Ep. 405 Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger — The Stacks Book Club (Joel Anderson)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Stacks" Ep. 405 – Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (with Joel Anderson)

Host: Traci Thomas
Guest: Joel Anderson (journalist, The Ringer, and former high school football player)
Date: December 31, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode features a deep dive into H. G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream, a classic of narrative nonfiction chronicling high school football culture in Odessa, Texas in the late 1980s. Traci and Joel explore the book’s intricate layers, from racial tensions and education, to the exploitation of young athletes and the legacy of its influential storytelling. Their conversation moves seamlessly between personal anecdote, historical context, and critical analysis—enhanced by Joel’s firsthand football experience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Friday Night Lights?

• Joel chose the book out of love for both football and narrative nonfiction, noting its foundational place in sports literature.
  • "I'm insanely jealous of Buzz Bissinger, the author who wrote this book... It's so much more than following a sports team. It's really like a slice of life in a part of the country that not very many people are familiar with." (04:26)

2. The Narrative Nonfiction Form and Its Influence

• Both Joel and Traci praise the book’s storytelling style, likening it to a game’s progression—slow-building, then gripping.
  • "It felt like watching sports... the content really matched the form of the book, like, that the craft matched what he was talking about." (07:05)
• Traci recognizes the book’s legacy: inspiring a generation of narrative nonfiction writers.

3. Race, Desegregation, and "Guard Down" Reporting

• They dig deeply into the book’s unflinching depiction of racism—including uncensored use of slurs—which they argue reveals both the era’s realities and the candidness of Bissinger’s access.
  • "The racism is still there, but the people saying it just like, no big deal, is really important to the book." (11:23 - Traci)
  • "If a reporter from the east coast came out to a West Texas town now, they would have their guard up... this was the most integrated America's public schools have ever been." (12:22 - Joel)

4. Educational Inequity and Football Gerrymandering

• The late desegregation of Odessa’s schools, motivated by recruitment of athletes, surfaces as a central issue.
  • "They call it gerrymandering for football. I was like, that's incredible." (16:44 - Traci)
• Both hosts reflect on their own high school experiences (Joel in Houston, Traci in Oakland) and the cultural centrality—or lack thereof—of high school sports in varied regional settings.

5. The Exploitation and Pressure on Young Athletes

• The Permian Panthers are described as both community centerpieces and sacrificial lambs—the children burdened with adult expectations.
  • "You're setting these kids up for failure when you tell them that their senior year of high school is... the high point of their life." (27:20 - Joel)
  • "You're being exploited for your body as a child. So, like, the least you can do is give me an A on my algebra test." (38:03 - Traci)

6. Booby Miles: Tragedy, Racism, & Replaceability

• Booby Miles, a talented black running back whose season ends early due to injury, becomes a symbol of how black athletes are used and discarded.
  • "He represents so many black men and boys in sports... there is... an entitlement to black children, like he's a child." (35:41 - Traci)
  • "What would Booby be without football? Echoed a Permian coach... a big old nigger." (37:21 - Joel quoting the book and highlighting the devastation this kind of sentiment brings.)

7. Academic Eligibility and "No Pass, No Play"

• The Dallas Carter team saga—a powerhouse all-black team nearly disqualified over academic disputes—sparks a discussion of educational policy and racial disparities in discipline.
  • "I think we need to untether grades from extracurricular performance." (47:25 - Joel)

8. Crime, Punishment, & Racism Post-Sports

• Several Dallas Carter players are later incarcerated for theft; Traci and Joel question the narrative that off-field entitlement leads to crime.
  • "If these kids are white and they're great college players, they get a slap on the wrist… but every black character in the book ends up in jail at some point." (55:41 - Traci)

9. The Absence of Women

• Traci notes the near-total erasure of girls' and women’s experiences from the narrative, despite their presence in the community and the football ecosystem.
  • "To pretend like women weren't a part of the culture feels like such a huge omission, because we know they were." (58:32)

10. Iconic Lines and Sports as Life’s Highs (and Lows)

• Both hosts cite the book’s emotional power, particularly in its description of adolescent heartbreak at season’s end:
  • "There came a sound... It was the sound of teenage boys weeping uncontrollably over a segment of their lives that they knew had just ended forever." (62:37 - quoted by Traci)
  • "That line has just kind of bounced around my head for the, like, last 35 years. It's just so impactful." (64:10 - Joel)
• They agree that sports narratives offer unmatched drama and human relevance—no book or movie, in their view, can replicate that catharsis.

11. The Book’s Cultural and Literary Legacy

• Friday Night Lights is considered by Joel “one of the three or four most influential books of [his] life.”
• The pair briefly address the TV and film adaptations—praising the book’s rawness and bemoaning the softer, less complicated characterizations found on screen.
  • "The movie changes Booby in a way that is really ick. The TV show's so different from the book... It is source material in name only." (67:44 - Traci)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You're setting these kids up for failure when you tell them that their senior year of high school is... the high point of their life." —Joel (00:31 & 27:20)
• "It felt like watching sports... the content really matched the form of the book." —Traci (07:05)
• "They call it gerrymandering for football." —Traci (16:44)
• "What would booby be without football? ...A big old nigger." —Joel (37:21, quoting the book)
• "If a reporter from the east coast came out... now, they would have their guard up." —Joel (12:22)
• "It was the sound of teenage boys weeping uncontrollably over a segment of their lives that they knew had just ended forever." —Traci (62:37, reading Bissinger)

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

• Book selection, narrative, style, and influence: 04:26–08:55
• Discussion of race, language, and historical context: 09:03–16:01
• Texas high school football culture, personal anecdotes: 17:04–26:16
• Community pressure and athlete exploitation: 27:19–39:09
• Booby Miles narrative and black athlete experience: 32:04–41:53
• Dallas Carter, academic eligibility, and ‘No Pass No Play’: 42:44–48:36
• Crime/punishment, social forces, and racism: 51:07–56:08
• Gender, missing perspectives: 57:07–59:16
• Most powerful scene (the coin toss & ending): 62:19–64:10
• Book’s legacy, TV/movie adaptations: 67:38–68:43

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Tone & Takeaway

The conversation is unsparing, candid, and bracingly honest—mirroring Bissinger’s approach. Traci and Joel balance tough talk about systemic racism, educational policy, and adulthood’s failures with warmth, humor, and a reverence for the lasting, bittersweet bonds forged through sport. They do not shy away from the book’s most difficult language or subject matter, instead using it to highlight the importance of seeing America’s story unvarnished.

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For Further Listening/Reading

• ESPN’s "30 for 30: What Carter Lost" (on Dallas Carter’s football team)
• Seasons on the Brink by John Feinstein (comparative sports narrative mentioned by Joel)
• The Stacks Book Club January Pick: Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert

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This summary intentionally omits advertising and unrelated business/intro segments, focusing only on the substantive book discussion.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Is that like, I mean, what, what is happening in Odessa, Texas in 1988 is like a weird perversion of everything, right? Like, I mean, I, I related to it a lot because, you know, like, that's sort of the, the culture with which I grew up in or was familiar with, right? But I also could understand even then and now with more perspective as I'm older, I'm like, oh yeah, like they're not going about this totally the wrong way. You, you're setting these kids up for failure when you tell them that their senior year of high school is like, basically going to be the most important, the high point of their life, essentially. So.

[A]

Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Tracy Thomas, and somehow we have made it to our last book club episode of the year. Today I am joined once again by Joel Anderson, who is a staff writer at the Ringer and co host of the Press Box podcast. And today we are going to discuss Friday Night Lights, A Town, a Team and a Dream by H.G. bizinger. This book follows the 1988 season of the Permian Panthers, one of the best high school football teams in Texas. The book explores so much more than just the game of football, from racial dynamics to politics to a town obsessed with football culture. And Joel and I talk about all of that and so much more on today's episode. Please be warned, there are spoilers on the episode. Everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks is linked in our show notes. And remember to stay tuned to the very end of today's episode to find out what our January book club pick will be. Now, if you like this podcast, if you want more bookish content and community, please consider joining the Stacks Pack on [e-mail] the stacks and subscribing to my newsletter Unstacked over on Substack at Tracy Thomas substack.com each of these places offers a bunch of different perks like community conversations, bonus episodes, virtual book clubs, Hot takes. All of that, plus your support, makes it possible for me and the team here at the Stacks to make the show every single week. So to join, head to patreon.com the stacks for the stacks Pack. And check out my [e-mail] all right, now it is time for my conversation about Friday night lights by H.G. bissinger with D. Joel Anderson. And reminder, there are spoilers. All right, everybody, it is the Stacks Book Club day. It is the last book Club episode of 2025. I am thrilled to be joined again by Joel Anderson. He is a journalist, he is a podcaster, he is a former football player. So he's going to have insight on today's book club episode. Conversation about Friday Night Lights, A Town, A Team and a Dream by H.G. b. Bissinger. Joel, welcome back.

