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Summary: If You Think You Know Football, Think Again
Review: The book, Friday Night Lights, was about a small town by the name of Permian and how its natives devoted their lives to the Permian High School program. IN this town, everyone eats sleeps and drinks high school football with the thought of the Friday night game in their minds at all times. The book also goes off into a couple of football players personal lives, when they face problems of going to college, doing anything to get in the game, and dealing with injuries throughout the season. Friday Night Lights highlights a character who I can relate to, and if you know football like I do, so can you. A character named Boobie Miles, was a stellar running back with perfect size and speed. He was the heart and soul of the Permian Panther's offense, and he brought a lot of excitement and victory to their program. Most of the fans, especially the girls, made it their first priority to get to him. Because I actually play football and have experienced the things that have happened to Boobie Miles, I feel like I have a certain connection with this novel. Playing football in a small town where everybody knows you by face and name feels great while the time lasts. A soon as you get hurt or something happens to you, it seems as if no one ever knew who you were. It's all about what and who's hot at the moment. In this book, Boobie has a heavy dosage of both the fame and the failure.
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Summary: A microcosm of American life--magnificently told
Review: I don't give a hang about football, my three sons' schools don't even have football teams, and I have no particular interest in west Texas. Three strikes, you're out? No! H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger's story of the ongoing competition between Odessa's Permian Panthers and their adversaries across Texas is a moving, beautifully told saga about America, our values, what brings us together and what pushes us apart. I still can hardly tell a first down from a touchback, but "Friday Night Lights" was one of the best books I've read this year, and hands down, the best thing I've ever read on the oil-based culture of West Texas. I'm glad to have the tenth-anniversary edition with the updates on the characters portrayed in this book--it's an added pleasure to read what happened after that season's lights went down.
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Summary: Reality
Review: How do we lose sight of our goals in life? Friday night lights is a story about a struggling town with an excellent football team. The people of this town are separated racially and sociallly yet their children are still able to come together on the football field. If students can do this why cant the parents do it? This shows the realities of life, even if you don't like the way someone looks doesn't mean that you won't like the way someone acts. This book makes you look at the way you choose your friends or business aquaintances. My suggestion would be to read this book, you won't regret this.
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Summary: I hate football and I loved the book
Review: I went to the University of Texas, where the secular religion of football continues after high school. I've been to countless games, and I always thought the quarterback just threw the ball to whoever was open. I picked up this book because I was interested in West Texas. It accurately describes the West Texas culture as I know it: endless stretches of acrid land where one makes or breaks, sinks or swims. Having traveled extensively throughout the area, I can understand the lure of football attraction.
The book is phenomenally well written, and I, Miss I-never -will- go- to- pigskin-game-again, found myself reading it on the sidewalks in New York as I walked to work. Several strangers stopped me on the subway to tell me how much they enjoyed the book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Football Story From Beging To End!
Review: This is a good book for anyone who likes football or sports. This book gave great play-by-play on the games. It told you exactly what happened during each and every game. It also has a good background of lifestlye, away from football. All though this book was hard to understand in some parts, this was an overall good book from beging to end. I would highly recommened this book to any person who enjoys reading about football or likes the sport football!
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Summary: High School football at its best and worst...
Review: Friday Night Lights is the true account of the 1988 season of the Permian High School Panthers, the winningest high school football program in Texas history and the pride of Odessa, a boom town where the money had dried up and desegregation had been in place for all of six years. Shocking, saddening, and exciting, the story of the boys who played and the town that lived and died with their every game is one of the great stories of American sport. This book is a portrait of the best things and worst things that come of high school sports. It is a story of young men who sacrifice and dedicate themselves to a unified cause, ignoring racial and economic differences to reach a level of success that none of them could attain on his own. It is also the story of a community whose racial tensions are far from settled and whose drive for football success pushes it so much that academic results are secondary, and the largest issue with social change is how it affects the football team. The contrast is striking: the community loves and supports its football-playing sons, while fostering an environment of entitlement where football is the only thing that matters, and the football player holds the highest place in the social order. The personal stories make for some of the most compelling reading in the book. There is the quarterback who is ashamed to let his girlfriend see the inside of his house and struggles with his inconsistency; the star running back who injures his knee and is forgotten by his coaches and the college recruiters; along with many others. Each one of these kids has a story that is tragic and hopeful, though in Odessa it seemed to be generally more of the former. You see how the season and the pressure grinds on these boys and how they embrace and rebel against the Permian MOJO culture, ultimately pushing ahead for themselves alone. There is a little bit of Odessa in every town in America, whether it's under the lights on Friday, or in a gymnasium or on a baseball diamond, which is what makes this book such a classic. The story of Odessa's Panthers may seem crazy to some and beautiful to others, but it strikes a chord with all of us who have ever witnessed or participated in high school sports, where the hopes of a community are carried by its young people, for better or worse. Bissinger captures this phenomenon without holding back or rendering judgment on the people of Odessa, and delivers it in a stark, visceral style that lends itself well to the bleak surroundings of Odessa, Texas.
