Texans' views mixed on release of movie
What will people think the second time around?
Friday Night Lights, the movie, opens Friday, and warts are always bigger on screen than in the pages of a book. The best-selling novel detailed the 1988 high school football season of the Permian Panthers of Odessa, Texas, and revealed a program — and a town — that feared failure.
The book still bothers some connected to Texas football.
D.W. Rutledge, the executive director of the Texas High School Coaches Association, says filmmakers wrote a letter to the organization asking permission to include the organization's logo as a backdrop to one of the scenes. Rutledge says his board of directors voted unanimously not to allow that.
"I don't believe the book portrayed Texas high school football in a true vein," says Rutledge, whose organization represents 16,000 coaches. "(The author) may have exaggerated the situation there. The programs are run with a lot of heart and compassion for the kids."
The filmmakers are providing a copy of the movie for a Thursday premiere to benefit the Ector County Independent School District Foundation. Tickets cost $100 each, and according to an ECISD Foundation spokesperson, 900 tickets have been sold.
Craig Van Amburgh, the vice president of the foundation, says the premiere and party after the movie will raise $100,000 for the school system. "I thought it was a very good movie," says Van Amburgh, who flew to Los Angeles for a screening. The movie is oriented toward football and skims past the racial and social bitterness portrayed in the book. Van Amburgh says "time heals old wounds" and the animosity of "a few people" toward author H.G. Bissinger has cooled.
Friday Night Lights, the movie, massaged some facts to add drama and aid in filming. The 1988 playoff game that is used as the movie's finale, where Permian lost to Carter High of Dallas, was played in Memorial Stadium in Austin.
The game was a state semifinal, but Hollywood turned it into a state championship game played in the Astrodome in Houston.
Some other scenes:
• In one, the father of fullback Don Billingsley storms from the stands to berate his son in front of the team for fumbling ... in practice.
• In another, Billingsley's father interrupts his son and girlfriend late one night and pulls out a roll of duct tape and tapes the ball to his son's hands.
• Boosters deliver veiled threats to head coach Gary Gaines and players are reminded they are protecting a town's reputation.
Even Gaines, the coach portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton, is dragged into the climate of fear of failure. Through most of the movie he seems to have perspective, then loses it when the season is in peril. To motivate quarterback Mike Winchell, Gaines tells the player a successful season is Winchell's only way out of Odessa.
"I think things have changed a good deal since then, because the playoffs have been expanded and there is less pressure," says David Barron, an editor with the Houston Chronicle and expert on high school football in the state.
Things may have changed some, but there is still a passion in the town for football.
"The stadium still sells out," says Celey Ward, 28, a salesman from Odessa and season ticketholder. "Somebody still has to die for you to get a season ticket."