Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream

The 25th anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller and Sports Illustrated’s best football book of all time, with a new afterword by the author.Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa—the winningest high school football team in Texas history. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn’t known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the Panthers play football, dreams can come true.MO-JO! MO-JO! The haunting cheer rocks the stadium filled with 20,000 fans, who are there not only to cheer on their beloved team, but also to reignite their own aspirations and dreams through the young men on the gridiron.Pulitzer Prize–winning author H. G. Bissinger unforgettably captures a season in the life of Odessa: the coaches, parents, fans and—most of all—the players, who carry an entire city’s self-respect on their shoulders. From the prayer that opens the Watermelon Feed before the first game, through the heart-stopping season and its dramatic ending, Bissinger renders a taut, indelible scene: the stale, sweltering air, the demanding play on the field, the exhilarating wins, and the punishing—sometimes devastating—losses.Friday Night Lights is both a deeply moving story and a deeply disturbing one. It is a startling examination of the role of high school sports in America—but it is about much more than just sports. As David Halberstam writes: “By choosing towrite about something small—the culture of high school football in a Texas town—Bissinger has ended up writing about something large: the core values of our society.' “A brilliant look at how Friday-night lights can lead a town into darkness.”—Sports Illustrated