Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Post #2)

The section of the book I read this week deals with how the town of Odessa rallies around and supports their football. With the oil industry in the tank, the townspeople have nowhere to go and nothing to do except eat, sleep, and live football. The team support association, the Watermelon Feed, counts among its members most of the people in town, and nearly every business took out an ad in the team's yearbook. The townspeople dress almost exclusively in black and white (the Permian colors) during the season, and the coach is held to such a high standard of quality that "For Sale" signs are posted on his lawn after almost every loss. To be a Permian cheerleader (a "Pepette"), one must undergo a whole season of being in the service of one football player. The cheerleader is expected to do certain things, such as bake, for their player, although some cheerleaders have done much more. Overall, the Permian football experience may seem somewhat weird to an Ardsleyan who has not imagined that high-school football could be this intense, but for these people, it is their lives.