Friday Night Lights is a 1990 book and 2004 movie that documents the coach and players of a high school football team and the small, economically-depressed Texas town of Odessa that supports and is obsessed with them. The book was authored by H.G. Bissinger and follows the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team as they made a run towards the state championship.Plot
Tagline: Hope comes alive.
Bissinger shadowed the team for practice and game of the 1988 season, which culminated in a loss in the semifinals against Carter High School from Dallas, Texas who went on to win the state championship. However, the book also deals with -- or alludes to -- a number of secondary political and social issues existing in Odessa, all of which share ties to the Permian football team. These include: socioeconomic disparity; racism; segregation (and desegregation); and poverty.
The coach is constantly on the hot seat. After a loss, he comes back to see "For Sale" signs on his lawn. Also, when he overuses his star player, Boobie Miles, sports radio is flooded with calls for his resignation. His job depends on making the playoffs which under Texas rules due to a tie, the tiebreaker is a coin-toss. In an effort to prevent a riot, the location of the coin-toss is kept under wraps, and the Texas TV stations air it live at an unearthly hour. Permian does get a spot. They make it to the finals (in the movie, but actually only the semifinals), where they lose to powerhouse Dallas high school team. The players are in tears as the game ends. The Star fullback whose father won a championship with Permian takes his ring off and gives it to his son. The movie ends with the coach taking off the departing senior's from the depth chart on his wall. This symbolizes how they are no longer part of the town's obsession with football and just regular citizens. The final scene is the high schoolers throwing the ball to a bunch of pee-wee players playing pick-football, this is a symbolizing changing of the guard.Quotes
- "Im gonna miss the heat"
- "Im gonna miss the lights"
- "Be Perfect"
- "Dem boys are big"
Book
The book's release during the 1990 season coincided with the team being under investigation for holding illegal off-season practices, which resulted in the team being declared ineligible for the playoffs and thus not participating in the postseason for only the 2nd time since 1980. Permian's absence from the playoffs allowed San Angelo Central (see below) into the playoffs for only the 3rd time since 1966. The negative reaction to the playoff situation was exacerbated by the book, and many residents of Odessa received the book with responses ranging from mild indignation to threats of physical violence aimed at the book's author.
The movie version of Friday Night Lights was released in the United States on October 6, 2004 and starred Billy Bob Thornton as Permian Coach Gary Gaines.Differences between the movie and actual events
- In the movie, district play began in week 2. In the real regular season, district play would have begun in week 4.
- In the movie, the footage for that game was shot in the 2003 district game, where Abilene High won, 49-6. In the real regular season, Permian defeated Abilene 49-0.
- In the movie, Carter and Permian played for the state championship. In the real regular season, they actually played in the state semifinal game.
- In the movie, almost all of the game footage was shot at Ratliff Stadium (Permian's home field), even games where Permian was the visiting team.
- The Carter-Permian game was played in front of 10,000 people in a heavy downpour at The University of Texas at Austin's Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas, not in front of 55,000 in the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
- While the game in the movie was a high-scoring affair, the score of the actual game was 14-9 in favor of Carter.
- In the movie, it is said that Carter was the state's top-ranked team, when Carter was never ranked higher than No. 3 in the Associated Press poll.
- Permian's first opponent in the playoffs was Amarillo Tascosa and not Dallas Jesuit as in the movie. In fact, Texas public schools (such as Permian, Carter, and Tascosa) and private schools (such as Jesuit) are generally members of separate associations; Dallas Jesuit joined the University Interscholastic League (UIL) in 2003, starting football competition in 2004. Permian did play Dallas Jesuit in Odessa during the regular season in 1988, winning 48-2, Jesuit's two points coming from a missed PAT runback, a new rule that year.
- Permian was also depicted as playing San Angelo in the quarterfinal round. There are actually two high schools in the San Angelo ISD; San Angelo Central High School (the district's only 5A school) had, until 1998, been in the same district for football as Permian (having since been transferred, for football only, to the district with Lubbock and Amarillo schools), and could only have played Permian in the quarterfinal round (owing to the structure of UIL playoffs) if they had qualified. However, Central finished 5th in the district that year, and as only two teams from each district qualified in 1988, Permian and Central did not play in the 1988 playoffs.
- The three teams tied for best district record were Permian, Midland Lee, and Midland High, not Permian, Lee, and Abilene Cooper. The tiebreaking coin flip was held at a truck stop outside of Midland, and Midland High lost, so Permian and Lee went on. Midland High's missing the playoffs was particularly poignant as it had not been to the playoffs since 1951.
- Since 1982, the UIL Class 5A football playoffs have had six rounds (though a second, parallel playoff bracket of five rounds was added in 1990), so while Permian played Dallas Carter in the fifth round, it wasn't the final one.
- Permian is portrayed in the movie as a single large high school in a small, one-horse town in West Texas. In reality, Odessa was a city of nearly 100,000 people at the time of the events portrayed in the movie (and is part of a metropolitan area of nearly 200,000 people with Midland included), and Permian was (and still is) only one of two large Class 5A high schools in the city. The other school, Odessa High School (nicknamed the Bronchos), was never mentioned in any way in the movie, despite the fact that, as they have always been in the same UIL district since Permian opened in 1959, they have had to play each other every year.
- Ratliff Stadium is depicted as the location for Permian football practices. In reality, The team mostly practices on campus and the stadium is on the outskirts of town in a fairly unpopulated area and about 3 miles away from the Permian High School campus. It is also unlikely that children would be playing touch football near the stadium, as depicted in the movie, as there were few houses nearby at that time. The area around the stadium has grown dramatically since then (which caused an anachronism in the movie - the houses you see near the stadium weren't there then!).
- In the movie, Permian defeated the Marshall Mavericks in a non district game. In real life, Marshall won the game 13-12. Permian was the #1 team according to the AP Poll, while Marshall was unranked. In the movie, the game is played on a Friday night in Odessa. In real life, it was played at Maverick Stadium in Marshall on a Saturday afternoon. Permian's football team chartered a jet for the 500+ mile trip from Odessa to Marshall, spawning controversy on the cost of the trip. Played before a crowd of more than 12,000 fans at Maverick Stadium, the game was on a searing September afternoon where the temperature topped 100 degrees.
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