Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition): A Town, a Team, and a Dream

Football stood at the very core of what the town was about, not on the outskirts, not on the periphery. It had nothing to do with entertainment and everything to do with how people felt about themselves.

there was a way for Gaines to salvage the season. There was a way to turn those who hated him into good, loyal believers again, to get all this incomprehensible pressure off him. He alone held the power to set his life, and thousands of others’ lives, on the right track again.

Moore’s salary, with twenty years’ experience and a master’s degree, was $32,000. By comparison, she noted, the salary of Gary Gaines, who served as both football coach and athletic director for Permian but did not teach any classes, was $48,000. In addition, he got the free use of a new Taurus sedan each year.

the number of lawyers representing Carter and the Dallas school district in the case, eight, was more than the number of lawyers who had represented the school district in various stages of a federal desegregation suit filed against it.

What was wrong with the use of that word? Wasn’t that what they were? Wasn’t that what they always had been? Let a judge shove school desegregation down their throats. Let the federal government have all the free hand-out programs it wanted. It wasn’t going to change the way they felt.

“We fit as athletes, but we really don’t fit as a part of society,” said Nate Hearne, the only black coach at Permian in 1988. “We know that we’re separate, until we get on the field. We know that we’re equal as athletes. But once we get off the field we’re not equal. When it comes time to play the game, we are a part of it. But after the game, we

Brian went out for the freshman football team in September, but quit after one day after coming to the conclusion that the program was on a par with the junior high one in Odessa. He also found it hard to adjust to the idea of playing games in front of a handful of people when he had played in front of twenty-five thousand at Texas Stadium.

The cost for boys’ medical supplies at Permian was $6,750. The cost for teaching materials for the English department was $5,040,