Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger Page A

on them in white. Or the
less lavish MoJo handbags, sold exclusively at J. C. Penney ("Our
Permian Panther leather, two-toned bag has an understated
designer look" extolled the newspaper advertisement), which
were regularly $24.99, but were sometimes on sale for $8.99.
    There were about eight hundred persons crammed into the
Permian High School cafeteria by the time the Watermelon
Feed began. Almost all of those in the crowd were white, and
their faces had a certain flattened, nonfrilled look, like the land
in which they lived. The women tended to be more handsome
than pretty with high, articulated cheekbones. The men tended
to be taut and well built regardless of age, dressed in beige or gray pants the color of the plains and cowboy boots that were
worn for function.

    The starkness of the room seemed to heighten the natural
warmth of the occasion. About the only items on the white walls
were two announcements for Permian students on long strips
of computer paper that had nothing to do with the Watermelon
Feed, but still embodied the intrinsic spirit of the event.
    The one on top read YOU MUST HAVE A STUDENT I.D. TO BE
ADMITTED TO FOOTBALL GAMES WITH STUDENT TICKETS. The one
underneath it read YOU MUST HAVE A STUDENT I.D. CARD TO
CHECK OUT A LIBRARY BOOK.
    The fans clutched in their hands the 1988 Permian football
yearbook, published annually by the booster club to help generate funds for the program. It ran 224 pages, had 513 individual advertisements, and raised $20,000. Virtually every
lawyer, doctor, insurance firm, car dealer, restaurant, and oil
field supply business in town had taken out an ad, both as a
show of support for Permian football and, perhaps, as a form
of protection. The Ector County sheriff had taken out an ad.
So had the Ector County Democratic party, just in case there
were a few closet Democrats who, under conditions similar to
those offered a Mafia informant in the witness protection program, might be willing to divulge their political persuasion.
    The grand dukes of Permian, men in their fifties and sixties
who had become as dependent on the Panthers as they were on
their jobs and children and wives and treated the memory of
each game as a crystal prism that looked more beautiful and
intricate every time it was lifted to the light, were there in full
force, of course.
    Friday nights under a full moon that filled the black satin sky
with a light as soft and delicate as the flickering of a candle.
The road trips to Irving and Abilene and San Angelo in that
endless caravan of RVs and Suburbans and plain old sedans
rising forth so proudly from the bowels of West Texas. The
family reunion atmosphere of each practice where they knew
everyone and everyone knew them. They could hardly wait.

    "I have to have something to look forward to, or life is just a
blah" was the way Jim Lewallen, a retired grocery chain supervisor, had put it earlier in the month as he sipped on an iced
tea over at Grandy's and counted off the days until the beginning of practice. "That football is just something that keeps me
goin'. You know the kids' moves, you know 'em personally. It's
just like your own kids," said Lewallen, built solidly with a fine
shock of gray hair, who didn't look right unless he had a thick
wad of tobacco chew nestled inside the deepness of his cheeks
as sweetly as a squirrel burrows a nut away in its mouth. "Mojo
football, it helps you survive all this sand, the wind, the heat. I
wouldn't live any other place."
    Bob Rutherford, who was sitting next to him in the booth
and spent his days in the herculean task of' trying to sell real
estate in Odessa, felt the same stirrings. "It's just a part of our
lives. It's just something that you're involved in. It's just like
going to church or something like that. It's just what you do."
    They wouldn't have missed the Watermelon Feed for the
world. Neither would Ken Scates, a gentle man with a soft sliver
of a voice