Boobie Miles

James Earl "Boobie" Miles, Jr. (born April 16, 1970) is a former high school football tailback for Permian High School, and was a primary subject in the book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.G. Bissinger, and the movie inspired by the book. He attended Permian High School in Odessa, Texas.

Miles is a major figure in Bissinger's book as one of the top high school running backs in Texas. He was sought by dozens of top college football schools, but his promising career was derailed by a knee injury. He was the best in his class at the Pacer Test, running for the longest amount of time in Texas, when he was 16.

Miles was born en route to St. Luke's Hospital in Houston with a police escort on April 16, 1970. He lived with his parents until he was three when his mother left him with his maternal grandmother in Houston and moved permanently to Oklahoma without him. Around the age of five Miles went to live with his father, James Sr. The elder Miles was working two jobs, as a truck driver and printing-plant laborer. His father lost custody of Boobie when he started dating a woman who, Boobie claims, physically harmed him. He was placed in a foster home in the Houston area, and eight months later he was put in the care of his uncle L.V. Miles in Odessa, Texas. The two shared the house with L.V.'s wife, Ruby, and her three daughters.

Miles started playing football for the Vikings, a Pop Warner football team that L.V. coached.

In 1987, Miles rushed for 1,345 yards. Expectations were high every year at Permian High School and in 1988 the Associated Press, in its preseason predictions, had chosen Permian to win the state title based partly on the play of Miles. From the spring through the early fall of '88, Miles was heavily recruited by numerous top football schools. Letters came from Notre Dame, Nebraska, Houston, Texas A&M, Clemson, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, LSU, SMU, USC, Purdue and Arkansas.

However, in a preseason scrimmage against the Amarillo Palo Duro Dons, Miles' leg was caught in the artificial turf when he planted his left leg to stiff-arm a tackler; another player then fell on it from the side. The next day he was examined by a local doctor. The initial diagnosis of the injury was that it was only a sprained ligament. Four days later an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Dean, examined Miles and felt the injury was severe enough to require arthroscopic surgery. The surgery was performed the day before Permian's season opener against El Paso Austin. Miles had severely torn the anterior cruciate ligament. He had also torn the cartilage in his left knee. Miles was given the option of immediate reconstructive surgery, which Dean had recommended, or a program of rehabilitation. Rehab would allow Miles to play football with a knee brace. Both Boobie and L.V. opted for the brace.

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