69 pages • 2 hours read
Buzz BissingerFriday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Index of Terms
Pepettes
The Pepettes are the cheerleaders for all Permian High sports teams. These cheerleaders are female senior students dedicated to supporting the Permian Panthers’ football team.
Watermelon Feed
The Watermelon Feed is an annual event in Odessa where each Permian Panther is introduced to the townspeople. The former and current Permian players are treated as local celebrities at this event.
Texas State Championship
The Texas State Championship is the pinnacle of Texas high school football. Due to the Permian Panthers’ reputation as an excellent team and their history as winners of the state championship, many townspeople in Odessa feel that any good coach should be able to lead the team to the championship game. Friday Night Lights recounts how the team of 1988 makes it to the semifinals of the Texas State Championship, where they lose against the Carter Cowboys.
Integration
In this text, “integration” refers to the practice of racially integrating Odessa’s high schools. Integration occurred in Odessa in 1982 when a federal judge ordered the school board to stop segregating their school system by race. The town abided by the federal laws that required integration by closing the Black community’s high school, Ector High, and distributing Ector students to Odessa High or Permian High. The community’s racist history of segregation—and its controversial dismantling—reveal the town’s worldview and values and how these factors affect the Permian High football program and its players.
