Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
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| Author | H. G. Bissinger |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Addison-Wesley |
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Publication date
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1990 |
| Pages | 357 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 21408817 |
| 796.332/63/09764862 20 | |
| LC Class | GV958.P47 B57 1990 |
| Followed by | A Prayer for the City (1998) |
Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream is a 1990 non-fiction book written by H. G. Bissinger. The book follows the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team from Odessa, Texas, as they made a run towards the Texas state championship. While originally intended to be a Hoosiers-type chronicle of high school sports that holds together a small town, the final book ended up being critical about life in the town of Odessa. It was later adapted for television and film.
Bissinger was a journalist for The Philadelphia Inquirer when he was selected as a Harvard Neiman Fellow. It was while he was at Harvard that the idea to write a book focused upon the role high school football plays within American society, in particular rural society, took hold. Bissinger returned to The Inquirer briefly, received a Pulitzer Prize, and then took off in search of a community for which high school football was paramount. He settled on Odessa, Texas. Permian High School and its football team, the Permian Panthers, had a substantial, rich history of winning in Texas' 4A and 5A division, having won championships in 1965, 1972, 1980, and 1984. Bissinger moved his family to Odessa and spent the entire 1988 football season with the Permian Panther players, their families, their coaches, and even many of the townspeople in an effort to understand the town and its football-mad culture.
In the 5A playoff semifinals, Permian meets Dallas Carter, a predominantly black team. In a hard fought game in the rain at Memorial Stadium in Austin, the Panthers are defeated 14–9. Carter, led by future Miami Hurricanes and New York Giants linebacker Jessie Armstead, goes on to win the state championship, but faced severe penalties for their grade tampering, giving the state championship to Judson High School almost three years later.
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