Friday Night Lights - Just Read It ! :: friday

Friday Night Lights - Just Read It   Meat head, dumb jock. These are just two of the many derogatory labels given to football game game players. Is it possible for me, a meat head, to hear the criticisms dealt to the sport of football? Is it possible for me, a dumb football jock, to understand and be objective about the issues raised in the book, Friday Night Lights? Yes, because Im not the stereo ordinary football player like those described of Odessa, Texas.   The football players in Odessa were generally a wild party crowd. It was typical that late in the fourth quarter, when the game was in the bag, the players would begin talking on the sidelines about what parties they were going to after the game, what girls they were going to try to pick up, and express mirth about how drunk they were going to get. They cared nothing for academics. The major(postnominal) star running back, Boobie Miles, was taking a math course that most students took as freshmen. Many of the senior players schedules consisted of nothing but electives. For the Oddesa footbal players, school was nothing more than a social get-to-gether, served up to them as a chance to flirt with girls and hand out with their friends. They knew that their work in class didnt matter the teacher would provide the needed grade to stay on the team. It wasnt uncommon for players to receive answer keys for a test or simply to be exempt from taking the test at all. Some didnt know how they would cope without football after the season was over. They ate, drank, and slept it. On the whole, these 16 and 17-year-old boys individualism was wrapped up in a pigskin.   The Odessa football players couldnt be objective about criticisms of football. Their total self-esteem depended on how they did on Friday night. This was the glorified culmination of their football career wearing the black MoJo uniform in the stadium under the big lights. Football was more than just a game to them it was a religion . It do them seem like boys going off to fight a war for the benefit of someone else, unwitting sacrifices to a strange and powerful god (Bissinger, p.11). Because football was so meaningful in their lives, to criticize it was to criticize everything theyd worked so hard for and lived for.