After its publication in 1990, it didn’t take long for Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by Pulitzer Prize-winning author H.G. (Buzz) Bissinger to graduate from best-selling sensation to classic. The nonfiction account of the winningest high school football team in Texas history, Odessa’s Permian Panthers, has been called the best football book of all time. And its impact stretched far beyond sports and literature. It inspired a 2004 movie and two TV series, and a new 25th anniversary edition (Da Capo Press) features an afterword with the author’s account of his recent reunion with members of the 1988 team—and updates on what they went on to do after the glow of the Friday night lights faded.
The Friday Night Lights Cast: What Have They Done Since?
1988 Journalist Buzz Bissinger arrives in Odessa, Texas, to follow the Permian Panthers in their pursuit of a fifth state championship.
1990 Bissinger’s book is a hit every-where except Odessa, where residents are stung by its unflinching depiction of their sports-obsessed town.
1993 Discovering that Lights had been optioned for a movie, NBC premieres Against the Grain, a short-lived TV series inspired by the book and starring a young Ben Affleck.
1998 Director Alan Pakula, tapped to helm the feature film, dies. After two more directors miss the mark, Bissinger’s cousin, director Peter Berg, takes on the project.
2002 Sports Illustrated ranks FNL the fourth-greatest sports book ever written.
2004 The movie, starring Billy Bob Thornton as coach Gary Gaines and Connie Britton as his wife, Sharon, is a hit.
2006 A second NBC-TV series, adapted from the movie and also directed by Berg, premieres to critical raves and a small but dedicated audience.
2011 The series ends after winning a locker full of awards, including an Emmy for Kyle Chandler as coach Eric Taylor.
–Deborah Barnes
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