What Is The Significance Of Friday Night Lights

In the book titled Race, Sports, and the American Dream, it discussed how sports helped change the place of African-American in society. “Sports was well segregated deep into the 20th century” (Smith 9). How college football looked in America in the 1950s was exactly how American society looked in the 1950s, segregated and racist. African-American athletes in college football helped fight and negate stereotypes because it showed that they are equally as good

The book “Last Shot” shows what a basketball game is really about. It doesn't just show you the game and who wins; It shows you how all the competitors need to prepare immensely to attempt to win. It shows you how the players could throw everything away with their grades or selling team merchandise for a maximum profit. During the read of this book, you are Stevie Thomas, teen writing contest winner. You get to experience the time of your life (at least from his perspective), which is going and reporting at the Men’s Basketball NCAA Tournament Final Four. You discover what the reporters have to go through and maybe what the players are told to do. Basketball is much more than just the game, it’s life.

The individuals in Odessa have “shared values or generally accepted standards of desirability” (Wallace and Wolf 18) regarding their feelings of high school football and the meaning of coming together as a town in support for the team. Hence the values that are placed on football, solidarity, and winning the theory of functionalism can be seen and applied in Friday Night Lights.

Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and A Dream is a 1990 non-fiction novel wrote by H.G. Bissinger. The story chronicles the pressures and expectations of the Permian Panthers football team in socially divided Odessa, Texas. Throughout the story, challenges are presented with each of the protagonists: James “Boobie” Miles, Mike Winchell, Don Billingsley, Gary Gaines, Brian Chavez, and Ivory Christian.

     Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? Recent newspaper headlines include such items as coaches abusing student athletes; fathers of athletes murdering coaches, and mother’s disabilitating cheerleading candidates to assure their daughters make the cheerleading team. In Odessa, Texas high school football is a major contributor to the society of a small town in Texas society. Every Friday night, 50,000 people fill the stadium to see high school students put their lives on the line to win a football game. H. G. Bissinger writes a novel called Friday Night Lights, about a year in 1988 where High School players prepare and play on the High School team, and what an impact they have

“Football became my ticket to a college scholarship which, in western Pennsylvania during the early ‘sixties, meant a career instead of getting stuck in the steel-mills” (4). Football is the number one

In Hank Hill's short essay What in the Name of High School Football? He implies that some High schools focus too much on each of their athletic accomplishments and not enough on the visual and performing arts. Hill supports this claim with his word choice and diction. Hills purpose is to point out the unfair and lopsided views of society when it comes to extracurricular activities. Hill takes on an almost upset tone in order to expose the major problem that continues to affect society today. Based on Hills tone word choice and topic this piece seems to be directed at the school administrators and high school students.

In the film, “We are Marshall”, there is a major theme that includes being able to move on and a rebuilding of a community after a tragic event. In the following paragraphs I will be discussing with a chain of events how football helped rebuild a community after a tragic event and how religion and sport are intertwined. This paper is significant because within a short span it highlights different aspects of not only rebuilding a football team but a community. This paper is important because it shows how the concept of structural functionalism played a big part in this film in addition to the socialization of youth and adults in the community. This paper will also talk about major points and scenes from the film that have a connection with the

Bissinger shows how football is a large part of Don’s life and affects the expectations of his father, Charlie Billingsley. Watching his son play for his old high school team made him fill up with “ parental pride”.Charlie expects Don to make better choices in his life than he did when he was in high school. The narrator states, “ his sense of right and wrong had been mounted on a hair trigger.” Charlie got into many fights when he was in high school and it affected the way people looked at him as a person, even though he was a star athlete on the football team. In addition, the narrator states, “ he had the numbers, the kind of numbers that everyone in Odessa understood and admired.” Charlie was well known around Odessa for his amazing football skills and expects Don to do the same. The text states, “ not as some two-bit supporter but as a star, a legend.” Charlie doesn't want Don to just be on the team, he expects him to give it his all and become a star and a legend like he is, based on his football playing abilities, and not just the fact that he is a Permian Panther. Although the players on the Permian Panthers were automatically legends because football was such a large part of the lives of the people who live in Odessa.The narrator states, “ At the very sight of the team at the edge of the stadium, hundreds of elementary school kids started squealing in delight……. They began yelling the war cry of ‘MO-JO! MO-JO! MO-JO!’

