‘Friday Night Lights’ as relevant, and popular, 25 years later

This fall marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Friday Night Lights, the groundbreaking classic by H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger that chronicles the 1988 high school football season at Odessa Permian.

In his reporting, Bissinger found darker themes related to football, including a racially divided town that had put unimaginable pressure on the backs of its high school football players. Fans, it seemed, tried to escape the volatility of the oil markets and high unemployment under the lights on the field.

Remarkably, the re-release and new afterword debuted at No. 7 this week on the New York Times’ best-seller list for sports tomes.

“I knew I had a great story. I knew it was a unique story, I knew the narrative was there, the reporting was there,” Bissinger said. “But the idea of talking about this book 25 years later and having it still sell is surreal.”

On Saturday, Bissinger will be at Half Price Books in Dallas (5803 E. Northwest Highway) at 2 p.m. and Books-a-Million at 5 p.m. in Grapevine for book signings.

Friday Night Lights is as relevant today, perhaps more so, as yesteryear, Bissinger said, what with a stadium in Allen that cost $60 million and another in Katy being constructed at a cost of $58 million, plus Jumbotron screens and seat licensing agreements — usually the accoutrements of pro and college football — and the game’s proliferation through the Internet and social media.

“It’s a whole different ballgame now. To me you’re now approaching a semi-pro level,” Bissinger said. “I’m sure players are being coddled and academic shortcuts are being made. There’s a lot of lip service paid by administrators and coaches, but I don’t know they really believe it.

“I think that makes the lessons of Friday Night Lights as valuable today as 25 years ago.”

You were in Midland and Odessa earlier this week. When the book originally came out, you had received threats. What was your reception like there this week?

The reception in Odessa is one of ignoring me. Ever since the film came out and they were relieved about the depiction of the town and avoided the much deeper themes of the book, the racism, displacing academic priorities. They ignored me. There was a book signing that was actually very, very small. But when I meet people in Odessa, the principal of the high school, the football coach … they’re very, very gracious. The town of Odessa has changed quite a bit. It’s more sophisticated and football isn’t as important, the whole power base has shifted to the Metroplex and Houston suburbs.

Do you think the new generation of coaches who came from that culture 25 years ago are changing the culture?

I think we’re more sports obsessed than we ever were. Parents are more involved than ever before. There was recent poll done by Harvard … 25 percent of parents think their kids are going to make it to the pros. When you think that, you’re going to be actively involved, put pressure on coaches, kids are discouraged from playing more than one sport. And if you talk to coaches, kids are identified as being great athletes as young as age 7. It’s a dangerous slope.

Would you have let your kids play at Odessa Permian?

The environment has changed [there], but, yeah, I would be more concerned, frankly, if he was playing at Allen or Southlake Carroll or Katy. I would be very concerned if he was identified as being great [so] that he wouldn’t care about education. I could talk about it until I was blue in the face, but if he was idolized, gets breaks by teachers, it’s not going to do him any good. [Put on a pedestal] is not the way we live our lives.

You’ve kept in touch with many of those guys. In your opinion, can you see how their experience at Permian fashioned life paths and who they are today?

I think they’ve gone on to have the lives they’ve wanted to. It’s not for me to judge. They miss [football]. I was just with [former tight end] Brian Chavez and he talked about getting goose bumps when he watched Permian play earlier this season. I think they all miss it, not necessarily the pageantry and spectacles, [but rather] the incredible sense of camaraderie that is unique to high school football, and it’s made the book timeless because it was able to capture that.

One of the more tragic figures in the book is former running back Boobie Miles, who is now in prison for violating terms of his probation on an aggravated assault charge in Dallas County. What is your relationship like with him?

Boobie was never able to overcome when he got injured in the preseason. We’re very, very close. I knew when he got hurt, I saw the town and the school and the team and coaches turn on him, I knew that it was going to be a long, long, difficult road, and it has been. Boobie is in the Stiles Unit in Beaumont. I knew he was there, but seeing him face-to-face — we do love each other — it’s really, really hard and emotional and sad. But I can’t say I was surprised.”

The TV show Friday Night Lights has been a hit. What do you make of it?

I met with the writers, but it was clear they … were inspired by the book in the sense they wanted to delve into some of the deeper, darker themes of football. People loved it, but, I can tell you, the book was real and 20 times deeper than the TV show. In the book, there’s not a happy resolution every hour.

This story was originally published September 18, 2015 at 7:03 PM with the headline "‘Friday Night Lights’ as relevant, and popular, 25 years later."