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Summary: Sorry, Merc!
Review: Years ago, maybe in a more innocent time or at a minimum, at least a less cynical time, the one time Running Back of the Miami Dolphins was sentenced by a Federal Judge for trafficking in cocaine. Giving him a 10 year sentence, cognizant of the joy Mercury Morris had brought the Dolphins and their Miami fans, the Judge said, "Sorry Merc." Of course, football afficianados were saddened by the sentence. What had happened? How did he suddenly fall? It must have been overnight because he was such a wonderful running back. How does it happen that we lose sight of our heroes, are deaf to their problems, ignorant of the huge crash when the stands empty forever? It starts with the Permian Panthers, a High School football team in Odessa, Texas in the late '80's. Bissinger's book remains the quintesential 'not-feel-good-story' about high school sports. Nothing bad happens, there are no pregnancies, DUI's, deaths or shootings, but there are worse things. There is the false society that these young (for the most part) men live. The adulation. The absence of no other alternative other than what they have been taught as the only way out of poverty, boredom, and the greatest punishment of all, anonimity. We are all enablers. While Bissinger aims at the coaches we would have to include school officials, town leaders, fans, ourselves. Extremely well written I picked it up again as in this year, as we closed in on the College Football Championships with all the controversy of "who is the real winner?" Of course the whispered answer may be, do we really need one? Is there any point before professional sports that the joy of the game remains the joy of the game? The parents of all high school children, ex-athletes, sports lovers, kids, and couch potatoes should read Bissinger. It's a great read.
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Summary: tHiS bOoK iS aWeSoMe, MaN!!!
Review: I first saw this book when i was researching John Elway for my English Class. I saw it in the sports section and it kind of jumped out at me. As i began to read it, it hit home so much, because I too, just came off of a devastating highschool football season. The way the author was inside the story and his account of the team was perfect. The way the football team took winning to the extreme was intresting and almost shocking. The characters like Boobie, Winchell, Christian, and all the others are so well developed that it brought me right back to the lockeroom!
Even if you don't like football, I think that you would still enjoy this book. Not only is this book packed with ingame action from Permian's '88 football season, but it really shows how important highschool athletics are to small towns, and in this case, how crazy the town goes over it. I gave this book 5 stars because of it's way to bring the reader right into the season with them. It truely shows the emotion of Friday nights!
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Summary: The Way of Life
Review: My English teacher recommended this book to me and when I started reading it, I couldn't set it down and I'm not one to read. Playing on a high school football team (P.C. Pirates) where I play football in a very good conference I can't even imagine the crowd itself. Then the way these guys played without a heart was insane. Since, I come from Texas I knew that football was really big but not this big. It was truly amazing to read that the Odessa (a town) revolved around the Permian Panthers (the football team).
I would completely recommend this book to everyone I met. This book is truly the best book I've read by far.
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Summary: "in northern va football is a way of life"- Remember Titans
Review: Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. As someone who has participated in high school football at a large competitive school I can most definitely relate to the descriptions and feelings described within this book. Although my high school pales in comparison to the level of football the Permian Panthers played at. The same story could be told at many of the high schools across the nation. Fortunately many of the most grievous problems that existed on the '88 Panther team do not exist today in most high school. Racism is still a problem in some areas but in my high school it is all but extinct. There are no more 'free rides' through high school, at least none at my school. Certainly no girl asks and player for 'favors' in exchange for money. Despite many of these factors there is a lot more to high school football players than most people know. As far as winning goes the standard at Permian is just as high at any other major football high school. From a student body stand point no one wants to cheer for a team that doesn't win, everybody likes a winner. When the football team wins the students will surround themselves with the team. When the team loses the story is just the opposite. Instead of "We won!" its "They lost." As a football player you don't win games for your school. You don't play for the status. This is what happened to the '88 football team at Permian. A real championship team plays for the team, not the social implications. Winning is all that matters to someone who gives up half there summer to go through the push their bodies to the extreme during two-a-day practices with their eventual brothers. Winning is all that matters when practice from early August to mid-December. Its all that matters when its all you've known.
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