“‘Athletics last for such a short period of time. It ends for people. But while it lasts, it creates this make-believe world where normal rules don’t apply. We build this false atmosphere. When it’s over and the harsh reality sets in, that’s the real joke we play on people’” (Bissinger xiv). “Friday Night Lights” shows the darker side of high school football. Players are taught to play games to win, and thats all that matters. Football players are put under a tremendous amount of pressure, almost enough to be considered unfair. Even though football is a “team sport”, pressure on individual players is unnecessary. Some players have the burden of the team, the city, their family, and their future, resting on their shoulders. These players

Brian's Song is a movie that starred James Caan, as Brian Piccolo, and Billy D. Williams, as Gale Sayers. The movie was primarily about how the two players interacted each other as running backs for the Chicago Bears and how their friendship matured through the difficulties of Brian's cancer diagnosis and eventual death. The movie explores many themes such as friendship, courage and compassion, but it leaves one particular subject somewhat alone. Gale Sayers is black and Brian Piccolo was white and they were roommates on team trips at a time when relationships between these two races could be very volatile. The movie had very little to say about how black and white professional players interacted, but there is some evidence in the movie of the tension that existed and the segregation that still existed. This paper explores this theme of race relations in sports seen through Brian's Song and as it is today.

Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? I’ve learned that the book is more sociological, which means that it focused on our human society of racial issues and also emphasizes the economy and the divide between the wealthy residents of one city versus the more working-class denizens of another are all subjects that are given an in-depth examination. This is more of the main or focal point of the whole book and in not so much in the movie. Although Bissinger's story is a true-life recounting of the 1988 football season of the Permian High School team, it reads like fiction and even though I believe his book is superior, the theatrical adaptation still stands apart as one of the great

Sustaining the ambitions of not only themselves but the alumni and town of Odessa, Texas is a lot to ask from a young adult. That’s exactly what Permian football provides to the people of Odessa, where the post economic boom of the oil business has left the town in a racially tense, economic crisis. The lights on Permian High School’s football field are the only sanctuary for the west Texas town. Socially and racially divided, Odessa’s mass dependence on high school football constructs glorified expectations for the football team to temporarily disguise the disappointments that come with living in a town tagged as the “murder capital” of

Sports are a significant part of society and spectators enjoy particular events regardless of the type. However, there are many players who develop special working and social relationships with whom they are participating regardless of the type of sport. The relationship and how people interact with one another can be the determination of how successful a team can be. The particular film based on a true story that I chose is titled When the Game Stands Tall. This film consists of a high performing football team of De La Salle High School in the state of California. Jim Caviezel portrays the head coach (Bob Ladouceur) as a man with such vision and passion that goes beyond the fundamental principles of coaching the game of football. The football team had won 151 games without being defeated which is the highest winning record a team has had in the game of football. The film shows the internal struggles of the players in their lives as people, and how they perform on the field. It also shows the external tragic difficulties that they face while they attend and play for De Le Salle High School. In the movie, the head coach helps the students/players by not only coaching them but also showing them how to live a flourishing life by committing to endure difficult life situations and the way to overcome them. He helps teach the principles of brotherhood and companionship with the team that they build. In the movie, the head coach and the staff had taught the players

He uses points like these to carry the reader into his study of this three things; masculinity, militarization, and, of course, college football during the Cold War period, and how the media influenced the United States. He, along with many people, claims that college football had been very much a masculine representation of the nation leisure time. The media comes into this book when he, basically, claimed that most fans of college football and other sports, participated in watching this event through television and that broadcast descriptions of college football games as patriotic act during the Cold