H.G. Bissinger QUOTES

4 " Athletics lasts for such a short period of time. It ends for people. But while it lasts, it creates this make-believe world where normal rules don’t apply. We build this false atmosphere. When it’s over and the harsh reality sets in, that’s the real joke we play on people. . . . Everybody wants to experience that superlative moment, and being an athlete can give you that. It’s Camelot for them. But there’s even life after it. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

6 " This must not be planet earth,” Cone told his partner. “This must be hell.” But it wasn’t. It was just Odessa. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

8 " Instead of understanding that they were the beneficiaries of history, they began to believe that they were the creators of it. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

10 " She said also that they absolutely hated any assignment in which they had to interpret what they had read. If they had to think about anything, make critical judgments and deliberations, the cause was hopeless. The best they could be expected to do was regurgitate. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

12 " He firmly believed that football, like other sports, used blacks, exploited them and then spit them out once their talents as running backs or linebackers or wide receivers had been fully exhausted. For a few lucky ones, that moment might not come until they were established in the pros. For others, it might come at the end of college. For most, it would all end in high school. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

14 " J. D. Cone, when he came here from Oklahoma in 1948 to become a family practitioner, went on house calls with a thirty-eight pistol stuck into his belt after the sheriff told him it was always a good idea to be armed in case someone got a little ornery or disagreed with the diagnosis. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

16 " you’ll be all right,” said Hanson. “As long as you don’t rock the boat, then they think "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

18 " The solution to the problem of poor performance scores had been a new system of grading that would encourage students to stay in school as well as improve their self-esteem. Beyond these important, admirable goals, it also had a more immediate purpose: it would undoubtedly reduce the school’s notoriously high failure rate, which had become an embarrassment to the school and to the school board. Under the plan, equal weight was given to class participation (which to some teachers meant simply showing up, because how on earth were you supposed to quantify participation?), homework, weekly tests, and a final exam at the end of every six-week period. A student could flunk every weekly test as well as the final exam and still pass a course for that period. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

20 " The first murder in Odessa occurred late in the nineteenth century when a cowboy rode into a water-drilling camp one afternoon and demanded something to eat from the cook. The cook, described as a “chinaman,” refused, so the cowboy promptly shot him. He was taken to San Angelo and put on trial, but the judge freed him on the grounds that there were no laws on the books making it illegal to kill a Chinaman. "

― H.G. Bissinger , Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream