September 16, 2004
By Matt Savelloni
“A SCHOOL WITHOUT FOOTBALL IS IN DANGER OF DETERIORATING INTO A MEDIEVAL STUDY HALL.” – Vince Lombardi
I’ll never forget the day I realized I was never going to be a Hall of Fame wide receiver for the New England Patriots. A freshman in high school, I decided to try out for my high school. Ten minutes into the tryout I sprinted across the middle on a quick slant. The ball hit my hands and a 200-pound knuckle-dragging junior hit me. After I regained consciousness, I staggered off the gridiron and moved on to sports more appropriate for a 130-pound punk. My circumstances—like most high school escapades—hardly qualify for a somber ode, but author H.G. Bissinger finds a few so deserving in his milestone work, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.
At its best, high school football forms one of the strongest bonds of a community. Each player wears the face of their home and carries an unsullied spirit of unity. However, the fervor with which certain towns embrace what should be an extracurricular activity enjoyed by teenagers borders on pathetic. The best aspect of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is that Bissinger does not force the story to conform to one treatment or another. The sheer reality of the Permian Tigers speaks not just to football communities across the nation but to collective truths about small-town America.
Setting up the disparate districts of Permian and Odessa, Bissinger constructs a scenario straight out of Fitzgerald. The towns historically feed on the boom-bust oil trade but at the time of the author’s visit, the town is rutted in an extended bust with no relief in sight. The majority of limited funds, however, are still dedicated to the Permian football program, made up of poor, mostly black athletes from Odessa. One of the most heartbreaking and inspiring conflicts in FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is the way in which these kids set aside their communal, almost tribal, biases in the tradition of teamwork and success. Their actions say and prove more about the potential of finding common ground than all the well-intentioned causes and social programs filling political budgets.
“TRADITION IS THE ALLUSION OF PERMANENCE.” – Woody Allen
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There is a subplot about a talented running back that falls from Permian favor. Essentially, his problem stems from the fact that he cannot bide with tradition. He is first disciplined, then shunned and finally ostracized, not just from the team but seemingly from existence. Bissinger charts the young man’s fall from high school grace out into adult life—his dreams so centered on football that when the game is no longer a priority, he finds little else from which to draw spiritual sustenance. His story more than any other in FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS exemplifies the ugliness of overestimating the significance of a game. The number of football players who actually make a professional living off of it is statistically irrelevant. With the citizens of Permian and Odessa – for that matter, all of us – infusing such a fantastical level of worship into a game, the resultant expectation it sets up can only lead to heartbreak and an abandonment of realistic potential. Bissinger’s novel, even during its most glorious, most inspiring mythologizing, never fails to underscore the sobering reality of the big picture, of a neglected future exchanged for adolescent celebrity. Walking away from FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, you are inspired by these kids but also alarmed that so many of them will endure as adults the sad and debilitating realization that they peaked at eighteen.
And still, there is incredible redemption in FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. The players, representative of so many social casts, shoulder an incredible load for those in positions of authority. They are foot soldiers, shedding the blood and enduring the pain to enact the so-called vision of their superiors. If they fail to realize the shortness of such athletic acclaim, it is not their fault and it is incredibly unfair for them to pay a lifetime of consequence as a result. The coaches, administrators and community leaders endure while the legions of wide-eyed children willing to kill themselves in the name of honor and tradition serve as interchangeable parts. A successful coach at a big time Texas high school program can parlay that reputation into bigger jobs, higher pay and more approbation. The same goes for administrators and school officials, those job holders who can lay claim to periods of success longer than a scant four years. Within this state of affairs, Bissinger sets up a noble warrior premise. The children of Permian are sent into action for the glory of others. Although they are celebrated, although they revel in extreme success, the lasting glory goes to the institution. Nevertheless, year after year, generations of local kids yearn and battle and train and suffer for the chance to dance on this hallowed field. The goal is short-lived compared against a lifetime but that cannot stop the dream of shining under those FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.
“OUR GREATEST GLORY IS NOT IN NEVER FAILING, BUT IN RISING UP EVERY TIME WE FAIL.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is rated PG13. As more American culture gets sucked into the politically correct, vapid, worthless middle, it is disheartening to see material so utterly deserving of adult treatment marketed as another rah-rah sports flick. Whether or not that is the true substance of the adaptation remains to be seen but all early indicators point to a movie that might have been titled REMEMBER THE TITANS AGAIN. Seething just beneath the surface of Bissinger’s book is a stark sociological exposé on small-town relationships, namely those centered on the issue of race. Perhaps no other industry in the history of the United States has experienced as much evolution of equality as professional sports, which are now dominated by races and classes once denied access to the arenas. Bissinger details how the remnants of these racial clashes still exist in Odessa and Permian in tandem with the rise of the Panthers’ championship run. Even as the team and town move forward, they seem to be moving backward, clinging to the old-fashioned tenets of fundamentalist America. This tradition-worship sometimes wears an ugly face of racism, class desperation and economic despair, themes hardly the subject matter of a PG13 football movie targeted at the mall crowd. The rating suggests that Bissinger’s class dichotomy will be largely jettisoned in favor of painting another tired Hollywood trope: the America heartland as savior. I can’t imagine anything further from the stark realism of Bissinger’s book.
Everything else about FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS appears to be A-list. Of course, there is Billy Bob Thornton, who is utterly reliable in summoning up old Texas charm in what should be the signature role. Derek Luke redeemed his soap opera antics of ANTWONE FISHER with a solid turn in David Mamet’s SPARTAN. But most intriguing is the presence of Lucas Black, an overlooked young actor who has given outstanding performances in SLING BLADE, CRAZY IN ALABAMA and ALL THE PRETTY HORSES. Hopefully, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS will see him receive the notice he deserves to help move his career up a notch. Peter Berg has done nothing to distinguish himself as a director with the terrible VERY BAD THINGS, the short-lived TV series WONDERLAND and the even more terrible THE RUNDOWN. Maybe this time he has found worthwhile material to exercise his creative muscle.
I am torn about the film prospects of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. I loved the book completely and consider it one of the finest sports novels ever written. Football is simply a framing device from which Bissinger dissects a unique but not unknown community. If the filmmakers follow suit, we can expect something along the lines of a NORTH DALLAS FORTY, a lasting and enervating examination of America’s most revered pastime. However, if the suits go for the quick buck and pump up the slam-bang element, we might as well bring pompoms to the theater and zone out to the soundtrack of yet another Hollywood lowest-common denominator.
“Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.” – Anais Nin
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