[B]

Hey, thanks for having me. This is the last one of the year. I'm. What an honor it is. I didn't know that. That's. This makes me nervous.

[A]

Oh, no, it's fine. Everyone's sick of me by this time of the year, so stop it.

[B]

No, I gotta close it out, right? Gotta.

[A]

Downloads are gonna be way down on this one. No, this episode drops on December 31, the last day of the year. It's a Wednesday. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. All right. We're turning up, man. Where will we be then?

[A]

I will be probably sitting right here at my desk trying to figure out, finish up accounts. I don't know.

[B]

Same, same, same. I'll probably write up in here.

[A]

So we're reading Friday Night Lights. We read it. You picked the book? I told people. I don't know if I told the story on this podcast. I think I told in book club meeting, but I said. I asked Joel what books he wanted to read. I said, send me five or seven. And you just wrote back. How many times have you done Friday Nights, Friday Night Lights? I said, zero times. You said, okay, that's the book. And I said, great. So tell people why you wanted to read this book for book club.

[B]

Well, I mean, obviously, I'm a huge football fan, right? But more than that, it is. I'm insanely jealous of Buzz Bissinger, the author who wrote this book, because it's not really the first of its kind, because Seize it on a Brink, which was a book on a year in the life of Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers in the early 80s. Like, he followed the basketball team for a year and wrote about it. Right. And so this is sort of the same theory, but this is so much more than following a sports team. It's really like a slice of life in a part of the country that not very many people are familiar with, but probably feels familiar, sounds familiar. Especially if you've got family back in the country or down south or even out west or whatever. And I think it just says so much about the way that school and race and culture impact American life. Right. It's not just this football team. It's like all these people come to this stadium on a Friday night. And there's a lot of reasons why these people are here. Some people are native. Some people like Booby Miles. He gets sent there because his uncle takes him as a foster child. People that, you know, have tried to follow the oil boom and tried to make their fortune there and reach hard times, but they've all got their kids there, and they're all focused on this one thing. And so I always. That's always just kind of stuck with me out. One thing about me, if I come to your town or if I'm driving around, I'm always trying to see what the stadium looks like in your hometown, because that always kind of feels like. It says a little something about, like, what's important in the town, like, do they care about football? And, yeah, it's just always fascinating to me. And so, yeah, I think it. It's. It's. It's about football, but it's about so much more. It's about the way we live and the way we used to live so much more. But I don't know if you picked.

[A]

Up on this, so here's what I'll tell you. So I usually start with generally, like, what did you think? But I pitched you that question. Said, but I'll tell people generally what I thought. This is my first read of this book.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It took me a second to get into it. I was like, there's a lot of names. There's a lot of names. It's like, okay, we got Coach Gaines, we've got Booby. My. Like, that first introduction, I was taking notes, like, Brian, Yeah. Brian Chavez plays tight end. You know, like, whatever. And then at some point, and I honestly don't know exactly where, I was hooked by the time we got to the coin toss, I was doing dishes. I was listening to. I was doing. I just stopped doing this standing there, just standing in the kitchen. I know exactly where I was. Just like, hands up, pencils down, just locked in.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So I also loved. I Love narrative nonfiction. I love books like this. And reading this book, I was like, oh, my gosh. All of my faves were inspired by this. Maybe they didn't read it, maybe they weren't. But whatever he did clearly infiltrated the culture. Because this is different than reading books pre 1990 that are nonfiction, right? Like, this kind of narrative, it just felt like. So, like, I think, like, Patrick Grad and Keefe is clearly inspired by this. John Krocauer is clearly inspired by this, like, the weaving of the stories. And then the other thing that I thought was, like, such a wow about this book as a sports fan, because I read a lot of books about sports that just feel like a biography or like a telling of this moment. But this book felt like watching sports, right? Like the beginning, you're kind of like, learning who the people are, and you're sort of like, first quarter, I can get up. I can go to the bathroom. By the time you get to the third quarter, which is like the coin toss to me, it's like if you're leaving the room, you're pausing the game. Like the fourth quarter, the way that he was writing about, like, it just kept building the momentum that by the time we got to the end and, like, we get to the epilogue, I was literally, like, the way that I sit back and watch, like, Scott Van Pelt after a big game, and I'm just like, okay, tell it all to me again. Let it wash over me. And so I felt like that was really cool, that the content really matched the. The form of the book, like, that the craft matched what he was talking about. Do you know what I'm saying?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I think it's really interesting that you say that it influenced, because I. I would imagine that after this book came out and I haven't done any research into this, that a lot of book agents and book houses were like, can you give me something like Friday Night Lights?

[A]

Yeah, like, Friday Night Lights, but about tennis. Friday Night Lights, but about, like. Like Law and Turf.

[B]

You're like, soccer. Yeah, whatever. A chess club.

[A]

The Friday night Lights of libraries, whatever. Like that they wanted. Yes, a thousand percent.

[B]

If you're a greedy writer, this is what you want to do. Because, I mean, to me, like, I want the sports that I write about to be about something more than just the game. Right? Like, I want you to be invested in the people and how they got there. And, like, there's a part in the book where they just talk about how Permian came to be and how they, you know, start at the integration of the school or whatever. And I'm just like, oh, wow. Like, that stuff is fascinating. Right. And people don't even think about that because they'll go watch a football game. And especially, particularly in high school, you see one team of like all Latinos. Right. Like, particularly in Texas. But there'll be one school with this, like, you know, 90% white with like four, you know, four black players. I'm like, how did that happen? Like, how did those black players get there? Well, this book kind of explains to you, at least in one step of how this, how that some of that stuff happens.

[A]

Yeah. And I also felt like as I was reading this, there were so many times where I took a note that was like, is this 2016? Like, oh, my God. Like, so much of it felt so current. I was the. The biggest thing that felt dated to me was the excessive use of the N word.

[B]

You do. Do you think that they would not have allowed him to use the N word?

[A]

I think it would have been different. So I listened to a lot of it on the audiobook, and I certainly think that the audiobook narrator A would have been a black person if they wanted to use it, or B would have been bleeped or would have said N word. I just, it was. It was a little jarring to me.

[B]

I've not heard the audio version yet.

[A]

I have to have it in for this book. I think it is, like, crucial to the telling of this story. And one of the things that I loved most about this book is that while it felt very related to now, people are not talking about race as candidly as they were in 1988. And so this, like, sort of like this thing, if a journalist from New York shows up in a west Texas town now and asks questions about race, they're not going to be like, yeah, that mule with a 12th grade education, you know, like, they're not talking to him in the same way now. So I felt like this has had a, like, much more guard down, casual nature to it, which I sort of appreciated because I'm like, right, the racism is still there, but the people saying it just like, no big deal, is really important to the book. But I do think if it came out now, they wouldn't either include it as many times. They certainly wouldn't have started a chapter with nigger.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Like, that's nuts. Chapter five is just says it starts with N. Yeah. Like, that's not happening in 2020.

[B]

What did I remember the most and by the way, did I tell you I still have the original. This is the book I got for Christmas. I think whatever year this book was, it. 1990.

[A]

1990 is the year I got this.

[B]

Book for Christmas in 1990. And my mom gave it to me with Bo knows bow and it. And I read this book basically, like, you know, within a week.

[A]

How many times you think you've read it?

[B]

Oh, man. A dozen, maybe.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I go back to it a lot, too, like, you, whenever I'm writing, and I'm, like, stuck, and I'm like, I wonder, you know, it just. Just to kind of get the juices flowing a little bit. So, yeah. Like, I've had this book forever, and. Yeah. And one of the things that I remember from this book is that very early. And before you get off the first page of chapter five, there's a quote of the nigger lady. Oh, yeah, there's a guy. Sorry. Three, two. Yeah, so there's a guy. There's an elderly man making a complaint to the city council one day in September. He didn't remember the name of the person, but he did recall what she looked like. Quote, the nigger lady, he said at the podium. And so it's just like. I remember that, like, from 12. I was shocked. I was shocked. But, I mean, it was just. It was really evocative. And one thing I think, Tracy, is that you're right. Like, it was a very different time. Like, if a reporter from the east coast came out to a West Texas town now, they would have their guard up, right? Like, they'd be like, who the hell are you? We're not talking to you, liberal elite. But this was, like, kind of. And I'm not. I don't want to be overstated. This was, like, the first real era of desegregation. Like, the first time. So people were still, like, unguarded and didn't. They were getting used to mixing up with each other. Right. Like, I think I've read studies that said that if you grew up around my age and I'm 47, that, like, that was the most integrated America's public schools have ever been. Right? And it never. It never. It never reached those heights again. Like, it declined every year. It's declined every year since then. But I think that, like, that's why you get some of this, because people just don't know how to respond to each other. Like, they're never seen. They're still. We're all still learning each other in this time in America.

