FRIDAY+NIGHT+LIGHTS

Friday Night Lights. A Town. A Team. And A Dream. By: H.G. Bissinger

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About H.G. Bissinger
Bissinger graduated from Philips Academy in 1972 and the University of Pennsylvania in 1976, in which he became a sports and opinion editor for //The Daily Pennsylvanian//.

He is most known for writing the__Friday Night Lights__. H.G. was also a journalist and had some of his work appear in the New York Times and Sports Illustrated magazines.Bissinger has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Livingston Award, the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award and the National Headliners Award. He is among the United States' most honored writers. Overall, H.G. Bissinger has had great influence through his work especially in his most popular book, __Friday Night Lights__.



=About the Book=

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__ Friday Night Lights __ is considered a drama and sports movie. The story takes place in Odessa, a city in Texas that is an oil town. The story takes place in 1988. Permian High School is the public high school in Odessa. =====

Brief Summary of Story
Odessa is a small city in Texas that has very big droughts when the town is not producing oil, which runs their town. Odessa is also racially and economically divided and problems in these areas are very bad in 1988. On Friday night however, the town is united because every Friday night in the fall, the Permian Panthers play their weekly high school football game. The Permian Panthers have great tradition for winning. In the year of 1988, QB Mike Winchell and superstar RB Booby Miles are the leaders of the team this year. When Booby Miles suffer a season ending injury, everyone in Odessa loses hope. Despite major setbacks including big problems in the daily life of Odessa, Coach Gaines and this football team rises up against the odds without their best player and makes their way to the state championship. In the state championship, Permian loses to the Carter Cowboys. Even though Permian lost, they were respected greatly for their efforts to pull together a dying town and give them hope. ==

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Character Analysis
Booby Miles (Round) - Booby was supposed to be the star of the Permian football team until he suffers an injury in the first scrimmage that would cause him to sit out for the rest of the season.

Mike Winchell (Round) - The star quarterback of the team. After Booby's injury, he has to lead their team to victory and hopefully another state championship.

Coach Gaines (Round) - Coach of Permian football team. He has to bring the team together after the injury of Booby Miles and lead them to the state championship.

Don Billingsley (Flat) - Tailback for Permian. He has a problem with partying as he does it after every game. His father was a former star of Permian.

Ivory Christian (Flat) - Hates playing football but the sport is special to him and he keeps playing it.

Brian Chavez (Round) - He is the starting tight end for Permian and is also Hispanic. Although he loves playing football his sights are set on getting to Harvard as he focuses really hard on getting good grades in school.

Racism-
====Racism is a re-ocurring theme in //Friday Night Lights.// H.G Bissinger mentions the harsh racism that occurs in Odessa. He explains how even though some blacks play very important role on the football team they still gain no respect from the whites in Odess and H.G finds it very surprising.====

Parents pushing their own wants and goals through their children -
====In //Friday Night Lights,// the kids on the football team are very pressured by the rest f the town of Odessa especially their parents. Their parents want their kids to be the very best, but don't realize that their kids are not perfect and that they are trying as hard as they can.====

Life is not always fair -
One example of life not always being fair is when Boobie Miles got injured. He was supposed to have a great career in his football future, but a terrible knee injury destroyed his football career.

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Favorite Quotes
1. “Those lights become an addiction if you live in a place like Odessa, the Friday Night fix.” (Bissinger, xiv)

The author is describing that going to football games on Friday night is tradition. Bissinger is saying that football games is one of the only things that bring the town of Odessa together.

2. “Y’all wanna win, put Boobie in.” (Bissinger, 194)

After Boobie Miles got injured, Coach Gaines let him dress and was going to sit him on the sidelines. Permian was behind in the game, and the crowd wanted Boobie to play, but Coach Gaines did not want to play him because his injury could get much worse. Boobie wanted to play, so he kept saying this quote on the sideline until Coach Gaines put him in. Boobie ended up hurting his knee even more that ended his season.

3. “I want you to take a moment, and I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever because forever is about to happen here in just a few minutes. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about Boobie Miles, who is your brother. And he would die to be out there in that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts. Boys my heart is full. My heart is full.” (Bissinger, 320)

At the State Championship game, when Permian is losing, Coach Gaines put together a very motivating halftime speech. Coach Gaines’ point is that even if Permian loses, everyone will still respect every other player on the team and that they have overcome many obstacles throughout the year. Coach Baines wants the players to play for each other and Boobie Miles, who turned his attitude around into a great team player.

4. “Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didnt let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is you did everything you could. There wasnt one more thing you could've done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentleman - you're perfect!” (Bissinger, 320)

This is Coach Baines’ halftime speech that motivated Permian for the second half. His point is that everyone on the team could tell each other after the game, no matter win or loss, that everyone played their best and did as much as they could to win the game.

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 * Literary Terms **

1. Imagery Before the semi-final game, Bissinger gives an example of imagery. He describes all the players in the locker room awaiting the start of the game. It gives a good picture of how the players were feeling and what they were thinking before the game.

2. Irony Brian Williams is one the biggest and meanest football players around, but is one of the smartest. Brian won valedictorian despite being thought of by others as a dumb football player.

3. Foreshadowing After coming back from injury, Boobie Miles played bad recording only 14 yards. This foreshadowed that the rest of the season for him would not be good. The coaches and doctors do not let him play, which got rid of his chance at a scholarship.

4. Metaphor Boobie gets a cold feeling when he sits on the bench during a game as if something inside of him died. His future in football and his dream was destroyed.

__ Connections To // Friday Night Lights //__

Both Remember the Titans and Friday Night Lights are about football. In both, the football teams overcame many obstacles during their season. In Friday Night Lights, Boobie Miles, Permian’s star player got injured. In Remember the Titans, Rev, the starting quarterback was injured. Another similarity is that both teams overcame racism issues that divided the towns. Racism had a huge impact and was the main conflict that appeared in both.
 * Remember the Titans:**


 * Real Life:** In //Friday Night Lights//, many of the players on the team are under a lot of pressure from the town and their family and peers. A lot of people in Odessa expect very much out of the team. They have to live under the pressure every game and live with the fact people expect a lot out of them. In real life, this problem also happens as parents put kids under a lot of stress by trying to make them into something they're not and pushing them to do things they don't want to do.

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=Links= http://teenink.com/reviews/book_reviews/article/1319/Friday-Night-Lights-by-H-G-Bissinger/ This is positive review of the book that may convince you into reading //Friday Night Lights.// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ZjEn697fk A book trailer for //Friday Night Lights.// http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/friday-night-lights-a-discussion/ A blog post on //Friday Night Lights//



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