Summary
- The TV series Friday Night Lights was inspired by a true story chronicled in the book by H.G. Bissinger, which examined the obsession with high school football in small-town Texas.
- While the series and the real-life Permian Panthers team have differences, both are heavily funded and attended, showcasing the popularity and pressure surrounding high school football in their respective towns.
- Friday Night Lights accurately captures the intense and sometimes extreme culture of high school football in small Texas towns, although it doesn't represent the entire sport and its depiction of the town of Odessa may be simplified.
Even longtime fans have asked, "Is Friday Night Lights based on a true story?" Though it is, it's one that traveled through layers of adaptation. The real-life Permian Panthers, and the surrounding town of Odessa, were a major inspiration for the critically acclaimed NBC series and its setting of Dillon, Texas. However, the series dramatically altered much of the real-life town and its story, using it as inspiration instead of directly retelling events.
The TV series Friday Night Lights was inspired by the success of the 2004 movie of the same name, which starred Billy Bob Thornton as Coach Gary Gaines and was directed by Peter Berg. The movie was itself inspired by a bestselling book, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream, written by journalist H. G. Bissinger. The book chronicled the Panthers' 1988 season and is commonly listed as one of the best ever written about sports. Bissinger integrated himself into the town of Odessa and spent a year there, allowing him to capture the complex facets of Texas high school football culture.
Is Friday Night Lights Based On A True Story? Inspirations Explained
The real-life Permian High School football team is a prestigious program that has won six Texas state championships. The team plays at Ratliff Stadium, which sits over 19, 000 people, suggesting the popularity of football in Odessa, which was reflected in the TV show through the pressure placed on characters like J. D. McCoy. The 1988 team tied for their district championship with just one loss and got into the Texas state playoffs due to a coin flip. They made it to the semi-finals before giving up a fourth-quarter lead to Dallas Carter.
The 1988 Permian team was not the most remarkable high school football squad, but because of Bissinger's book, they became emblematic of the obsessive culture around the sport in small-town Texas and other Southern states. Bissinger used the Panthers' season to examine social issues such as racial and economic divides and the economic reliance on oil, all of which were reflected in football. The Friday Night Lights TV series didn't directly adapt the Permian story but was heavily influenced by the book's depiction of high school football, especially in the final two Friday Night Lights seasons set in deprived East Dillon, Texas, which has parallels to Permian's largely poor and Hispanic rivals Odessa High. Berg stated that he developed the TV series to be able to explore some of the more personal plotlines he had to cut from the movie.
How Dillon Panthers Compare To The Permian Panthers
While Friday Night Lights' story is very different from that of the Permian Panthers, there are comparisons that can be made between the real team and the fictional Dillon Panthers. Both Panthers teams are heavily funded and attended for high-school athletics, with backers donating handsomely and much of the town revolving around Panthers football. The Dillon Panthers are somewhat more successful than their real-world counterparts, winning the state title in the first season of the show and making the finals again two weeks later.
There are also parallels between individual members of the two teams. Like Jason Street, played by Scott Porter in Friday Night Lights, Permian's star player James "Boobie" Miles was sidelined by an injury at the start of the season and never fully recovered, although he was a fullback instead of a quarterback and wasn't paralyzed. Dillon's likable replacement quarterback Matt Saracen has similarities with Permian quarterback Mike Winchell, the nervous, good but not great player depicted in Bissinger's book. The biggest parallel between the two teams, however, may lie not in their players but in their coach.
The Real-Life Coach Taylor: Gary Gaines
The wise Coach Eric Taylor is one of Friday Night Lights' most beloved characters, with his slogan "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" becoming a fan mantra. Taylor's counterpart on the Panthers was Gary Gaines. Bissinger depicts Gaines sympathetically as a figure that has to deal with huge pressure from the town of Odessa, just as Taylor does in Dillon, Texas.
The real-life Gaines led Permian to a perfect season and state championship in 1989, the year after the season chronicled in Bissinger's book. Gaines left Odessa after winning the title to be an assistant coach at Texas Tech University, paralleling Coach Taylor's move at the end of the first season. It took Gaines a lot longer to come back than Taylor, but he returned to Permian in 2009 to close out his coaching career.
The Real Dillon, Texas: Odessa Explained (How Similar Is It?)
