Friday Night Lights

For most, the competitive sport they play in their school years will be the best sport of their lives. For some, it will be the best days of their life, period. This is where they reach levels or recognition, respect, acceptance and achievement that are never matched again. This is nothing new; maybe it's human nature to place these people on a pedestal. And high school sport has always been a pressing issue, especially in the USA.

Friday Night Lights is now the seminal expose of High School sport. The book by H.G. Bissinger became a film and then a TV series. But is raises many issues and questions about teenage sport. The fact that over 10,000 people will turn up on a Friday night to watch a bunch of 17 year olds represent their school is amazing. Over here, it's an alien concept. But the same principles still apply, simply on a smaller scale, over here. But then again, that's like most things.

The pressure placed on the players of the Permian Panthers is immense. We might like to think we're under pressure but in reality we place it upon ourselves.

And that's the thing. There is an odd desire for teenage players, particularly in team sports, to be watched, to be pressured. The bigger the crowd the better.

For some, being part of something like a successful sports team is everything. Due to the equalising nature of a team, they become valued. Around school, they achieve a status that without the team they would never have. And that is why we see parents living their dreams through their sons. They recognise that they were the best days of their lives and they want them back.

Like India, schools have a caste system. The classic stereotype is that the 'Jocks' run the school. This is true but the reasons for it are hard to pin down. Maybe these boys are the most assertive, confident boys and so they play sport. Or maybe sport turns them into the most confident. Maybe it's because they are physically better than their counterparts.

But when they leave school they become just like anyone else. Life has an entirely different system and in Friday Night Lights the amount that the players put into their short-lived sporting careers has an incredibly negative effect on the rest of their lives. There are parallels here with the UK and my experience. At the time, the match on a Saturday is the most important thing in their lives. And that winning feeling is so often worth it.

But the UK jock is some way from the US high school stereotypes. Yes, certain privileges exist and a certain social rank is achieved. But most of this is internally created because of the buzz and lift that it gives any 17 year old. In the book, film and TV series the pressure was external and many of the team struggled to deal with it. The whole community had very little going for it except a prize American Football Team. The place was defined by its exploits on a Friday night. So the community put everything into those matches.

In this country, efforts are made by the players to turn themselves into the centre of the community (usually the school community). It's human nature, they want to be valued. But this internal pressure, the making of posters, the drives to get as many people down to watch are not coming from staff or parents.

Friday Night Lights is a fascinating insight into the world of the high school sportsman. Read it, watch it. It shocks and amazes in equal measure and offers a warning into what can happen when external pressure gets out of hand.