[A]

And I think when The. When the manuscript shows up back in New York with his publisher or whatever, they're like, oh, it's so gritty. Like, nobody's thinking we shouldn't put this racial slur on page 87, 304 times. Like, giving Huckleberry Finn. I mean, like, I'm. I'm a little stunned reading it now, but I again, like, in. I have the newest edition, the 25th anniversary, which has, like, the afterward and everything. And they don't bleep it out at all in there in the physical book or on the audio. And I don't think they should, personally. Like, I'm like, I think it's so important to understanding the race, the racial elements of the moment. The, like, general temperature on race in Permian and in the rest of the country at this time is that not only is this being said in Permian, Texas, but it's getting the. The green light back in New York. Nobody in New York for a moment is like, we shouldn't do this. Like, you know, or like, can we cut it out a little bit? Or if they did, it doesn't feel like they did because it's still in there so much.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So you.

[B]

I'm just shocked that the audio version has a white guy saying this, though.

[A]

I repeatedly.

[B]

And I mean, I think the thing is, I don't know, maybe there's another way that he could have made his point, but Bissinger clearly wanted to let people know, and I think he does. He does a very good job of showing us what the lay of the land was in Odessa in 1988. Right. The way that people talked about it, it felt like. It felt Jim Crow.

[A]

Yeah. Well. And I think. So one of the reasons why, which I thought was so interesting, is when we get to the section on education, we find out that they do not try to desegregate until 1982, I think, is when the whole conversation gets started, right? So, like, this is years after what's happened in the sort of, like, Deep south, right? This is years after everyone else is doing it. They're finally like, some black guy comes to town, starts agit, ends up in jail, of course, which is a theme in this book. Black people end up in jail, and it takes years and years. So by the time we get to 1988, when this season takes place, it's only. The schools have only been desegregated for 17 minutes. Like, we're not. It's not 20 years after the Civil Rights act or whatever. Like, it's not the time difference that you might think it should be based on what we're told about history and how racism ended in 1968. Right. Like Lyndon Johnson signed away racism, everyone lived happily ever after. No, it takes another almost 20 years before it even is really instituted. In Permian, Texas, Brown v. Board is.

[B]

1954, this is 30 54, this is 20. This is almost 30 years later, right, that they finally get around to it. But which is also like it. It taught me. This example is like, oh, that actually is the way that desegregation worked in a lot of places, particularly far out of the place, because it was very tough. I mean, you'd have to ensure that these local school districts and school boards were going to follow the letter of the law. And as you can tell from reading about Ector county or Odessa, those people were not exactly excited about it. And even then, once they did it, they still figured out a way to kind of skirt around it. Like in this book that talks about how the redistricting worked and basically they scooped out like a couple of black neighborhoods where they thought they could get good athletes for the football team.

[A]

They call it gerrymandering for football. On gerrymandering, I was like, that's incredible. Yeah, but. And then like, well, okay, I want to pause on the education because I want to come back to it because I think it's like a huge part of the story. But I want to go back. I want to ask you just a few questions since you are not only a Texan, though, you're from the Houston area, correct?

[B]

From Houston area, yeah.

[A]

But you also were a high school football player.

[B]

I was.

[A]

How much does this book reflect your experiences? Did you go to a school where Friday night was a big night? Was football big in your school? Were you treated differently?

[B]

I think that, like, if you're a high school football player in Texas, you're treated differently anyway, but it's kind of like this is in, you know, I apologize if this offends anybody up front. It's like you're in the military. Like, it's like, it's like being consigned into service. Like, if you didn't play high school football in Texas, 80s or 90s, what's wrong with you, bro? Why you ain't out here playing football with us, right? And so. So it was like an expected part of. Of it was like an expected milestone in your teenage life. Now, if you were good at it, then you would get accrued all these other benefits. For me personally, I went to an all boys Catholic School in Houston. Okay. So it's not like it was like the town team, not the quite same town. Yeah, like we're coming from all over town to do a school thing. And so like if we had support, like we would have a couple thousand people at our games. Yeah, stuff like that. But it was nothing like small town Texas or like west Texas or East Texas or anything like that. In Houston, turns out as many top football players and college recruits as any place in the country. But there's just not a culture around it. Although there are in, particularly in the suburbs around there, places that are kind of similar to that. Like, I don't know if people who listen to this show have heard of Katy, Texas.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

For instance. So you remember Andy Dalton?

[A]

Oh, yeah, that's where he's from.

[B]

Andy Dalton's from Katy, Texas, which is right on the west side of Texas. I worked out of Houston and it kind of had that kind of vibe. So there's some spots around there, but it ain't like, it ain't like this. This is totally different.

[A]

Do you feel like as a person who lived it and also read it and like were aware, have you noticed any shifts in the way that high school football is talked about or covered since this book came out?

[B]

I think there's been a huge decrease in sort of the prestige accorded to high school football players, but I think it's because fewer people play high school football than they used to because we know too much now about football now. Right. Like, there's some places in this country where people are really tuned into the data and the information and they know, hey, man, I don't want my kid to get a brain injury. Right. So there's a lot of places where it doesn't happen, but among the kids that play and among the families that are involved, it's like, hot.

[A]

Is it still big like in West Texas or like in these places?

[B]

See, now that's kind of one of the things that's changed because demographics have really hurt those schools out there. Right. So Dallas, the Dallas Fort Worth area has just become massive.

[A]

Right.

[B]

The Houston metro area has become massive, the area between Austin and San Antonio, massive. So a lot of the people that used to live in Odessa, they just moved to the far flung suburbs of dfw. So it's not good. So Odessa Permian is not anywhere near what it used to be.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I. In fact, I don't know, I went to Odessa Permian to write a story about it in the summer of 2000 because they had Just hired a new high school football coach. Coach who was supposed to restore the glory.

[A]

I see it.

[B]

It didn't quite work out like that.

[A]

Got it, got it, got it, got it. I mean, I think one of the things as, like, a football watcher, though I don't watch as much as I used to is, like, it's hard to read this book and hear about the treatment of these kids and not think about their brains in 2025, right? Like, to not think about all the things that we know now that maybe we didn't know then or were just beginning to sort of think about then when it comes to, like, cte. But the other thing which surprised me in this book, I was genuinely surprised by how much I believe that these children did deserve special treatment. Like, I really was like, okay, well, why do they need to go to school as much as everyone else if they like? Because the way the book pitches it, they are the center of the community, right? Like, there is no community without them. They are the social life. They are the politics. They are all these things. And, like, yes, I want kids to go to school and learn, but in a lot of ways, I'm like, this is this kid's job. Job. He is carrying the back of this commute, this community on his back. And, like, absolutely. If he. That means he gets special cookies baked for him by the cheerleaders or whatever. Like, I don't know that I think women should have to serve men, but I do understand being like, okay, I'm gonna give you an A in this class, even if you didn't deserve it, because you need to go play, because this is part of the economy of our town. Like, I'm just like, I get it. I. I don't think that's the way it should be. Like, I don't think that kids should be responsible for the entire community in which they live. But as the way. As it stands, I'm sort of like, yeah, I'm not teacher. I am passing that kid.

[B]

Okay? Did you. So did you find yourself being a Permian fan by the end of this?

[A]

That's such an interesting question. Someone else asked me that. In the discord. I did not find myself being a Permian fan or a fan of. Was it Midland Lee?

[B]

Oh, yeah, the Midland Lee Rebels. Or.

[A]

No, what's the All Black team?

[B]

The All Blacks. Oh, Dallas Carter.

[A]

I didn't find myself being a fan of any of the teams. I like the true child of an interracial marriage who is taught to see race everywhere, became a fan of all the black characters. Okay, I was rooting for Booby. I was rooting for Chris, Ivory, Christian. I was rooting for those kids in. In Dallas. Like, I was rooting for their success. I was rooting for them to get home field advantage. Like, I just became extremely along racial lines, I think. But I think I genuinely was just rooting for the kids. Like, when we get to the. Have you read the. Like, afterward that he writes, like, 20 years later where he goes back and, like, I know that.

[B]

I know that I read it at.

