Friday Night Lights

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 that supports and is obsessed with them.

Related Topics:
1990 - 2004 - Movie - High school - Football - Texas

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The book was authored by H.G. Bissinger and follows the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team of Odessa, Texas as they made a run towards the state championship. The events culminate in a loss in the semifinals against Carter High School from Dallas, Texas who went on to win the state championship, but were eventually stripped of their victory after it was revealed that Carter's principal changed the grade of Carter cornerback Gary Edwards to allow him to be able to play football.

Related Topics:
1988 - Permian High School - Odessa, Texas - Carter High School - Dallas, Texas

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In his book, Bissinger 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. Not surprisingly, many residents of Odessa received the book with responses ranging from mild indignation, to threats of physical violence aimed at the book's author.

Related Topics:
Socioeconomic - Racism - Segregation - Desegregation - Poverty

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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. The movie was mostly based on the same story, but had some details modified for dramatic effect. Some differences included:

Related Topics:
United States - October 6 - 2004 - Billy Bob Thornton

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• In the regular season, district play would have begun in week 4, not the second game that they would play. Abilene actually lost the real game 49-0, but the footage for that game was shot in the 2003 district game, where the score was almost flipped, 49-6.
• In the movie, Carter and Permian played for the state championship when they actually played in the state semifinal game.
• 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 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. San Angelo Central High 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.
• 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 over 100,000 people at the time of the events portrayed in the movie, 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.
• 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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