tk13
10-16-2004, 01:35 AM
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/9932934.htm
No lessons learned in 15 years
JASON WHITLOCK
I'm not sure we learned much from the book Friday Night Lights, which means we'll learn even less from the blockbuster movie that is now airing across the country.
Thursday evening I caught the movie “Friday Night Lights,” drove home and watched the real thing on ESPN2. Two Texas high school football teams, playing inside a soldout 11,000-seat stadium, squared off on national television.
After watching the movie, I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach watching Mizzou recruit Chase Daniel lead Southlake Carroll High to a 25-point romp over Denton Ryan. Celebrated author Buzz Bissinger must feel as if his 1989 opus — the book Friday Night Lights — was a waste of time.
The book was based on the 1988 season of a west Texas high school that fields a perennial football powerhouse. The book goes into great detail explaining how the pursuit of a state championship warped the values of the school and the whole town of Odessa, Texas. It chronicles the perversion of the academic system, the excessive pressure on the kids and the coaches to perform and, of course, the corruptive influence of money on the entire process.
You read the book Friday Night Lights, and you're left wondering when we're going to wake up and stop professionalizing high school sports. And then you remember that the celebrated book is 15 years old and that the problems it exposed are much more prevalent today than when Bissinger first arrived in Odessa.
High school football didn't air on national TV 15 years ago.
“We're insane about sports in this country, and I don't really get it,” Bissinger told me Thursday. “I mean, I get the fun of it, but it's not fun anymore. It's business. It's business down to 7, 8 and 9 years old. It's business.”
It's certainly big business at the high school level, and not just in Texas. Is Texas crazier about high school football than Kansas or Missouri? Yes. Is there more pressure to win in Texas and are coaches grossly overpaid? Yes. Some Texas high school coaches draw six-figure salaries just for coaching. They don't teach.
But the problems in Texas are everywhere to some degree. I'm watching Rockhurst and Liberty battle on Metro Sports as I write this column. (Hmmm. For some odd reason Rockhurst is actually throwing the ball this game to receiver D.J. Hord, the most talented player in the state.) I'm not stating that high school sports should be removed from local television. I'm saying that it's ridiculously obvious that we've gone too far in emphasizing, celebrating, promoting and pressurizing games that kids are supposed to play for fun.
No one can deny that. If you can, you need to read Friday Night Lights, or at least talk to the book's author.
“What the (heck) is the purpose of sports?” Bissinger said. “It can teach wonderful things that people use in life — teamwork, discipline, education. It seems more and more that it's only about winning. It's only about me-ism. It's only about pressure. I mean, I coached little league, and I'm embarrassed to tell you how I conducted myself — like a blithering, screaming idiot.”
When it became a national bestseller, people thought Friday Night Lights would serve as a catalyst for America slowing the process of high school sports becoming pure money-making, win-at-all-cost endeavors like college sports.
Now we should just resign ourselves to the fact that in this country football (and most sports) has just one unquestioned, truly redeeming quality.
“It brings a town together,” Bissinger said. “It brings a team together. For at least three hours on a Friday night people forget about race, they forget about issues, they forget about class. They're all in the common interest of rooting for a bunch of boys down on that field. And that's exquisite.
“Those high school football games under the Friday night lights in Odessa, Texas, were the best sporting events I've ever witnessed.”
No lessons learned in 15 years
JASON WHITLOCK
I'm not sure we learned much from the book Friday Night Lights, which means we'll learn even less from the blockbuster movie that is now airing across the country.
Thursday evening I caught the movie “Friday Night Lights,” drove home and watched the real thing on ESPN2. Two Texas high school football teams, playing inside a soldout 11,000-seat stadium, squared off on national television.
After watching the movie, I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach watching Mizzou recruit Chase Daniel lead Southlake Carroll High to a 25-point romp over Denton Ryan. Celebrated author Buzz Bissinger must feel as if his 1989 opus — the book Friday Night Lights — was a waste of time.
The book was based on the 1988 season of a west Texas high school that fields a perennial football powerhouse. The book goes into great detail explaining how the pursuit of a state championship warped the values of the school and the whole town of Odessa, Texas. It chronicles the perversion of the academic system, the excessive pressure on the kids and the coaches to perform and, of course, the corruptive influence of money on the entire process.
You read the book Friday Night Lights, and you're left wondering when we're going to wake up and stop professionalizing high school sports. And then you remember that the celebrated book is 15 years old and that the problems it exposed are much more prevalent today than when Bissinger first arrived in Odessa.
High school football didn't air on national TV 15 years ago.
“We're insane about sports in this country, and I don't really get it,” Bissinger told me Thursday. “I mean, I get the fun of it, but it's not fun anymore. It's business. It's business down to 7, 8 and 9 years old. It's business.”
It's certainly big business at the high school level, and not just in Texas. Is Texas crazier about high school football than Kansas or Missouri? Yes. Is there more pressure to win in Texas and are coaches grossly overpaid? Yes. Some Texas high school coaches draw six-figure salaries just for coaching. They don't teach.
But the problems in Texas are everywhere to some degree. I'm watching Rockhurst and Liberty battle on Metro Sports as I write this column. (Hmmm. For some odd reason Rockhurst is actually throwing the ball this game to receiver D.J. Hord, the most talented player in the state.) I'm not stating that high school sports should be removed from local television. I'm saying that it's ridiculously obvious that we've gone too far in emphasizing, celebrating, promoting and pressurizing games that kids are supposed to play for fun.
No one can deny that. If you can, you need to read Friday Night Lights, or at least talk to the book's author.
“What the (heck) is the purpose of sports?” Bissinger said. “It can teach wonderful things that people use in life — teamwork, discipline, education. It seems more and more that it's only about winning. It's only about me-ism. It's only about pressure. I mean, I coached little league, and I'm embarrassed to tell you how I conducted myself — like a blithering, screaming idiot.”
When it became a national bestseller, people thought Friday Night Lights would serve as a catalyst for America slowing the process of high school sports becoming pure money-making, win-at-all-cost endeavors like college sports.
Now we should just resign ourselves to the fact that in this country football (and most sports) has just one unquestioned, truly redeeming quality.
“It brings a town together,” Bissinger said. “It brings a team together. For at least three hours on a Friday night people forget about race, they forget about issues, they forget about class. They're all in the common interest of rooting for a bunch of boys down on that field. And that's exquisite.
“Those high school football games under the Friday night lights in Odessa, Texas, were the best sporting events I've ever witnessed.”