[A]

One point, but it's not in your copy, obviously.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[A]

Well, when I got to that part, I mean, I genuinely was like, please tell me Booby's okay. Like, please. Like, I just was like, what's Ivory Christian up to? Like, I was like, I hope, like, dawn is failed and everyone else is like, all the black kids are doing great, you know? Like, I was really reading it in a 20, 25 lens, but he was really struggling. Man, we're gonna talk about Booby. But I do think gen. Generally, I'm rooting. I was rooting for the kids. Like, yeah, I was. I wasn't rooting for the school or the team or, like, Coach Gains necessarily. I was just, like, rooting. I just wanted. I wanted the kids to win and be happy because I feel like they're. They're doing so much work.

[B]

Yeah. It's hard to, like, it's hard to resist them in that way. And if. Actually, Tracy, I wanna. Did you. Did your high school have a big football thing? Like, did you.

[A]

Okay, so I also went to a private Catholic school. Not all boys, though. Mine was integrated in Oakland, California. And for people who don't know about Oakland, California, we, especially when I was there, had some of the worst public schools in the country. And so most kids who could afford to in any way or could get a scholarship for athletics or whatever went to private Catholic high schools because it was cheaper than a true private school and it was better than a public school. So we had a lot of great athletes at our school, and our basketball team now has won state a few times, and we went to state a few times when I was like. We were in the tournament and stuff. When I was getting basketball, our football team was just okay. I think now maybe the football team is good. Bishop o'. Dowd, have you ever heard of it?

[B]

Oh, yeah. That's what. Didn't. Jason Kidd.

[A]

Yeah, well, for a year, and then he transferred to Alameda, I think.

[B]

Okay. All right.

[A]

Yeah, well, we've had some good players, like NBA coach Johnny Bryant, who is an assistant in Cleveland now. He went there like, it's a. It's a legitimate school. We had a. Like, had a legitimate basketball program when I was there, and I think they still do now.

[B]

Yeah, the girls basketball team is really good.

[A]

The girls team, like, was really good a few years ago. Volleyball, like, so, like, really good sports program. But I lived in Oakland, California, a major city and a major metropolitan area. So no high school. Anything is big because we had Cal and Stanford, and then we also had the warriors, the Giants, the A's, the Niners, the. Like, it's just. There's no high school sports. Were just high school sports when I was around. Like, De La Salle was really good at football, and they were, like, on a crazy win streak for, like, it was, like, five seasons long. They never lost a game or something in men's football. But, like, even that was sort of relegated to, like, the Oakland Tribune. It wasn't, like, on TV that often, you know, I'll tell.

[B]

I'll tell you a quick, funny story. I had my dad come to visit. When my dad came out and visit, because we always used to go watch high school football games. So I took him out to De La Salle because I wanted to see what the big deal was conquered. De La Salle, we get to the game, get to the stadium. My dad's looking around for a little bit and he says, man, this stadium is pitiful. And I was just like, dad, this is what it's like in California. They don't care about it in the same way out here as we do in Texas, man. Like, have. Have some perspective.

[A]

Especially not like, in the Bay Area or in la, because, again, we have so many sports, professional sports teams. Right? Like.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's not. There's no dearth of. And it's not even like, there's one team. There's so many teams.

[B]

And so you guys are sharing teams.

[A]

Yeah, it's just like there's so many high schools, you know, within your league. There were big games, but it wasn't a big deal. But our athletes definitely were treated, like, better. But they also still had to go to school. Like. Like, it was like you had to have a 2.0 or 2.5 or whatever. And, like, they were pretty strict about that. And I don't think teachers were passing kids just to pass them. But, you know, I think it was like a. I think I had a pretty probably typical sports situation at my school. If you went to a school that had like, good sports, like, we had a good athletic department.

[B]

Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I mean, the important thing here too is that like, I mean, what, what is happening in Odessa, Texas in 1988 is like a weird perversion of everything. Right. Like, I mean, I, I related to it a lot because, you know, like, that's sort of the, the culture with which I grew up in or was familiar with. Right. But I also could understand even then and now with more perspective as I'm older, I'm like, oh, yeah, like, they're not going about this totally the wrong way, but I mean, they're setting the kid and we can talk about it later. You're setting these kids up for failure.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

When you tell them that their senior year of high school is like, basically going to be the most important, the high point of their life, essentially.

[A]

Right. Well, so that's the stuff that, like, when I'm saying, like, I believe that these kids should have been treated differently within the system they were in. Like, I have a vision for a better life for these kids where they are not responsible for their town and like, that they are not the center of everyone's attention and that they get to be 16, 17, 18 year old kids, like, that's the ideal for them. But given the system with which they're in, like, I understand why they would feel entitled to certain treatment and I don't think that they are wrong for that at all. And I don't think that they're necessarily wrong for getting it, given the system they're in. I want to talk a little bit more about sort of booby miles and actually, let's take a break and come back and do that. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but the new year is almost here, which means it's probably time to start thinking about those goals and resolutions. And if one of yours is to make more time for writing, I sort of have some good news for you. There's a totally free writing challenge happening in January. It's called Jan, your story. And your mission is to write 500 words every single day in January. Jan, your story is hosted by a new community called Memoir Nation, which was founded by Grant Faulkner, who's the former executive director at nanowrimo, and Brooke Warner, publisher of she Writes Press. With this challenge, you're invited to join hundreds of other writers to start your 2026 strong. Plus, you can keep that energy going all year long with the support of the Memoir Nation community. The best part, if you complete the Challenge, you'll have written 15,000 words before the year has even really started. Which is like, hello, talk about getting a head start on your goals. But your first challenge is to go and sign up. So to join, you need to head over to memoirnation.com you're going to hit the community button at the top, you're going to create an account, and then voila, you're in. Once you are, go to the January story page. For more details about the challenge, check out memoirnation.com to get started. Have fun and good luck. You've got this. Okay, y'. All, the holidays are here. They are fast approaching. It is gifted giving season. With this podcast. I get to give you guys the gift of exclusive interviews with authors of spicy little book club, Juicy behind the scenes gossip every single week. And the best gift I could ask for in return this year is your support on Patreon and Substack. And lucky for you, for the rest of December, I have activated annual memberships on Patreon that are only $50 for new members. That is less than $5 a month to get access to even more amazing perks and a fun bookish community. Oh, and you Substack people, I didn't forget about you. There is a 10% off sub stack sale going on right now. Both of these sales are going to last until the end of the year. That is December 31st. It's over. I will not be extending. Okay, so here's what you get on Patreon. You can join the Stacks Pack community. We've got book club meetups. We've got a private discord. We've got a year long reading challenge right now. You can also vote in our Stacky Awards. You can get the mega reading challenge for 2026 and you can get my reading tracker over on Substack. You can subscribe to my newsletter, Unstacked, where I keep the book conversations going. I'm giving you a healthy dose of pop culture Hot. Takes a lot of them. And both of those places for the paid tier, you are getting a monthly bonus episode. Now if you don't have the money for either of these things, I get it. That's fine. Guess what? There are free tiers for both of those. So go subscribe there. You still got a bunch of fun content both on Patreon and Substack and you're still supporting my work. Here's the thing I want to tell you. While we're in this gift giving moment, guess what? You can give a gift subscription to Unstacked and or the Stacks pack to your bookish loved ones. I even have little printable gift card PDFs that you can give them if you like to hand out a little tangible item. So if you or your friends are looking to meet other book lovers, get back into reading. Just love the podcast. You want to support the work that I do, want to support my team, Come hang out with me on Patreon or Substack or both. You can find me on [e-mail] the stacks and on substackraceythomas.substack.com Obviously, links for both are in the show notes. Okay, we're going to talk now about Booby Miles and sort of the racism in this town in this book, because I don't know, for. For me, Booby is the central character, even though there isn't one. He's the character to which I felt the most. Do you want to tell the people a little bit about who Booby Miles is and a little bit about his story if they haven't read the book?

