals the often-hidden consequences of competitive sports for the people who play them.

“It seemed a trivial thing for the state’s highest education official to spend time doing, but Kirby felt compelled to uphold the integrity of the no-pass, no-play rule. If a principal could come in and simply change a grade from fail to pass without any compelling reason, then what was the purpose of the rule and how could it possibly achieve the intended purpose of shifting the focus of Texas high schools away from the gridiron to the classroom?”

Bissinger explains Texas Education Commissioner William Kirby’s motivation to acknowledge Gary Edward’s failing grade in Algebra ll and stop the Carter Cowboys team from continuing to play in the playoffs. The author includes the Commissioner’s concerns that education in Texas was lagging behind other states as schools emphasized athletic achievement over academics.