Friday Night Lights

by H. G. Bissinger

About the Book:

Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday night from September to December, when the Permian High School Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, Bissinger chronicles one of the Panthers' dramatic seasons and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires-and sometimes shatters-the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms.

About the Author:

H.G. Bissinger has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Livingston Award, the National Headliner Award, and the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel for his reporting. He lives in Philadelphia.

Discussion Questions:

1.  What role does football play in their lives of the players and in the lives of the people of Odessa?  To what extent do the players’ ambitions and experiences prepare each of them differently for life after football?

2. Looking at Boobie and Don, how does football impact and drive their respective relationships with LV and Charlie?  Do their post-football lives reflect the way they were raised in that 1988 season?  Why do you think things transpired the way they did?

3. Bissinger notes that the tradition of Odessa's Permian Panthers "was enshrined on a wall of the field house" (p 24) and also "in the county library, where the 235-page history that had been written about Permian football was more detailed than any of the histories about the town itself." What conclusions concerning Odessa might be drawn from the fact that its high school football program is valued more highly than the town's history?

4. In what ways does race influence the attitudes and behavior of Odessa's high-school athletes, coaches, teachers, parents, and fans?

5. After each loss, Gary Gaines finds for sale signs piled up in his front yard.  With all the pressure that comes with the head coaching job at Permian, do you feel sympathy for Gaines and his situation or do you feel he deserves what comes his way?

6. With the knee injury, Boobie Miles would have easily been the focal point of both the book and the football season.  Once he was hurt, however, his life changed dramatically.  What struck you most about Boobie’s fall from the limelight -- Boobie’s actions or those of the coaching staff?

7. What do Bissinger's descriptions of classroom activity and teachers' behavior at Permian High School reveal about the role of education in the lives of the students and adults of Odessa?  Do you agree with Bissinger's statement that the school's "problems didn't make Permian a bad school at all, just a very typically American one"? (p 132)

8. Bissinger sets up the final football game with a look at the controversy surrounding the Carter Cowboys.  Amidst the grading controversy, Carter was blindly defending their actions while other teams called them cheaters.  Do you feel Permian would have acted any differently if one of their players was in the same situation?

9. What specific examples does Bissinger cite of the roles of fans, coaches, teachers, parents, and school administrators in the treatment of high school football players? How accountable should school officials and parents be for the behavior of players?

10. In the afterward (written 10 years after Friday Night Lights was first published), are you surprised by the players’ attitudes regarding their experiences?  Do you understand their continued draw to the Permian football program?