Warning: Spoilers ahead for both the film and the tv show Friday Night Lights. 

By Syd Jamison

“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”

Texas high school football. Photo credit: Mark Bonica.

This catchphrase from the TV show Friday Night Lights is widely known, and Mitt Romney even used it in his 2012 presidential campaign. But many don’t know that it was adapted from the halftime locker room speech from the movie version of Friday Night Lights: “As best you can with clear eyes, and love in your heart… If you can do that, then you’re perfect.”

Friday Night Lights was originally a non-fiction book written by H. G. Bissinger, published in 1990. Bissinger followed the 1988 high school Permian Panthers football team from Odessa, Texas to explore how small towns revolve around high school football. The book details everything from the history of Odessa, to the individual players, to the actual games.

In the book, James “Boobie” Miles, Permian’s star running back with college football offers from top colleges like Nebraska, Oklahoma and USC, gets injured in the pre-season and never returns to 100%.

Mike Winchell, the quarterback, mostly plays a second-hand role in the offense until Miles gets injured. Winchell has to step up and carry the offense because Miles had done most of the heavy lifting before. Don Billingsley is the second-string running back for the Panthers, and he begins to excel there as well after Miles gets injured.

The book originally was meant to celebrate a consistently dominant high school football team, but it ended up criticizing the tactics surrounding the dominance of high school football on the life of the entire town.

The 2004 film Friday Night Lights, based on the book, was directed by Peter Berg. It is directly based on the book and the original story, but with some changes. The movie begins in the summer and shows the harsh conditions for practice in Western Texas. It also emphasizes the pressure on the Permian Panthers to win the state championship, as everywhere the players go, the people in Odessa ask them about the team. Collegiate varsity football player Will Pace (‘22) summed up the movie well when he said, “I think it did a great job of showing how Texas high school football is king.” I was a little disappointed in the movie because of how underdeveloped each player was. It felt like I could hardly connect to any of the characters, but that is a downfall of the limited time for a movie compared to a tv show.

In the film. the team also went on to lose in the championship in a heartbreaking loss to Dallas Carter, “Arguably the greatest high school football team in Texas state history” says Chris Hummer of 247Sports. There were 21 players on that Dallas Carter team that were offered scholarships, and almost every starter, offense and defense, went on to play college ball. It is a little difficult to see the protagonists fail at the end of the movie when you are expecting success. It did have to stay historically accurate in the loss to Dallas Carter, although the real-life Permian Panthers lost in the state semi-finals, not the state finals.

The tv show Friday Night Lights is my personal favorite take on the story. Based on the book and film, it premiered in 2006 and ran for five seasons on NBC. It is loosely based on the book and movie, but it continues for longer, and the characters are slightly different. It is based in a fictional town called Dillon, Texas, which resembles Odessa in that they are both small, rural towns in Texas built around football.

Under the lights in Texas. Photo credit: Thomas Hawk.

Three of the most important characters are a part of the Taylor family: Coach Eric Taylor (played by Kyle Chandler), his wife Tami Taylor (played by Connie Britton), and their daughter Julie Taylor, (played by Aimee Teegarden). Other football players—Jason Street, the quarterback; Matt Saracen, the backup quarterback; Smash Williams, the running back; and Tim Riggins, the fullback—are all followed closely as well. A few of the non-football high school kids, such as Lyla Garrety and Tyra Collette, have relationships with the football players that shift throughout the series.

The show leads with the star quarterback Street getting injured after attempting a tackle, and the drama from that hit continues to be a large part of the rest of the series. Saracen has to lead the team while also dealing with a relationship with Julie, a grandmother with an illness who he has to take care of while his father is in Afghanistan, and the pressure that school brings. The show excels in keeping the suspense always high, as there are always problems with the football team that has to be dealt with, and Coach Taylor is constantly stressed. I love how in-depth it goes with the characters and how it gives us a chance to have sympathy for all of them and their hard times.

All three works offer something slightly different from the others. The book explores the facts surrounding the 1988 Permian Panther team and how it affects Odessa, for good and ill. The movie takes that story and makes it more entertaining, while still being almost historically accurate. Finally, the TV show brings five seasons of excitement, drama, and great football, loosely based on the original Permian Panthers’ story.