The setting of this book takes place is a small town in Texas called Odessa. In Odessa there is a lot of crime and hate, but for a few months of the year they are all about their Permian Panthers. James "Boobie" Miles is their star player and the teams ticket to a state title until something crazy happens. In this book you will read about a teams up and down journey to see what they have in them.
I chose to read this book because I love football. I am a 11th grader in high school and this next fall will be my last chance to have my own "Friday nigh light" experience. I love everything to do with football so that's why I had to read this book!
What I liked about the book was since it was a true story you could feel the realness of the book and how great it would have been to be on this team. You could visualize greatly of how it would feel to be a Panther.
To be honest the whole book I loved there wasn't any part of the book that I wish they would have changed. I am not a big fan of reading but this book kept me reading away.
My overall impression of this book was amazing. I was blown away of how I just totally enjoyed reading this book. This is by far my favorite book that I have ever read. I wish it wasn't a true story so the author could just keep making more Friday Night Lights books.
The people I think should read this is anyone that loves football from high school aged and up I promise that you will love this book and will not be able to put it down until you are so tired from reading all night that you can't keep your eyes open.
There was some offensive material in this book because it was a real team and high school students aren't always the best influences. There is a lot of cussing in this book too.

This book is heartbreaking.

I grew up in a very liberal part of the country. My family is comprised mostly of hard-working European immigrants who value education above all else. In many ways, I should be the last person able to appreciate or understand life in small-town Texas with its conservative values and its unhealthy obsession with high school sports. Yet, I actually did attend a private junior/senior high school with a hockey program that is probably the best in the country. We won the state championship every single year of my six years there, which was in fact part of a twenty-six year streak of consecutive titles. Dozens upon dozens of students from my school have been drafted by the NHL. So perhaps the whole concept of “high school sports are the most important thing you’ll ever do in your life and enjoy it because it is all downhill from there” shouldn’t be so foreign to me after all.

But nope, it is still foreign to me. Very foreign.

This book reminds me of about a handful of John Mellencamp songs that praise the glory days of youth and that try to recall a feeling of nostalgia for a simpler time and place. Mostly I feel sorry for anyone who actually identifies with any of that, as it just perpetuates the nonsense that one will spend the majority of his life with his best days behind him. To me that’s a bit pathetic. This book, though, is a complete embodiment of the Mellencamp philosophy. It is the story of the 1988 football season of Permian High School in Odessa, Texas. It is the story of the town itself, insular and deeply rooted in social conservatism, unabashedly ignorant of the larger national political scene, and seriously, seriously racist. Oh my God, how racist. But above it all, town pride for its high school football team shines through—pride that is fundamental to its nature, to its identity.

n  No connection in all of sports was more intimate than this one, the one between town and high school.n  
n

On the surface, the intensity with which the townspeople of Odessa embrace their high school football team is rather endearing. It gives the kids something to do on a Friday night; it gives them something to work for and to be proud of. But as the author delves further, the intensity starts to seem a little grotesque. These people depend on high school football to survive. More than just an escape from the financial ruin that has set in since the Texas oil bust, high school football is the only thing that matters. They live vicariously through these teenagers, these children, as if they are somehow their only connection to anything good or right in the world. That’s a pretty heavy burden for a 17 year-old to bear. And more than that, these 17 year-olds start to believe it themselves—that there’s nothing else for them beyond high school football. They are hit in the head with this concept over and over again as very little concern is shown for their academic progress. To their peers, their teachers, their counselors, their parents, town officials, and to basically everyone else in their sheltered world, high school football is the most important thing they will ever have.

And yet as sad as this is, I found myself getting caught up in it: the excitement, the rush, the adrenaline of the game. It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to glamorize something that should really only represent a small part of someone’s life, but it was easy to understand how one could get wrapped up in it. I think this book is worth reading. I think it’s important. And I don’t think you need to be a high school football fan, or even a sports fan in general, to appreciate it.

n  Permian High School Panthers: 1988 Football Seasonn  
n  

vs. Palo Duro Dons — LOSS (Pre-Season)
vs. El Paso Austin — WIN
vs. Marshall Mavericks — WIN
vs. Odessa High Bronchos — WIN
vs. Midland High Bulldogs — WIN
vs. Abilene High Eagles — WIN
vs. Dallas Jesuit — WIN
vs. Cooper Cougars — WIN
vs. Midland Lee Rebels — LOSS
vs. San Angelo Central Bobcats — WIN
_________________________

vs. Amarillo Tascosa Rebels — WIN (Post-Season)
vs. Andress Eagles — WIN (Post-Season)
vs. Irving Nimitz Vikings — WIN (Post-Season)
vs. Arlington Lamar Vikings — WIN (Quarter-Finals)
vs. Carter Cowboys — LOSS (Semi-Finals)

n  
n

Don’t mess with Texas.

