H.G. Bissinger: Friday Night Lights

Okay, so I'd like to say I picked up this book because the author is a Pulitzer Prize winner and I'm just that into literary genius. But no. I picked it up because I have a bit of a love affair with a certain addicting teenage television drama (honestly, season one is some of the best dramatic television out there). Lucky for me, the book happened to be beautifully written.

It's appropriate that I'm typing this on the couch while I tune out Kevin's Monday Night Football on the TV. I don't even like football. I'm the girl who went to graduate school at the University of Notre Dame and didn't go to a single game (I know, I know, it's sacrilege). So how did H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and A Dream (and the teenage drama, for that matter) draw me in?

It's because it's not really about football. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of football to be had. Bissenger spent 1988 following the Permian Panthers, a high school football team in Odessa, Texas, and he writes about the players, the coaches, and the town with both great empathy and a sharp eye. The upside of intense devotion--the loyalty, joy, and pride the town finds in its high school team--is palpable. So are the racial, social, economic, and educational inequities that are wrapped up in that zealous desire to get to State.

It's impossible to read Friday Night Lights without being struck by the way these Panthers players are run through the system with little thought to their own future, or what their lives will be like in ten or twenty years. They give everything they have to the football program, and in return are given passing grades in school regardless of their effort and are treated like superheroes. But the moment they get injured, or they graduate, they're left alone. And what's left to fall back on? Memories of playing under glorious lights for a crowd of 20,000 screaming fans. Is it enough? How could it ever be enough?

James Wright: Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio

Happy Labor Day, all!

Football season has officially arrived and Kevin will likely spend Labor Day morning watching yesterday's Tivo'd Notre Dame game (no spoilers, please). Football season means weekends change drastically in our house, and believe me, this used to be a big point of contention. I've never been a football fan or understood the desire to sit in front of the TV for hours on end on what is often a beautiful weekend day.

Until, with true Midwestern lemons-into-lemonade determination, I decided to train myself to write on football Sundays.

I've never been the kind of writer who can work with noise of any sort. No music, no movement, nothing. But for the last couple seasons, I've forced myself to write during football. Now, when the game starts, I type away with the roar of the crowd in the background and tasty football snacks within reach. Kevin can occasionally yell out "watch this play!" and I can ask "what do you think of this line?" He gets his game, I get some pages done, and all in all it's a lovely Sunday (or Saturday) afternoon. Go team!

In honor of the season, here is a James Wright poem I adore:

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
by James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.

Football Books

Also, if you or someone you love thinks "Fall Means Football," here are some book recommendations from Kevin. (Great gifts for teen or adult sports fans, by the way.)