Abstract
H. G. Bissinger’s, Friday Night Light’s: A Town, a Team, a Dream, provides tremendous insight into the interworkings of high school football in the state of Texas.2 Although his primary focus detailed the 1988 season of the Permian Panthers, a high school football team in Odessa, Texas, it captured a culture of high school football that is replicable throughout the United States. It also grasps the issues of how a town and a team’s love for football create misguided priorities that privilege athletics over academics. Furthermore, it highlights the sores of racism that festers beneath the glamour of the lights on every Friday night during the fall football seasons.
High school athletics have become the latest entree on the American sports menu, served up to help satisfy the voracious appetite of the fan. As a result, scholastic athletes are on the verge of becoming as important to the billion-dollar sports industry as their college brothers and sisters—and just as vulnerable to big-time exploitation.
—Gerald Eskenazi, New York Times 1
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Notes
Gerald Eskenazi, “Arena of Big-Time Athletics Is Showcasing a Younger Act,” New York Times, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4D8103AF936A35750C0A96F948260&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/C/College%20Athletics (accessed November 23, 2008). This article was part of a five-part series on the commercialization of high school athletics published in 1989.
H. G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1990).
Elliott J. Gorn and Warren J. Goldstein, A Brief History of American Sports (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 162–163.
The Alfred University’s national study on hazing in high school informs of the prevalence of hazing practices among high school students: “Initiation Rites in American High Schools: A National Survey,” Alfred University, http://www.alfred.edu/hs_hazing/ (accessed February 20, 2009). For an additional source, the following article highlights the practices of hazing in high school sports: Tom Weir, “Hazing issue’s lasting impact rears ugly head across USA,” USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/2003-12-09-hazing_x.htm (accessed February 20, 2009).
Harry Edwards exposed a belief system called the Dominant American Sport Creed, which consisted of ideals and beliefs achieved through sport participation that closely resembled the American Dream ideology. The American Dream ideology was a system of ideas centered on the belief that if individuals worked hard they would achieve a certain level of economic success (i.e., material possessions generally defined in terms of a two-car garage, house in suburban America, etc.). Therefore, sports promotes physical and mental fitness, builds character, teaches discipline, enhances competitiveness, prepares individual for a competitive market economy, and contributes to Judeo-Christian and patriotic belief systems. These ideals became applicable and common beliefs among advocates for interscholastic sports and youth sports programs in the United States, in general. Thus, interscholastic sports were seen as a practical vehicle to promote patriotism and to disseminate cultural values and socialize youth into having desirable cultural traits, while preparing them mentally and physically to be competitive and productive in a market economy. See Harry Edwards, Sociology of Sport (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1973).
Bill Pennington, “Reading, Writing and Corporate Sponsorships,” New York Times http:// www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/sports/othersports/18sponsor.html (accessed October 11, 2006).
Ibid.
In September 11, 2007, the Dallas Associated Press reported the naming rights deal between East Texas high school football stadium and a health care company, see, “Texas High School Football Becoming Big Business,” http://cbs11tv.com/business/texas.high.school.2.506554. html (accessed February 2009).
Gordon Dillow, “Bright Lights, Big Money,” Register, http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/ news/columns/article_1338204.php (accessed November 12, 2006); Pennington, “Reading, Writing and Corporate Sponsorships.”
Pennington, “Reading, Writing and Corporate Sponsorships”; “High School Football—A Growing Big Business,” Sport Business News, http://sportsbiznews.blogspot.com/2006/09/high-school-football-growing-big.html (accessed October 11, 2006).
Friday Night Lights originally was a novel by H. G. Bissinger in 1990 that documents the coach and players of a high school football team and the small, economically depressed Texas town of Odessa that supports and is obsessed with them. This novel was converted into a movie in 2004, and finally into a primetime show that is into its third season airing on DIRECTV and NBC. For additional information regarding the novel, see, Bissinger, Friday Night Lights.
Data for the 2007 city and county census information for Madison, Florida was retrieved from the following Web site: City-data – Madison, County Florida, http://www.city-data.com/city/Madison-Florida.html (accessed September 26, 2008).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Racial demographic data was collected from the following Web site: “Public School Report: Public School Information and Data,” http://schools.publicschoolsreport.com/Florida/Madison/MadisonCountyHighSchool.html (accessed September 26, 2008).
Graduation and Dropout rate information was collected from the following Web site: Florida Department of Education, Education Information & Accountability Services—Madison County School District, http://www.fldoe.org/eias/flmove/madison.asp (accessed September 27, 2008).
According to the Florida Department of Education, the following are the different description for diplomas: Standard Diploma are awarded to students who have accomplished one of the following: (1) passed both sections of the Graduation Test, successfully completed the mini- mum number of academic credits as identified in Section 1003.43, F.S., and successfully completed any other requirements prescribed by the state or the local school board; (2) received a Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) waiver, successfully completed the minimum number of academic credits as identified in Section 1003.43, F.S. and successfully completed any other requirements prescribed by the state or the local school board; (3) met all of the requirements to graduate base on the 18-credit college preparatory graduation option. Special Diploma are awarded to students who have been properly identified as educable mentally handicapped, trainable mentally handicapped, hearing impaired, specific learning disabled, emotionally handicapped, physically impaired, or language impaired. Certificates of completion are awarded to students who complete the required courses, but students who fail to meet the other diploma requirements may receive a certificate of completion. A certificate of completion is not a diploma. It certifies that the student attended high school. Students who receive a certificate of completion may enter the workforce, attend adult basic education classes, or possibly be enrolled in a community college or technical center. Students may be required to take the college placement test or a test of basic skills and complete remedial coursework. Finally, students who receive equivalency diplomas or General Equivalency Diplomas (GED) have successfully passed the General Education Development Test. For additional information regarding the state of Florida high school diploma requirements, see: Florida Department of Education, http://www.fldoe.org/default.asp (accessed September 27, 2008).
Florida Department of Education, Education Information and Accountability Services http://www.fldoe.org/eias/eiaspubs/default.asp (accessed October 2, 2008).
These rates are for the 2004–2005 school year. See the following Web site for additional information: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences—National Center for Educational Statistics, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2008/section3/table.asp?tableID=896 (accessed October 2, 2008).
“Given Half a Chance: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males,” http://www.blackboysreport.org/ (accessed February 2009).
20082009 FHSAA Football Manual, http://www.fhsaa.org/fb/manual/0809_fb_manual_OnlinePDF.pdf (accessed October 5, 2008).
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© 2010 Billy Hawkins
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Hawkins, B. (2010). Chapter Eight Friday Night Lights: A Dream Deferred or Delusions of Grandeur. In: The New Plantation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230105539_9
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