[B]

Yeah, sure. So Booby Miles is a senior running back when this book opens and everything, he's going to be the next big Odessa Permian high school star. Like, he's, you know, had a great year last year. He's coming to a senior year. Everybody's expecting him to have another big year. And he's got scholarship offers from, you know, just name the big school in the country, he's got that scholarship offer. And then in, I think, I can't remember, it was the first or second scrimmage of the year, he has a knee injury that basically it ruins his season. If not, you could say, his entire career. So he gets hurt. And then at that point in the book, we're following him as he sort of drifts away from the team right where you. Where you kind of see how expendable these guys are. How, like, just. You think that because they're building up like, we're a community, this team. We're all staying together. We're Permian or whatever. And they had this guy that was so key to their, to their wins the previous year before God, that they had so much hope for. And then you can just see them kind of disparage him and, like, push him away from the team and, and under. And undermine him and, and talk about his maturity and everything. So, yeah, so Booby Miles is like. I mean, he also. He's not a great student, as you might imagine. Like, he's, by the time he's A senior in high school, he's still taking like freshman and sophomore level courses. But he's a kid who had a kind of hard scrabble upbringing, man. Like, he was abused as a real, as a child by his, you know, biological parents. And he ends up going, goes into a foster home and then his uncle comes to Houston and brings him up to Odessa and that's how he ends up in Odessa. So he's, he's very close with his uncle and his uncle is like, football is going to be his path. That's going to be his way out and it's going to change things for us. And when he gets hurt in that game, it really sets everything back. And it's just so it's a tragedy early on. Like, you just, you're set up, you're like, hurt because they're like, oh, man, that guy's going to be awesome. And it's like, oh, no, this sucks. Is that how, is that how you felt?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I just felt like, I mean, the way that Buzz Bissinger sets it up in the book. And again, I'm reading this for the first time in 2025, so I'm familiar with a sports narrative. I didn't need to know anything after page like five that I was like, oh, this kid is gonna get hurt. Like, it's so clear the way he sets up the story of like, he's so great. This is the team, he's the guy. And I think, like, watching how he's treated and like how he's disregarded and, you know, expendable is a word you use which is so right on is he represents so many black men and boys in sports. Right. Like, there are many black men in boys in sports who choose to walk away from sports for a myriad of reasons. But then there are those who are forced out for because of injury. Maybe it's because of like a disagreement with the coaches or the people in charge. Maybe it's because their parents don't get along with the coaches or people in charge or whatever. But like, that there is. You know, I had a boss that used to tell me everyone is replaceable. Which is just like a really kind thing to say to people.

[B]

Yeah. Setting it up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I really want to go the extra mile for that person.

[A]

Yeah. I'm like, thank you, thank you. Yeah, you're lucky that I'm self motivated. But that is the energy of the Booby Miles story, which is like. And not just that they're like, oh, we're so sorry. You Got hurt. You can't play anymore. But they're like talking shit about him behind his back. There's someone calls him like a. He's. He's a mule with the brain of a 12 year old.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

You know, it's. And this entitlement to black children, like he's a child. He's. Maybe he's 18. Maybe he's 18 by the end of the book, but is a senior in high school. Most kids are 17 when they start the season, right? Like, like I was 17 when I graduated high school. So, like younger. Okay, I'm young, I just have a July birthday. But. But it's just like to like one of the things the book, I think does a disservice to the reader and to the athletes is that you forget that they're children, right? You think? I keep, I kept thinking like, oh, professional athlete, right? Like, I kept thinking like, I kept envisioning men and I'm like, no, these are boys. Like, of course he's got the brain of a 12 year old. He's a 17 year old boy. There's no such thing as a 17 year old boy with the brain of a 17 year old boy. They're all acting like 5 year olds. Like. And so that was really like.

[B]

It was, it was crazy because I'm. As you're saying this, I'm realizing when I read this book, I was 12 years old. 17 year old seems like an adult.

[A]

An adult, correct.

[B]

That's an adult to me. And so I thought about it that way. But I will say is, you know, I went ahead and played a little football in college and I would say that the thing that affected me, I would say that this book affected me and impacted my view towards coaches in a way that I don't think nobody. They could have never expected a child to be as cynical about coaches as I was by the time I got to high school. Because I'm reading this book, I read what the coach said about him and I don't. What was the N word policy for the show? Was I allowed to say that?

[A]

I said it.

[B]

Okay, all right, well, anyway, so this is one of the end of the sections. In the booby chapter, it says, what would booby be without football? Echoed a Permian coach when he was asked the question one day and it goes a little bit and says a big old nigger. You know, and I was just like, oh, man. Like I'm thinking, you know, at this age, I'm like, oh, I thought my coaches were like sort of like surrogate fathers or something. Like, there's. Look, they look out for me. They care for me. It never occurred to me that somebody that would be in that sort of a position of authority over you and caretaking over you that would think about you like that. But when it. When it got into my head that a coach could possibly think of me as just a big old dumb nigger, I'm like, well, how could I ever give myself to you for real? Like, this is all for me, not for you.

[A]

Well, and that's why. Like, that's why I say that these kids did deserve to get boosted grades and all these other things. It's like you're being exploited for your body as a child. So, like, the least you can do is give me an A on my algebra test, you know? Like, is that right? No. But should adult men be making their careers off black children or any children's bodies? Like, probably not. Not to this extent. Not that, like, other adults in the community are threatening your kids and your wife over if your team wins a game that's being played by children who you think are so valueless that all they are are big, dumb niggers to you and mules. And like, to me, that's just like, okay, give me the A then. You know, like, yeah, I deserve. I deserve the little. The free car ride from the booster or whatever. Like, and that's why I've always said they should play college athletes. I'm just like, I don't care. I don't care where the money comes from. I don't care if the football team is subsidizing the women's squash team. You better pay these kids. I don't care. They are bringing, if you have enough money to pay Lane Kiffin millions of dollars.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Figure out how to pay these kids.

[B]

Oh, yeah. I've always felt like it was a civil rights issue.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, I mean, it's a labor rights issue as well. But I mean, the thing is, what gives the game away is that, again, it's really. They only have these concerns about the sports that only black people play. Correct. When it comes to, like, you know, ice skaters or gymnasts or whatever capitalizing on their fame and making money at 18 years old, nobody cares. Or a tennis player.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Like, nobody is concerned about, oh, I don't want them to pervert. To be perverted by money and, you know, money to be the thing or whatever. Like, they. They're just like, oh, it's fine. At 18 years old, they can sign a million Dollar endorsement deal with Nike or whatever. But with football and men's basketball in particular, they're like, well, we really don't want to spoil the game of the. You know, the purity of the sport by paying these kids. And we don't want to, you know. So, anyway, see, I'm. I'm all about that. That's something I've been fighting about my whole life. Is it as a writer? Because I was like, I really think that people don't look at it as a civil rights issue. And I'm like, oh, no. They're. They're denying these kids the revenue that they actually generate. They make. They make. They make whole lives for all these other white administrators and white coaches and never. And are never able to cash in on it. And so I've been always, Adam, like.

[A]

If you can afford $1 billion stadium, like, I'm just like, where's that money coming from? These children who are playing or young adults, if it's college or whatever. But, like, yeah, so I think. I think Booby just is the most explosive character in the book because I think he represents so many pieces. And as you're saying, like, as a civil rights issue, as an education issue, as a labor issue, just like, as a. As, like, the hypocrisy within these locker rooms, I just think he becomes, like, such a representative figure to me of all the things that I care about, frankly. Like, I'm sure that, like, some of the other characters might represent things that other people are more interested in, but to me, like, Booby, and I think in some ways, his kind of foil, which is Ivory Christian, who, like, I think if he was the one to get injured, would have sort of been like, okay, right. Like, he, the whole time, is sort of the reluctant talent, and he's the other black kid that is, like, profiled on the team, and he wants to be a preacher, and he's good, but he has an injury, and they keep injecting him. And then by the end, he sort of is like, wait, I do like playing football, right? And, you know, he doesn't end up going down the path of, like, being a preacher, but that he has some. Whether or not he's able to articulate it, has some understanding of, like, this is not the limit of his life or his only opportunity to be a person that. That he can imagine futures for himself that are not on the field. And so I did find him to also be a compelling character, but nothing close to Booby, because the vitriol around Booby is so High.

[B]

The way they talk about. And it's. I always kind of wondered, and I'm sure Buzz has talked about this at some point about the way the other black players kind of came to regard, like, once they saw this stuff in print, if they ever got a chance to read it, which they thought of their coaches. And I think later, maybe in that. That the afterward that you. That you read, I think. But doesn't Bissinger. Doesn't he identify the coach that called Booby a nigger? I think he does.

[A]

I can't remember.

[B]

I can't remember. I think he does because he doesn't say him by name in the book, but I think he does at that point because, like, I don't owe him the right. I don't. I don't. He doesn't deserve anonymity.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And then. Okay, I. This is tied to this. I do want to talk about the passing grade of the Dallas team.

[B]

Oh, man. Dallas Carter. Man.

[A]

Dallas Carter. So they have. Honestly, if he had followed that team for the season, he would have had an equally compelling book.

[B]

Can I tell you? So I. I want to say the ESPN did a 30 for 30 on that team.

[A]

Oh, that same year they, like, went back and, like, did it.

[B]

They went back later because they were such a compelling team and it's such a compelling narrative that they ended up doing like a 30 for 30 on that team.

[A]

Oh, wow, I missed that one.

[B]

Oh, yeah. You gotta check it out. It's very.

[A]

I mean, I thought I watched all.

