Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger Read Free Book Online Page B

then bleak emptiness once again.
    It was a view that every traveler had seen a million times before, and maybe if you were a passenger on a plane bisecting
the night, you looked down and saw those lights and wondered
what it would be like to live in an Odessa, to inhabit one of those
infinitesimal dots, to be in a place that seemed so painfully far
away from everything, so completely out of the mainstream of
life. Perhaps you wondered what values people held on to in a
place like that, what they cared about. Or perhaps you went
back to your book, eager to get as far away as possible from
that yawning maw that seemed so unimaginable, so utterly
unimportant.
    In the absence of a shimmering skyline, the Odessas of the
country had all found something similar in which to place their
faith. In Indiana, it was the plink-plink-plink of a ball on a parquet floor. In Minnesota, it was the swoosh of skates on the
ice. In Ohio and Pennsylvania and Alabama and Georgia and
Texas and dozens of other states, it was the weekly event simply
known as Friday Night.
    From the twenties through the eighties, whatever else there
hadn't been in Odessa, there had always been high school
football.
    In 1927, as story after story in the Odessa News heralded new
strikes in the oil field, the only non-oil-related activity that
made the front page was the exploits of the Odessa High Yel- lowjackets. In 1946, when the population of Ector County was
about thirty thousand, old Fly Field was routinely crammed
with thirteen thousand five hundred fans, many of whom saw
nothing odd about waiting in line all night to get tickets. Odessa
High won the state championship that year, which became one
of those events that was remembered in the psyche of the town
forever, as indelible as Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.
Where were you the moment the Bronchos won the championship? Everyone knew.

    In the sixties and seventies and eighties, when the legacy of
high school football in Odessa transferred from Odessa High
to Permian High, instead of just waiting all night for tickets,
people sometimes waited two days. Gaines and the other Permian coaches were all too aware of the role that high school football occupied in Odessa, how it had become central to the
psyche of thousands who lived there. Expectations were high
every year and in 1988, if it was possible, they were even higher
than usual. The team had an incredible array of talent, the devout boosters whispered, the best of any Permian team in a decade. Winchell back at quarterback ... Miles back at fullback ...
Chavez back at tight end ... Brown back at flanker ... Hill back at
split end ... They listed off the names as if they were talking
about the star-studded cast of a movie spectacular, and they
frankly didn't see how Permian could miss a trip to State this
season.
    They weren't the only ones to think so. The Associated Press,
making its predictions for the season, had picked Permian to
win it all. "Although Aldine, Sugar Land Willowridge, Hurst
Bell, San Antonio Clark, and Houston Yates are gaining big
support, the guess here [is] that there will be a big surprise
from out west," the article said. "Remember Odessa Permian?
The Panthers and their legendary `Mojo Magic' always contend
for the title."
    To the boosters, that story was music to their ears, further
confirmation that when the middle of December rolled around
they would be on their way to Texas Stadium for the state championship. To Gaines, it only created more room for anger
and disappointment if the team didn't get there.

    When he spoke to the players that very first time, he told
them to ignore the outside pressure that would inevitably swirl
around them during the thick of the season. "I'm gonna get
criticism and you're gonna get criticism," he said. "It don't mean
a hill of beans, because the only people that matter are in this
room. It doesn't make a difference, except for the people here."
    In