Friday Night Lights - Just Read It !
Meat head, dumb jock. These are just two of the many derogatory labels given to football 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 I'm not the stereotypical 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 laughing about how drunk they were going to get. They cared nothing for academics. The senior 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 performance in class didn't matter; the teacher would provide the needed grade to stay on the team. It wasn't uncommon for players to receive answer keys for a test or simply to be exempt from taking the test at all. Some didn't 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' identity was wrapped up in a pigskin.
The Odessa football players couldn't 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 "made 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 they'd worked so hard for and lived for.
African-American players are often negatively affected due to the prevalence of racism in the town. Ivory Christian, for instance, is a born-again Christian with aspirations to be a famous evangelist, but he is unable to pursue his dream due to his commitment to the football team. Because of this, the townspeople have unrealistic expectations of him and assume that he will put all his time and energy into football. Furthermore, there is a greater pressure on him to succeed...
Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? I’ve learned that the book is more sociological, which means that it focused on our human society of racial issues and also emphasizes the economy and the divide between the wealthy residents of one city versus the more working-class denizens of another are all subjects that are given an in-depth examination. This is more of the main or focal point of the whole book and in not so much in the movie. Although Bissinger's story is a true-life recounting of the 1988 football season of the Permian High School team, it reads like fiction and even though I believe his book is superior, the theatrical adaptation still stands apart as one of the great football movies ever to see in theaters. In the movie it was that team unit that was most significant in the development of the tale. Almost 80 – 90% of the book is in the film but there still are some differentiated contrasts found in the book in comparison to the movie. It has the intensity and the realism that kids were and are and also captures the...
Football was not just a sport in Odessa, it was a lifestyle. In Friday Night Lights, Bissinger follows Permian’s high school football team. He is able to gain an understanding of the towns social components, and in the novel he analyzes the incompetence of the adults when making decision for their children, the bitter racism and unhealthy emphasis on the success of the football team. The author often compares Permian to a variety of schools and highlights the disproportionate emphasis on football and touches upon the vanity of the entire events. All in all, Bissinger is able to effectively show the reader the real Odessa.
H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights brings to mind the cold, autumn nights of 1988 where a town, just like any other rural town in America, was brought together in such a raw and emotional way. From the rise and fall of Boobie Miles to the push for the playoffs, it is clear that 1988 Odessa was swept up in the glory of football to replace the grandeur of the 1950s, which seemed to deteriorate throughout that hectic decade. While a modern reader may view Bissinger’s masterpiece as a tale from a dated and faraway place, several factors have kept it in the public’s eye. What is it about Friday Night Lights that still resonates today? The answer can still be found in the same rural towns of America. Though it may seem incredible, Texas is still football crazy, and it may be fairly concluded that emotions have only slightly receded from the obsession they once held towards high school football. People’s inability to analyze themselves, the impact a community can have on younger generations, and the way priorities can easily be warped all struck me as subjects that have stayed true in Texas culture over the past 26 years. I will be discussing these topics throughout this dissection of Friday Night Lights.
H.G.Bissinger, through his novel Friday Night Lights, creates an appeal to pathos to persuade readers to care about his opinion that the emphasis placed on High School Football has a dangerous impact on the lives of students. To support his opinion, Bissinger employs methods and techniques which help create an appeal to pathos. Pathos is an appeal which heavily relates to a reader’s emotion on various different aspects. To establish the fundamental problem Odessa, Texas has when it comes to football, Bissinger shows the religious like attitude the game is conceived with. By adding testimonies, Bissinger ties in emotion while strengthening his argument. Lastly, Bissinger uses personal stories
In reasoning with his readers, Hartenstine provides statistics that correct Marx’ argument on student-athlete graduation rate. He states, “82 percent of Division I freshmen scholarship student-athletes who entered college in 2004 earned a degree. In Division II, 73 percent of freshmen student-athletes who entered college in 2004 graduated” (Hartenstine, 476). He wants readers to feel that it isn’t the college that is failing the students. The students can do fine coping with school and sports with the aid of tutoring and assistance programs in place at colleges. I found it easier to accept that players don’t need to be paid because the school is investing more into their education than just
Pappano, Laura. “How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life” Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition, 8th ed. Pages 591-600. 2013.
As can be seen by the preceding information, high school athletics can have a positive impact on a student’s life. In contrast to the positives, high school athletics can be seen in a negative light. “Concussions [from athletics] cause structural brain damage” (Solotaroff 7). Even though nobody is said to get a concussion in Friday Night Lights, they are very frequent in football and in other sports today. They occur all the time in football.
In the book entitled Out of Their League, David Meggyesy describes his life as a football player from high school through his days with the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). Born in 1941, Meggyesy was raised in a low-income household in Solon, Ohio. Like many athletes from impoverished backgrounds, he was able to use the game of football to better himself though both a full scholarship to Syracuse University and financial stability with the Cardinals. During his career, however, Meggyesy became increasingly disillusioned with the game of football and how its athletes were subject to tremendous physical and psychological turmoil from those in power—namely the coaches and the NFL team owners. He began to see the game of football from a conflict theorist point of view. This is the belief that sport is an opiate used to benefit those in power through the exploitation of athletes which enables those such as coaches and team owners to maintain their power and privilege in society. (Coakley, 1998) Meggyesy's growing disenchantment with football and adoption of a conflict theorist point of view led him to retire from the Cardinals in 1969.
Smith and Carlos were then able to walk off the field but it just got worse, “the shock was gone and it was officially getting ugly” (Carlos 121). The audience started to yell at them and called them “anti-American” (Carlos 121). Because of the social setting, people did not understand the purpose of what they were doing or what it had represented. There was ta...
the situation described in Odessa during the 80’s, football is a huge part of the society in
Scott Fujita in the controversial article “Would I Let My Son Play Football?” argues that the famous, most loved American sport, football has given him so much in life. Fujita was a former linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs. “...Football gave me so much. How can I bash a game that produced
Case Analysis of Apple Incorporation Executive Summary Apple Computers started the movement into the personal computing arena in 1977 but through changes in management and differences of opinion together with missed opportunities it lost its competitive advantage to companies like Microsoft, Dell, and Gateway. Apple operates in various lines of the computer and music industry today and its operations include not only the designing but also the manufacturing of its computers and software. Apple continues to pursue the personal computer market but not as intently as in the years before. It has opted to change directions a little by venturing into the music world through the marketing of iPod, a digital music player, and iTunes. The opening of 65 new retail outlets, including one in Japan, has precipitated its move into this new world.
There are many different instruments available to measure temperature and just as many arguments as to which are the most appropriate and accurate. There is also contrasting opinion on which site is best used to gain an accurate reading.
The circuit is designed such that it provides good matching and isolation (by using three resistors) for the three frequencies selected by solving the simultaneous equations generated from: