Friday Night Lights: A Case Study

RELIGION AND S P O R T S AN INTRODUCTION AND CASE STUDIES

R E B E C C A T. A L P E R T

CASE 1

Friday Night Lights HIG H S C HOOL FOOTB A L L AS RE L I G I ON I N ODE S S A , T EX A S

Fig. 1.1. Player reading a Bible in the locker room from Friday Night Lights. Robert Clark/INSTITUTE.

⟭ Goal: Form a well-reasoned opinion about whether high school football should be understood as, is similar to, functions as, or is not at all a religion for the residents of Odessa, Texas.

Read: Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1990).

H. G. “Buzz” Bissinger took a one-year leave of absence from his job as a reporter for a local newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, to observe the experiences of a storied high school football team in Odessa, Texas, the Permian Panthers. Beginning in 1946, the Panthers were perennial contenders and had won several Texas state championships. Through the 1990s their Friday night games were the heart and soul of the town. From the beginning of the season until its end, the players, coaching staff, boosters, and cheerleaders (the Pepettes) spent all their time and energy preparing for, attending, and celebrating or mourning the results of the games. Odessa’s weekly activities were centered on the team, and the town’s attention focused on each game and each team member.

Bissinger was curious about the culture of high school football and wanted to understand how high school football defined life in Odessa.

Friday Night Lights is a critically acclaimed journalistic account of Bissinger’s experience chronicling the 1988 season in the context of the economic, racial, and social changes the town was experiencing. The book, which used the real names of the players and coaches, was made into a (fictionalized) major motion picture in 2004, and yet another version was adapted for television by the film’s director, Peter Berg. The network series aired for five seasons (2006–2011). Although they did not garner a lot of popular attention, both the film and series were well received by critics.

Bissinger’s book continues to be widely read and used as a course text in college classrooms like this one.

Friday Night Lights highlighted racial, social, and economic issues in the oil-based boom or bust economy of this small town in West Texas, which

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had been cited by several magazine surveys in the 1980s as one of the worst places in America to live. But high school football was at the core of what made life livable, and the city made huge financial investments in the Panther team’s stadium, equipment, and travel.

Bissinger was not himself interested in the question of whether high school football could be called a religion, and so this book provides a neutral platform for us to ask that question. For this case study, you must read Friday Night Lights. It is important to look at the activities associated with this case study BEFORE you read so that you can be on the lookout for the keywords, stories, descriptions, and quotations you will need to answer the questions. Although you will have no trouble accessing plot summaries and reviews on the Internet, and you might thoroughly enjoy the film and TV series, you will only be able to answer the questions posed here by reading the book.

ACTIVITIES ACTIVITY 1 Part 1 at home Step 1

Review the section of the introduction to this text that provides a variety of definitions of religion and the section that lays out the arguments for and against understanding religion and sport.

Step 2

Find five examples (quotations, stories, or descriptions) in FNL that illustrate a possible connection between religion and sports.

Sample

The faces of the players were young, but the perfection of their equipment, the gleaming shoes and helmets and the immaculate pants and jerseys, the solemn ritual that was attached to almost everything, made them

44—WHY

DO PEOPLE THINK SPORTS ARE A RELIGION ?

seem like boys going off to fight a war for the benefit of someone else, unwitting sacrifices to a strange and powerful god. (11) Step 3

For each quotation, story, or description, write a one-paragraph explanation (based on the introduction) of why you chose that quotation, story, or description. How does it illustrate a possible connection between religion and sport? Make sure you indicate which definition of religion you are referencing.

Sample

This quotation illustrates the potential of sport to function as religion.

It includes several of the elements Ninian Smart defined as aspects of religion: belief (“a strange and powerful god”), rituals (sacrifice and other elements defined here as “solemn”), material objects (“gleaming shoes and helmets and immaculate pants and jerseys”), and belonging (“for the benefit of someone else”). The reference to going off to fight a war could connect to Robert Bellah’s concept of civil religion and its analogies to patriotism.

Step 4

Using the arguments against viewing sport as religion, explain why some might argue against the segment you chose.

Sample

Higgs argues that sports represent everything that was wrong with ancient religions: violence, sacrifice, and the connection to war. All those factors are present in this quotation. Guttmann suggests these links to ancient religions that might be represented by sport in ancient times no longer matter in the highly corporatized world of sport today. This example is more about the connection between football and war rather than football and religion.

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Step 5

After having done this exercise for each quotation, story, or description you’ve chosen, you decide. Having viewed the argument from different perspectives, are there sufficient examples in FNL that point to Mojo as a religion in this case study? Use specific examples in making your final argument.

Part 2 in class Step 1

Meet in pairs and compare your quotations, stories, and descriptions.

If you used examples that you didn’t have in common, describe them to each other. Look at the ones you found in common and compare your conclusions about them. Discuss the differences. Decide which of your examples make the best argument in favor of the connection between sport and religion and which make the best argument against the connection.

Step 2

Each pair presents their best arguments.

ACTIVITY 2 Step 1

Buzz Bissinger had no interest in the question of whether he was describing a religion or not. Yet it is clear that he uses language often associated with religion (sacrifice, ritual, God, saints, faith) to describe the Panthers and their loyal fans. Find five times Bissinger uses the term religion. For each instance, write a paragraph about what you think he means when he’s using the term. Use the definitions you find in the introduction to do this part of the exercise.

46—WHY

DO PEOPLE THINK SPORTS ARE A RELIGION ?

Step 2

Create 3 questions to ask Bissinger for a mock interview focused on the connection between sports and religion. Submit the questions you’d like to ask him about his views on this topic to the discussion board of your course’s electronic Web site.

Step 3

Pick out one question submitted by another student and answer it as if you were Bissinger. You may choose to do further research about him to find out more about his interests and attitudes about religion to inform your answer.

Extra Credit

Watch the film Friday Night Lights. List the scenes that you think have a religious dimension and explain why.