[B]

Of them as I. As I read that book. I. And I remember thinking, man, I wish I could learn so much more about Dallas Carter, man. And so. Yeah. And then when I went and wouldn't play to college, I actually ended up playing with guys from Odessa Permian and Dallas.

[A]

Oh, really? Oh, my God.

[B]

Oh, yeah. So cool.

[A]

So what happens with them? And they're introduced later. They're the team that eventually beat Spoiler. They're spoilers who beats Odessa Permian to. In the semifinals to go to State. And they are almost exclusively all black team due to the segregation we talked about earlier. And in Texas, there's a rule where kids have to have, like, a certain pass. Passing grade. And there are teachers who are definitely passing kids who are not. Not that they're not smart enough, but they're not applying themselves enough. Because I think that's the other thing in the book. It's like, oh, these kids are all idiots. I'm like, is Booby really stupid or is Booby just not interested in Doing this stuff, or is it something in between? Right, like. Because they make it sound like Booby is mentally deficient, not capable. And I'm like, but he's capable of following the scheme and, like, running the plays. And he's got the vision. Like, he's clearly got some brain capacity, you guys. But anyways, so there's a kid who gets. There's a teacher at Dallas, in Dallas who's like, you are not gonna pass this class. And the Tet. Like, the other teams are, like, taking it to court, and the superintendent gets involved, and they're like, no, he did pass. And teachers have discretion. And it's like this whole big thing, it goes all the way through this court. Eventually, they are able to play in the game, which ends up beating our beloved Permian Panthers, our Mojo boys. But in this scene in this thing, the judge calls them a bunch of African natives. That's who says they look like. It looked like a room full of a bunch of African natives. And I said, my gosh, like, that is not in a book in 2025. No judge says that on the record in 2025 to a journalist. They might say it's still in 2025 to each other, but they're not saying it to Buzz Bissinger. That's the thing about this book. I don't believe that any. Everybody's not saying this stuff anymore. I just believe people have learned not to say it out loud on the record.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, again, this is the start. And I'm sure this. In a certain kind of conservative media, they're just like, oh, they don't. They're going to. They're going to actually report what we say. Yeah, right. It wasn't actually in Texas, not a few years later. The way that they ended up with Ann Richards as governor is the Republican candidate Clayton Williams said something off, allegedly off the record, about if rape is inevitable. Enjoy it. It got reported. That was one of the things. That was why he didn't end up winning the governor's race. And Ann Richards essentially won, and then Bush won in 96, and we've never had.

[A]

The rest is history.

[B]

Yeah, Sorry.

[A]

She's like the last person to ever Democrats ever win a statewide office in.

[B]

In Texas. Absolutely. Yeah. So. And it had to happen in that way. So, yes. I think people were just not as learned.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or as, you know, like. And also, like, I mean, the idea that somebody would come all the way down there to report on something of this import, like they.

[A]

Or that anybody would ever read the Book? Yeah.

[B]

Like, well, I'm not going to read that. This is about a high school and Odessa, Texas. Come on, get out of here. Nobody's going to read that. They were shocked. So, yeah. So they were open in a way that is shocking. But, yeah, I mean, man. And I. So it's funny because you spend the whole book around the Permian Panthers and Mojo, and I'm like, man, you know, I'm. I'm sort of ambivalent about this team because I don't really like the coaches. I don't like the town and the parents or whatever, but there's still a few kids that I'm invested in here. And then Dallas Carter shows up, and I'm like, oh, man, I fuck with them. Like, those are my boys. Like, I wanted them to win by the end of the game.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. Yeah. And so when the. I always thought the Pat. The no pass, no play thing, this is. This is. This starts in Texas, I think, in 1984, where you, you know, your athletic eligibility is tied to your academic performance. Right. And so I can totally understand why the people that were in that building at Dallas Carter, like, you don't understand. We don't do this here. Like. Right. And this kid needs to be out here and to play.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, in fact, Tracy, I actually have a sort of controversial idea of a piece that I want to write about one day. I'll just go ahead and say it. I think we need to untether grades from extracurricular performance. I really do. My dad, who was a very good football player in his day, told me that if I hadn't been able to play football, I wouldn't have gone to school. And I know that there are a lot of people that are like that. Like, football gives you a community. Like, it gives you people that you're accountable to. It gives you a reason to come to school every day. Sometimes it may be the only avenue through which you get food. I don't know if a lot of people know that, but I've known. I've covered football in all over this country, high school. And a lot of kids, sometimes they got fed after practice, and that might be the only meal they might eat that day. Right. And so I'm just like, why are we running kids off because of grades? Like, I don't. There's no evidence that by forcing them away from the one thing they're attached to, that their grades are going to get better. They may find some sort of way to get their grades up, but it doesn't Mean that they're learning anything if they've done anything. And so I just, it was through this book and I said, oh, you know what? It's probably not a coincidence that once the school started to get integrated or desegregated that they started leaning in on this kind of stuff too.

[A]

So yeah, that's such a good point. And also like, you know, everybody knows this. I was a theater major. I am not a particularly. I was a good student because I will follow a rule, but I was like extremely bad at math. Like I got a D in math one.

[B]

Oh, got a D. Man. I failed math.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

What are you talking about?

[A]

But I'm, I'm a person. My overall like high school GPA was like a 3.7. So like that's like extreme departure for me. And it wasn't because I couldn't try. I'm just extremely bad at math. I have like dyscalculia or whatever. The point being is that I was talented in other things that I was not really graded on. Right. Like you don't get a great. Like I did take drama, but like I didn't get graded on all the extracurricular work that I did. I danced outside of school. Like all of these things that I did that I would have gotten A pluses in. In. And so I do sort of agree with you that like to punish children for excelling outside of the classroom when most people don't do that stuff in anyways. But I do think there has to be another way to incentivize kids to, to learn. Right. Because like we are definitely entering the age of anti intellectualism and like maybe not even the age, but like it's definitely. People are into it. Because one of the things in this book that I thought was so striking is there's a part where the teachers are talking about how the kids are so much stupider now and they watch all this TV and they don't know to talk and they can't read. And I'm like, that sounds like now with phones. Like that's what they say about kids now. So I'm like, maybe this is just. Teachers always think kids are dumber than they were.

[B]

I mean every gener, every generation thinks the pre. The success of one is bad is worse than they were.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or the worse than ever before. Like that these are problems that they've never had before. Like from school to anything. Like in football too. Like they'll be like these kids, they don't listen like they used to. You can't coach Them the way you used to back in the day. And it's just like. No, like you're just. Just an old person who is not used to being in this position. And you don't. You forgot what it was like to be a child.

[A]

And you could be abusive back then in a way that you can't be now. You feel like physically. You could have physically harmed children back then, and now you, like, can't do that.

[B]

Did you? So I don't. So I'll never forget going to school and having to sign a form to opt out of corporal punishment at school.

[A]

I don't think I had that.

[B]

You didn't have it. I'm from Texas.

[A]

I know. I'm like, I'm from California and I'm. I'm just enough younger than you that I feel like it probably was phased out. Out.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Like, we had to. You had to take. Sign the phone, take the form home to your parents and sign out. So to make. Wouldn't spank you in school.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

So it was different time. It was a different time.

[A]

Okay, wait, I want to go back to Carter Dallas. So one of the. One of the assertions in the book is because these children were allowed to play and they didn't have consequences for their actions that. That they were somehow never going to learn a lesson. They were beyond reproach. Etc. Then we get to the epilogue of the book and we find out that the two stars of the team have been. They decided to, like, do some little thefts. They were doing some thieving for no reason, just for shits and giggles. And the ways that kids do stupid.

[B]

They're part of a theft ring in South Dallas. Yeah, the South Dallas area that time. That's right. Yeah.

[A]

And one of them is, like, already lined up for a scholarship for college. The whole thing. They get caught and they think like, oh, it's gonna be no big deal. Like a little slap on the wrist. They end up going to prison for like, what is it, like 10 and 12 years or 12 and 17. Something crazy.

[B]

It was. It was like. It was like a. Yeah, like maybe five years. Let me. I'm gonna look this up. I want to make sure I get that right. Oh, my God. Derek Evans was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Gary Edwards was sentenced to 16 years.

[A]

16.

[B]

16. Yeah. Yeah. And they were. But they. In fact, they both had college scholarship offers. Like, they both could have gone on and played, but.

[A]

So my question to you then is, do you think.

[B]

I hope.

[A]

I think I know your answer, but do you Think that this behavior is because of the entitlement of getting passed and being like, like the kings of the school, or do you think that this is about something else?