Dear Mr. Bissinger,

I think watching the Intelligent Squared debate you were in is great. I loved the television series based on this book. I learned something about myself while reading this. Even good writing such as yours, does not make me care a whit about football.

As a football fan, this wasn't as fun as I expected. The bulk of it is about the culture, town & school leaders, socio-economic makeup, and history of Odessa, Texas. Even accounting for its publication year of 1988, it sure doesn't show the town in its best light: the n-word is sprinkled as liberally as salt on fries. Super cringey. Blah.

I entered into this simply desiring to re-live some of my own fond 1980s high school memories…attending all our football games, winning our 1984 CIF championship game, dating the team’s star placekicker. What I received from this book was so much more. Yes those memories came flooding back to me. But what I hadn’t expected was a book rich in Texas history during that time frame…the oil booms and busts, racial inequalities, the sad state of the Texas school system. And then the broader political and social picture of our nation at the time. Bissinger’s year long journey with the Permian Panthers of Odessa, Texas was documented with a heart for every team member, their families, their coaches, their community. And then it focused out from there in ever widening circles, providing glimpses of what was going on in the US 30+years ago.

5 ⭐️s. Highly recommend

One character strength Crow and Bobo have is persistence. They show this on the football field because it takes more than one tackler to bring them down.

The TV show—which I LOVE LOVE LOVE—is only loosely based on the book—the characters and events are inspired by the events in the book. I just rewatched the entire series with my son, and decided to read the book that started it all, which my husband had read many years ago.


In 1988, sports writer Buzz Bissinger went to Odessa, Texas, and decided to stay there for the duration of the high school football season to find out why this poor, backwoods town could come together every Friday night under the lights—by the thousands—to watch the high school seniors play football. The boys were treated like gods, the coach their king... unless they lost a game. Then they were berated in the streets and the coach found his front lawn covered in For Sale signs.


This book is a searing look at the underbelly of high school extracurricular activities. Parents are familiar with having kids in sports or the arts, but what if you pushed them so hard to excel in that one thing—foregoing everything else, including education—only for them to be washed up, their careers over and futures empty, by the time they were 18? In the case of this town, Bissinger uncovers all of the other aspects at work in the town: where racism is rampant; where the town has consistently been ranked as the worst place to live in America; where women have their place; where teachers are paid peanuts while the coaches make giant salaries; where the eduction system is so broken these kids graduate barely able to read because of teachers fudging their marks to keep them on the teams; where former stars who played under the Friday night lights to cheers from 15,000 fans now work menial jobs in dire pain from playing on broken ankles, with broken ribs, and hopped up on painkillers.

The 25th anniversary edition includes an afterword by Bissinger, who tells you where these boys are now, in their mid-40s, and what happened after the book came out to such huge acclaim. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, and you don’t have to be a football fan to get it—I’m not still quite sure what a “down” is, but I do know this book is spectacular.

Growing up a football watcher and managing our local high school football team, it is no surprise that I enjoyed H.G. Bissinger’s book Friday Night Lights.
tBissinger does a great job of painting a picture while you’re reading and letting you get to know the characters. You can imagine yourself with the six senior starters and part of the coaching staff in the run-down town, at the games, and attending practice while dying of the Texas heat and drinking the unsanitary water. Making you want to read more to find out about the next game, football is just a small portion of what is discussed in this novel. The book also focuses on the small Texas town of Odessa that is almost to the point of no existence. The only thing to keep it going is that the high school football team, the Permian Panthers, are the winningest football team in Texas history. It is a program that everyone wants to be a part of.
tThe town of Odessa was falling apart but that is not what the school and fans were concerned about. The priorities at the school were not that of a normal school. More money was spent on medical tape then the entire english department and teachers were changing students grades just to be sure they were passing. The players would stop attending class to get more training time and parents were less worried about their childs education, and more about how the team was going to preform.
tAlthough the team is good, it is not the strongest or the biggest. They start the season off looking great, but in the pre-season the star running back has to go out with a serious knee injury. They started losing and their biggest game was coming up. If they won, they would go to playoffs, but if they lost they would go into a three way tie coin toss. Come game time, the star player thought he was ready to go in, but when he did he got hit hard making his knee injury even worse. With the running back being out again, the Panthers ended up losing and going to the coin toss. They won the coin toss and were sent to the playoffs. In the playoffs, they had to go up against the Dallas Carter Cowboys. Not knowing what to do without the star player, they had to find new strengths in each player to try to beat this team. In the last play of the game, the Panthers quarter back, Mike Winchell, threw an incomplete pass and Permian lost 14-9.
tI think this book is great because it teaches you to never give up on any of your hopes and dreams. It also teaches you to keep going no matter what kind of situation you are in. I think that this is a good book for anyone that plays a sport or enjoys the game.

