H.C. Bassinger's Friday Night Lights

Shattered Dreams and Friday Night Lights

In Friday night lights: A town, a team, and a dream H. C. Bissinger recounts his observations of living in Odessa, Texas where he sees "high school sports keeping a town together, keeping it alive" (Bissinger, 1990, xi). With passion and sensitivity Bissinger records the triumphs and failings of Odessa's Permian Panthers. As a journalist Bissinger's aim is to explore the town's values about race, education, politics and the economy (Bissinger, 1990, p. xiii). Analysis of the sociological concepts emergent in Friday night lights will be examined against the rubric of functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism. Since sports pervade contemporary American culture, it has become a preferred target of study for many sociologists. A new field of specialization, the sociology of sports, emerged with intense popularity in the 1960s. Scrutiny of sports offers "unique context for the study of social processes and relationships" revealing how complex organizations operate through "controlled size" and strict "regulation of the relationships" between its diverse elements (Coakley, 1978, p. 2). This line of reasoning prompted Bissinger to take a leave of absence from his job as a newspaper editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and uproot his family by moving them to Odessa so that he could describe life in a typical small town in America immersed in sports worship. On some Friday nights when the lights flood the Permian Panthers' st

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ways provide the stepping stone into the next social strata, this dream does not always materialize. The plight of the aspiring black athlete serves as one of the most compelling examples of the shattering of the American dream. Sometimes even the highly successful black athletes remain scarred by their heightened experiences of prejudice as was the case with Jackie Robinson. Interviewed in 1972, he observes that despite all his amazing successes, he feels "I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world" (Robinson quoted in Coakley, 1978, p. 279). In observing Odessa, Bissinger contends that despite desegregation, the Permian Panthers "is still a white institution" (Bissinger, 1990, p. 106). Nate Hearne, the only black coach at Permian in 1988, stated sadly "we fit as athletes but we really don't fit as a part of society. We know we are separate until we get on the field.. . . When it comes time to play the game, we are a part of it. But after the game, we are not a part of it" (Bissinger, 1990, p. 107). Permian's black coach and players feel this level of "self-consciousness" but the system itself does not seem to respond efficiently or graciously to their hig

Category: Psychology - H