[B]

Man, I think it's about a lot of things. I mean, I guess that could be a factor among a series of factors. But I also think Tracy, having been a 17 and 18 year old boy, like, man, you're just really lucky to get through that age without doing something stupid to throw your life into turmoil like this. Just I think of so many times that like my friends want to go do something stupid and I was just like, I don't want to go. I wasn't there for that or whatever. And I went to school with a kid who ended up going to prison for killing somebody at Mardi Gras.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, in high school.

[B]

He was two years out of high school.

[A]

My gosh.

[B]

He ended up being two years out of high school. Yeah, he's still in prison right now. And so I think that like, that is a part and parcel of like, you know, like the way that we raise boys and our expectations and the boys will be boys stuff. And like, maybe some of that is related to we're not going to hold them accountable in the classroom, you know, or whatever in behavior. But I don't think that that's a football issue. I don't think that that's a black culture issue. I just think that's a culture issue that we have around teenage boys of all colors and all social levels or whatever in this country. Right. I don't know. What do you think? Because I, I, I, because there's so many kids on those football teams that they weren't involved in any of that stuff.

[A]

Yeah, well, I don't, I mean my read of the whole situation and given the framework of book, what we know about what happened to Booby later, what happens, I think Brian also gets in trouble with the law or one of, in, in the afterword, we find out, oh, that Brian is in trouble for a physical altercation. And, and you know, I think a lot of it is like not to be beating a dead horse, but like it's racism. If these kids are white and they're are great college players, they get a slap on the wrist. It is the five years that you thought it was right. It's not the 20 years that you falsely remembered because it seems so extreme. Like I think about like Brock Turner, he was a swimmer with so much promise out of them, he could rape a woman, sexually assault a woman in public and be given a slap on the wrist because he had his whole life ahead of him. And so I think that like the behavior is the behavior of children, right? Their brains are not fully developed. They are children, they make bad choices. Like I've got six year old identical twin boys and my whole life's work from for the rest of the next 20 years until they're like more developed is to make sure they don't do the stupid that they do at home out in the world. And I understand that. That being said, I think that this stupid behavior is of course blown out of proportion when you think about the judges calling it a courtroom full of African natives. Right? Like that it's so inextricably lame, linked to the system in which they live that every black character in the book ends up in jail at some point. Like.

[B]

Right, right. Well, you know what, it is too. I mean, the thing is you can envision a scenario that if they're white that maybe they spend a month in county jail.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, and that's probably your first, the first time offense, whatever. Like it's not a big deal. But yeah, that is, I mean, but again, this is edging into the, you know, the, in the time that we got hyper incarceration in this country too, right? With like the super predator era or whatever, when they become a lot more punitive of these kids.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so we're entering that era and like again, I'm so glad you said it because I, I don't know why I edged around it, I don't know why I said it, but they, they think of, again, this is sort of related to booby. They think of black, black kids as expendable.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like they just don't.

[A]

Or like a nuisance even.

[B]

Yeah, a nuisance, yeah. Like it's better to have them here in prison than out here in the world. Right. And so, so yeah, I'm. Man, I forgot that they put them, sent them kids to prison for that long. I mean, that's amazing.

[A]

So long they got out. That means they would have gotten out of jail in 2010.

[B]

Yeah. Oh my God. Right?

[A]

Like it's crazy. It's crazy. And I think like what's tied to this piece of it of like the treatment of the black kids in this book is also the treatment of women in this book basically non existent. Right? Like they're the cheerleaders, it's the wife of the coach. Like there's so few women. But also there's a moment in this book where the same boys from Dallas Carter.

[B]

Carter.

[A]

Dallas. Dallas Carter. Dallas Carter. Where they leave school early to go have sex with a girl who apparently was bragging about it throughout the school. It's multiple boys, and it's written about as if. If it's just no big deal. And, like, I think, yeah, they took pictures, too.

[B]

Like, I remember there was, like, Polaroids.

[A]

She took pictures and was telling everyone about it. That's how it's presented in the book. And whether or not that's true, whatever, I'm gonna trust that everything in the book is true, because that's how I have to read these books. Like, I have to trust that Buzz Bissinger did his job or whatever. That being said, the way that it's handled in the book is so extremely uncomfortable. And, like, I wish that Buzz had tried to interview her. I wish that there was more care given to what it felt like to these young women and these. Be at the service of these boys. It's so much focused about how men felt about the boys and how the boys felt about the men, and it totally just, like, erased women from this world besides, like, a mom here or a wife there. But it's like, what about the girls who are at the high school? How did they feel? Like, what did it mean to be one of the pets? Like, was that a huge status thing? Talk about that. What did that look like? Were the Met. Were the boys rude to them? Did they treat them bad? Like, the whole thing, it was like a. It's a big gaping spot in the book, and obviously the book can't do everything, but to pretend like women weren't a part of the culture is. Feels like such a huge omission, because we know they were.

[B]

Right. Well, you know, and that's the thing that makes Odessa feel a little bit like the Wild west, because I think that, like, wouldn't that one of the things, you know, when they were first settling the west in America, that there were not very many women out there?

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the women that were out that were there, that were treated very poorly early. Right, right, right, right. And they would say, we're basically at the service of men.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so you kind of get the same feeling in this book. Is it like, they're not. They don't have a place at the table here, and there's not really a place for them to reach prominence or influence or anything in these houses. And again, they're just. They're secondary characters in every way. And so, yeah, it would have been nice. But I. I do remember there being, like, A teacher who was, like, ostensibly liberal and, like, he interviews her, but, like. Yeah, there's not very.

[A]

There's not. It's just, like, very loosely sprinkled throughout. We're running out of time. I have to say one quick thing, which is Odell Beckham senior.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

I was so excited.

[B]

I tell people this all the time because When Odell Beckham Jr. Came around, I was like, is that Odell Beckham's son?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was like, oh, yeah, Odell. So Odell Beckham is a running back for an opposing team in this book, for Marshall High High School. In the book. And he's really. He's a really good running back. He ends up playing at LSU just like his son does later.

[A]

And for those who don't know who El Beckham Jr. Is, he is a recent NFL star. He played for the New York Giants. He's. He was a flashy guy.

[B]

He was dancer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just a handsome, handsome dancer.

[A]

Everything just like. Like, such a figure. And with a name like Odell Beckham, and he's Odell Beckham Jr. So it's not like. I mean, I hear the name and I was like. Immediately stopped the book and was like, odell Beckham senior. Like, is he from Texas?

[B]

Yeah. And his dad is still kind of young looking, kind of hangs out with his son. There's a. There's a very famous picture of Odell Beckham and Shaquille o' Neal on campus at lsu. Posted up on campus talking to a couple of women. Oh, my gosh, I wish I could find it somewhere, but it's out there, right?

[A]

I'll see if I can find it.

[B]

She was dead, looks like. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, my gosh, I love it. But I also was shocked how few people from the book go on to become stars. I just assume, like, oh, if you. If you're in the Friday Night Lights book, you must be the best player in the whole wide world. Like, I just assume. I didn't really think about until the very end when it's like, right. Just. You could be a very good high school football player. And that's just it. That's the peak.

[B]

You're just very good, you know, high school football there. So that's the thing. I mean, and that. And that's the thing that sort of made Odessa Permian sort of a story. It's like they're like the Rocky of hair high school football, right. That they're winning all these games with kids that are undersized and slow and they're going against Big city powers, and they can still overcome all that. And so, like, that was like the real big thing for a Permian. But eventually, like, numbers catch up with you, a lack of talent catches up with you. And every now and again they sent the kid off like Ivory. Christian, I think, got a scholarship to play at TCU for a little bit, which is my alma mater.

[A]

But then he, like, left or something.

[B]

Yeah, he left or something like that.

[A]

And Brian went to Harvard.

[B]

Didn't enjoy the football there because it didn't feel the same.

[A]

Didn't enjoy the football there.

[B]

So. You know, Tracy, there's a line in this book. It was during the coin toss chapter, right? And it always comes back to me because it's kind of how I felt when my high school football career ended. But it wasn't the same thing. So to set it up for people, Odessa Permian ends up in a three way tie at the end of the regular season to go to the playoffs. And so all the coaches from these three teams go to a gas station somewhere remote that's sort of in the middle of them, and they flip a coin to see which two of the three teams are going to go on to the playoffs, right? And Permian gets in. I think Midland League gets in, and I can't. I think Midland High School is a school that loses, right? That they miss it. And so then the coach has to go tell his kids, I'm going to read it.

[A]

This is the line that stuck with me. I have it. It's on my book.

[B]

Oh, you have it?

[A]

I have it. This line is the line of the book.

[B]

So it, it comes to me every time, every time in life.