I'm going about this whole trifecta of book-movie-TV show all wrong, but what I've seen has only been mutually reinforcing in terms of impact.

High school football an institution without equal in West Texas communities--no sacrifice is too small, no perfection good enough to satisfy the town that rallies around the football team. Bissinger's point in first crafting this novel was to demonstrate how the sport could so unite and buoy a town, but he also came to realize that it could hurt and maim both players and fans as well. This book, movie, TV show--this story--isn't just about football. It's about football players, whole generations of children who can envision no future for themselves beyond football, their only ticket out of town and reason for living in it. It's about the fans, who commit themselves fantastically, suicidally, to the team's success (the medical supplies for the boy's football team of the featured school alone totaled more than the entire budget for the English department in the year of writing). It asks questions about our blind love of a sport (the author is not immune) and the colossal pressures and privileges we place on kids who are really just teenagers. It talks about racism and the oil boom and bust, because after all this is Texas--or because these are major socioeconomic factors that have seriously impacted the way these people live their lives. This story is about much more than football--it's about a town, people and their relationships, life. It just so happens that the defining backdrop of this town, the most important make-or-break moments of the players' lives, the adults' hopes, and the town's future (if we believe that a town's future is a result of where it directs its finances and from which it culls its identity), is a stretch of green 120 yards long.

Friday Night Lights is a true-life account of the Permian Panthers in their 1988 season. More importantly, it’s an account of the isolated town of Odessa, Texas and the pressure they place on the team to perform. This non-fiction book, turned movie, turned television show reaches into the psyche of Middle America and tells the story of many rural towns which invest in the success of their high school football team in light of economic downturn.

This book is contrasted between the poverty of Odessa residents and the upper class who are united by high school football. As the oil industry is failing in this small town, football is all they have. It’s a fascinating story about the disappointment faced when the team does not meet the town’s expectations and the pressure that is placed on their shoulders to succeed.

I think most high school students can relate to the theme of this book as American schools are often driven by high school football. In teaching this book, I would consider using activities that help students implement journalistic and experiential style writing. The use of comparing and contrasting would also be an effective means of teaching this book.

I would recommend Out of the Pocket with this book as it deals with similar themes, using football as a backdrop for a story of identity and peer pressure.

Some time early on during the course of my reading of Friday Night Lights I realized that this wasn’t really a story of football, but one about a town and people within it trying to make the most of their life. Football is certainly a big focus, but the book becomes much more than just a game. It is all the better for that expanded scope.

In the end I am blown away by the power of it. Trying to wrap your head around a town like this is a lost cause. The people live (or lived) for Friday night high school football. It permeates every aspect of life. It emphasizes the oil boom and bust, the racial tension and progression within America, and the development of a town and its education system. It’s no wonder this book became much more than following a team for 4 months in 1988.

Two last things must be said. 1) The TV version is one of my favorite shows ever and this book is very different even if the vibe often feels similar. I haven’t seen the movie since it first came out but understand it sticks much closer to this story. And 2) The 25 years later update is an absolute must. It rounds the story out in such an impactful way - makes it more informative, more tragic, and more hopeful. For me, it elevates the book and it’s themes.

Affecting, amusing, alarming, appalling account of the winningest high-school football team in Texas. (Apparently this review was brought to you by the letter A.) Along the way, Bissinger discusses popularity, racism, sexism, fresh-baked cookies, memories, oil, home economics, class conflicts, statutory rape, algebra, the savings-and-loan crisis, lowered expectations, skewed priorities, algebra, and armed robbery.

Some of my favorite passages:

Coach Belew: "I want one hell of a wreck out there. I want that boy to be sorry he's playin'. Run upfield like a scalded dog. Run upfield and contain that sucker."

"The revised volume of the Places Rated Almanac rated Odessa the second worst place to live in the country out of the 333 that were studied. Odessa, according to the almanac, had the worst health care in the country and ranked in the bottom twenty-five in the categories of transportation, jobs, and recreation."

Jerrod McDougal: "We got two things in Odessa. Oil and football. And oil's gone. But we still got football, so fuck the rest of you."

Jerrod McDougal, a few years later: "What hurts so bad about it, I was part of it for a while. The thing is, it will never stop. Permian will have good teams when you and I are dead and gone."