One of the biggest reasons Friday Night Lights was so well-liked is how it constructed Dillon as a complex and realistic environment with a diverse cast of characters, from the football team to other characters like Adrienne Palicki's Tyra Collette. Bissinger's depiction of football-crazy Odessa no doubt inspired how Berg depicted Dillon, Texas throughout the series. However, Odessa is somewhat more metropolitan than the Dillon depicted on TV.
The real Odessa is one of the fastest-growing small cities in the US and has a population of over 100, 000. Both President George W. and George H. W. Bush called Odessa home at one point in their lives and the city is home to the Presidential Museum and Leadership Library at the local college, the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Odessa has gained some degree of fame because of Friday Night Lights, with it also being used as Claire's hometown in Heroes and a symbol of Southern small-town culture elsewhere.
Panther football is hugely popular in Odessa, and the town's racial and economic divisions are similar to Dillon's. Many Odessa residents were resentful of Bissinger's depiction of the town, but his book has passed fact-checking with no inaccuracies found. Dillon is perhaps a simplified version of Odessa, or Odessa as it existed in the 1980s, but there is a clear connection between the real city and the fictional one.
How Accurate Is Friday Night Lights' Depiction Of High School Football?
There are hundreds of high school football programs across the United States, and Friday Night Lights doesn't represent or claim to represent the sport in its entirety. However, the high-pressure world of high-school sports in many small Texas towns in Friday Night Lights is captured beautifully. Many people who have grown up in similar Southern small towns have found the depiction of the culture in Friday Night Lights to be familiar in at least some aspects.
The culture of Odessa depicted in Bissinger's original book is extreme, but not entirely an outlier. Texas has nine high school football stadiums with a seating capacity greater than 16,500, most in small towns and cities. Friday Night Lights was inspired by a specific high-school football team, but the series is really based on a broader sporting culture. In this, the series is broadly successful in capturing a world where high school football is both a site of social celebration and tremendous pressure.
What Happened To The Real Boobie Miles?
The real-life James "Boobie" Miles was a star fullback who played for the Permian Panthers and was heavily recruited by major college football programs, similar to Michael B. Jordan's character Vince. However, a knee injury derailed Miles' career, and he ultimately quit the team after his starting position went to Chris Conner. As documented in the Friday Night Lights book, Miles also faced racial abuse from fans and coaches. In the Friday Night Lights movie, Miles is played by Derek Luke. His storyline largely follows the same trajectory as the real Miles but adds fictional elements such as Miles lying about the extent of his injury to the team, and the movie changes the way in which he got injured. There's no direct analog to Miles in the Friday Night Lights TV show, but parts of his story are similar to the character arcs of Jason Street and Smash Williams.
Following high school, Boobie Miles played semi-pro football in Virginia. In 2011, he was charged with aggravated assault. After a violation of his probation, Miles served five years in prison, concluding in 2018. Friday Night Lights book author Buzz Bissinger has maintained a friendship with Miles, visiting him in prison numerous times and writing about their relationship in a short e-book called After Friday Night Lights. Miles was released in January 2018 and, as of June of that year, lives in Texas with his wife Becca, and works for a recruiting company.
The Friday Night Lights Reboot Could Be Inspired By Other Real Stories
There is a Friday Night Lights reboot coming. However, what the reboot might do is not base the new Friday Night Lights on a true story from Odessa, or even based on a similar version of that specific team. However, what the reboot can do is focus on another true story from another city, as there are countless tales of high school football across the United States that could make for a great story. Now, it is hard to find anywhere that has such rabid high school football fans as the ones from Texas, but the rumors are that the new show will remain in Texas, although it will move to a new location in the state.
The original Friday Night Lights book and movie were based on Odessa, Texas, and the struggles of the oil town where the only thing they had was football when the oil crisis decimated the economy. The new reboot of Friday Night Lights might be based on a true story again. The news is that this will be from a Texas border town in 2015. However, in 2015, Katy, Texas won the top championship in the state, and it is not a border town in Texas. Of course, the new TV show could follow the original story, with the main high school team losing.
The new reboot will be a movie followed by a TV series, the same as the originals. However, it appears that this time the movie and TV series will be connected, whereas the original movie and TV series were not connected in anything but name. It is important for the new Friday Night Lights series to be different from what came before. Telling the same story over again wouldn't offer anything original. However, with so many stories of high school football in the state of Texas over the years, there is no reason another school's story couldn't provide just as great of a story for a new generation.