Texas Towns Serve as Real-Life 'Friday Night Lights'

DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2004 -- -- In the hearts of many Texans, the thrill and, often, the agony of hometown football are played out each week in their high school stadiums.

As one player said, "There is only one subject, and that is football!"

The passion and the pressure have been captured in "Friday Night Lights," a new movie based on the best-selling book about the 1988 season of the Permian High Panthers of Odessa, Texas.

Former player Don Billingsley said he had mixed feelings about seeing his rocky relationship with his dad, former high school football great Charles Billingsley, dramatized on the big screen. In the movie, Charles becomes upset when his son does not follow in his footsteps.

"This is a great story. I love that," Don Billingsley said. "The bitter part was with my father's portrayal. That's not my father's behavior."

But most agree the movie is an accurate reflection of Texas high school football, and thousands of communities share the obsession.

Sundown -- population 1,500 -- is an oil-rich, West Texas community, struggling because automation in the oil fields has replaced jobs, thus shrinking the population. Now only 155 students attend the high school.

Players for the beloved "Roughnecks" have to drop their helmets and pads at half-time, or else they wouldn't have enough students for the band.

But even in struggling small towns, the pressure to win the big game is enormous. Almost no one misses the Friday game.

"Probably if you were going to rob a bank in Sundown, Texas, playoff night in Sundown is a good night to do it because there are not many folks left in town," said school superintendent Mike Motherall.

Coach Danny Randolph, who is also the science teacher, says football dominates every aspect of their life because there are few distractions.

"You better love flat, and you better love pump jacks," he said, referring to the oil pumps that dot the surrounding landscape. "This is definitely God's country because God made it for Him to love and nobody else basically."