[A]

So this is so. So he says, I told you that we had no control over a coin flip, right? He goes on, he says, I'm going to read. It's like a whole chunk. I'm going to read it because this, to me, is the greatest thing in the book.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I'm so proud of each and every one of you, he said as he tried to console them. There came a sound of high school football as familiar as the cheering, as familiar as the unabashed Blair of the band, as familiar as the savage crash of pad against paddle. It was the sound of teenage boys weeping uncontrollably over a segment of their lives that they knew had just ended forever. Unreal writing. It's an unreal moment in the book.

[B]

It sits in my chest even today. Like, just when I think about it, you know, it's.

[A]

That's the part where I Was in my kitchen doing dishes, and I just stopped and was like, I need to hear every single word. And I went back and rewound that section, and then I went into my physical book and found it so that I could underline it and like, circle it and fold the page. It is such. For people who I think it. I think it resonates with everybody because I think there are times in our lives where we realize that it's the end of something that we love. But I think for people who love and watch sports and care deeply about sports as culture, narrative, whatever, and I know there are many people who don't care about sports, so this is not going to be the same thing for you. This is not for you. But for those of us who do care deeply about sports, that sentence is just. It just encapsulates the whole thing, right? Like, it's like the winning and the losing and knowing that no matter what, like, this season is over, it's done, it's gone. And like, you have to figure out how to move forward. I just.

[B]

Ah, yeah. Said it. It reminded me at every point in my life after that when something kind of came to an end and I was like, I'm never going to be here again. Like, that line has just kind of bounced around my head for the, like the last 35 years. It's just so impactful. And whenever I see. Whenever I would go to a high school football game because I had to cover high school football and I cover a state championship game or whatever, and the team that loses, I always would just be like, oh, man, they're gonna. They're gonna. First of all, they're gonna remember this for the rest of their lives. They're gonna play this moment, this day, over, over and over again in the head for the rest of their lives. And also, it's just gonna hurt in a way that it's really hard to articulate. And I. I wish people were more comfortable talking about the feeling of loss or whatever or the grief that you feel when that part of your life is over, because it really will sit in your chest for. For a long, long time. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, God. I think one of the things I talk about with a lot of writers on this show who like sports on the show, but also just like in my relationships with them offline or like out outside of the show, is how the narratives of sports are just unmatchable. Like, there is no book, there is no short story. There is no anything that movie, TV show that can match what sports can do. For people who love narrative, like, and I think. I mean, nothing gets me as fired up as a sporting event. And I think, like, this book comes. Came really close to me. Not because the book is as good as the best game, but I felt like it encapsulated what it felt like, what it feels like to root for people, to root for a team, to care about a place and a team and the stories and all of that. And I just. I really appreciated that about the book. And I think that line also just felt so human. Like, I mean, I. I'm not a Blue Jays fan. I am a Dodger hater. But, like, every time I see that shot from the World Series this year of the home plate and the toe and the toes, one's touching and one's not. And I just think, oh, my God, if I was a Blue Jays fan, the way that I would want to die a million deaths every day every time I see that shot. And I don't even care about those teams. I mean, I do hate the Dodgers, but I don't. Like, it's not my team, you know?

[B]

Right, right, right. Yeah. No, it's. It's. It's just there's. There's something in. And I hadn't even played high school football at the time I read this book, but there's just something. Yeah, right. And you're just in a room with all these people, and they're all here. They came here, and they have got all these different lives. And it just made me think. I was like, There's a Gerard McDougal. Jarrod McDougal is a book. Is a character in this book. There's a Mike Winchell. Like, there's a Quintella, you know, in the book. And it's just like, I don't know what your life is like. You may have an alcoholic father. You may have dreams of going to Harvard. You may just want to stay right here in hometown and work at the family business or whatever, but that's what, like, sports can do for you. And, like, my wife would be like, why do you care? You know, Like, I'd be communicating with somebody that said something, you know, vaguely anti Obama on, you know, whatever. And she'd be like, why are you still following that person? I like, I play football with him, though, man. You know, like, we shared something together that's important, you know, and so. And I think that's the thing that Buzz captures. And I will say, by the way, that's why I've never watched the TV show.

[A]

Okay. I watched the TV show. I also watched the movie in preparation for this, and the movie's not good.

[B]

It's not good.

[A]

And the movie changes Booby in a way that is really ick. The TV show's so different from the book. It. It is source material in name only in a lot of ways. So I feel like I didn't even. It didn't even resemble.

[B]

It didn't even.

[A]

Yeah, no, not even.

[B]

Well, that's why. That's why I couldn't get into it. I was like, wow. Like, who's gonna be Coach Gaines? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, it's just I. I like the show a lot, but, like, I would. Loosely based on the book, as in, like, high school football. I mean, it's also not even set in the 1980s, I don't think. I think it' 2000s. Like, I just think it's a totally different thing. There's no. To my memory, there's no Latino kids in the TV show at all. It's only black and white racial lines. Oh, I think it's just like. We want the name Friday Night Lights, because that's famous. Okay, we have to go, but before we do, last chance for you. Is there anything else you want to say about this book?

[B]

I just really think that if you read the book, you will understand a lot of the sports writing that came from after it.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

You know, and a lot of the books that came after it, and it has been. I mean, probably it's one of the three or four most influential books of my life. And I've. Look, I've met people from Permian. I've met people from Dallas Carter, and when I do, I can't stop talking to them about, hey, did you know this person? Did you know this person? Were you a Pepe? There's a girl I went to college with who went to Odessa Permian, and I called her Pepet. Like, that was her nickname. She's like, I wasn't a Pepet.

[A]

But anyway, that's what we called her. But I heard people from the town didn't like the book, which I understand. I wouldn't like you.

[B]

He could not. It took a long time, I think, for Buzz Bissinger to be able to go back to town there, because, I mean, they felt burned. But, I mean, all he did was record what they say. Like they had. People were exposed to, like, the attitudes and that place, and it made them. It made them seem very simple and very mean, mean people. But, you know, all Buzz did was report what he Got so, you know, I think they got what they deserved.

[A]

I think in some ways now, if this book came out, Buzz or whoever wrote it would have been more, maybe gentle or, like, aware of the optics of going into a place and writing about it in that way that, like, we now know and understand because of books like this coming before. But I do think that, like, that's part of the thing that makes this book so special. It's like, he really just was like, I'm just gonna go do this, and just reported what he saw. And, like, he clearly has a point of view about it, but it doesn't feel that way. So I understand feeling like, oh, this guy burned us, but I also understand, like, maybe don't be so racist next time.

[B]

Well, see, that's the thing I'm gonna say. I feel like now there would be a much more sympathetic view accorded to the people in this book. And I think that, like, it's better that we know, like, what the unvarnished racism looks like and sort of the systems working in the background to keep people where they were were totally in Odessa and Ector County. And, like, I don't know that. You know, it's a. You're right. Like, I don't think a writer would be able to go there and do that or would be even allowed to write in quite the same way. They would be too aware of it. And I. That's. That's why I think that this book is a real public service, because it's of a moment in time.

[A]

Well, this has been an absolute joy. Joel Anderson, thank you for. It was worth the wait to get you on this show. It was worth the wait. And also tell your wife. Wife. She's next.

[B]

Okay. All right, I'll let her know.

[A]

Let her know. I'm putting.

[B]

She's. She's even more of a reader than I am.

[A]

I tried to get her on the show, too, but I think she was busy having a baby with you or something.

[B]

She's really difficult. We got two of them.

[A]

I know, but like I said before, I'm persistent and I'm patient. I'm not going anywhere. So when she's ready, okay, She's. And if she does come, I think you guys would be the first ever married guest of the show. I've had people who have been in. In relation with one another, but not legally bound by law.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Think.

[B]

Okay. All right, well, hey, man, hurry up.

[A]

In case I get someone else's spouse on here.

[B]

No, man, I'll try. I'll try to free her up. I'll try to free up so we can do it.

[A]

Everybody else, listen to the end of this episode to find out what our January book club pick will be. This is it on 2025. Joel, you are a dream guest. Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you Tracy. It's been awesome.

[A]

And everyone else, we will see you in the Stacks. Thank you all so much for listening today. And thank you again to Joel Anderson for being our guest. I'd also like to say a quick thank you to Alice and Punch for helping to facilitate this interview. Our book club pick for January is Girl on Girl How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Girls Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, January 28, and you can tune in next Wednesday to find out who our guest will be for this conversation. If you love the Stacks and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com the stacks to join the Stacks Pack and check out my newsletter at Tracy Thomas substack.com make sure you're subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please take a moment to leave us a rating and a review. For more from the Stacks, you can follow us on social media at the Stacks Pod, on Instagram threads, TikTok, and now YouTube. Plus you can check out our [e-mail] this episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Sahara Clement. Additional support was provided by Cherie Marquez and our theme music is from Tagirages. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Tracy Thomas.