Friday Night Lights

In the past year or so I've finished off the tv series Friday Night Lights, which I believe was based off of a movie Friday Night Lights, which itself was based off H. G. Bissinger's book Friday Night Lights. FNL the book covers many of the same concepts that I saw in the show, but what's really noteworthy here is the difference in tone. The television series takes place in fictional Dillon Texas, which on the surface represents a fair comparison to the book's very real Odessa Texas- a town out in the middle of nowhere in western Texas where high school football reigns supreme. While it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking the tv series glorifies escaping your small town roots and getting out to see the world beyond high school football, it really should be viewed on a case by case scenario- we're ok with the fact that Tim Riggins is still living in Odessa at the end of the series, and I think everyone who grew attached to the show wishes Coach Taylor had done the same. What's more, the show really does glorify high school football as being more than a game- it's a place where Coach can help mold young men's minds using lessons that would never work in a classroom. It's in these regards that the book and the series differ. While Bissinger claims to have fallen in love with Odessa by the end of the book, the preceding 350 pages are a harsh critique of an awful, backwards town full of racism and misplaced values, where the heroes are the ones who try to get out. The lessons learned on the gridiron at best amount to vague ideas of 'brotherhood' that few can even agree on. Take, for instance, the star linebacker Ivory Christian who struggled throughout the season with whether it's even worth it to remain on the team, ultimately deciding that anything that gets him closer to a college scholarship is worth it. Or Boobie Miles, the superstar running back who had college recruiters knocking down his door until he tore his ACL in his senior year, resulting in a painful departure from the team and a lengthy feud with the entire town of Odessa. The population of Odessa appears to be completely misguided in so many different ways- the racism is constant and casual; they rise and fall economically with the oil industry but never seem to learn any lessons from it; they place a much greater emphasis on high school athletics than education. Seriously, this book is not about a community putting aside differences to root for a football team; it's about the football team exacerbating existing problems, and was quite a shock after enjoying the feel-good tv series. It's a thought-provoking piece of journalism, and an afterword written ten years after publishing serves as a nice justification for writing the book in the first place- Bissinger returns to Odessa and finds that the controversy the book created has led to a more diminished fan-dom of the football team; it's a nice closing to see that a town that had basically gone football crazy was slowly but surely turning itself around.