Mike+and+Colleen

In Friday Night Lights, the failures of the players will drastically change the public’s opinion about them. In the poem To An Athlete Dying Young, there is a part in there that clearly describes the public opinion about Boobie before his “failure,” or injury during the scrimmage that crippled him for the season. The success of Boobie can be personified in the poem. Houseman states, “The time you won your town the race, we chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, and home we brought you shoulder-high.” The use of the word “chaired” in it’s context makes one think of a celebration, or possibly crowd-surfing, as a result of the presence of the words “won,” and “race,” finally allowing the reader to compare this to the cheers and the general good-feeling of the crowd that receives him at his games. This presents a heavy contrast to the public reception of Boobie after the game. After his injury, Bissinger states in Friday Night Lights, “’What would Boobie be without football?’ echoed a Permian coach when asked the question one day. … he responded without the slightest hesitation. ‘A big ol’ dumb nigger’” (67). The use of the racist term “nigger” contrasts very heavily with the almost celebrity status he achieved before his “failure” of a knee injury. This contrast is what draws the reader’s attention to just how important that failure is in how the public views the football players. Furthermore, Bissinger makes this clear on the book as well. As stated by Bissinger in //Friday Night Lights,// “When Boobie Miles Returned To The Football Field, No one called out his name with those bellowing chants that had rocked the Watermelon Feed in a moment that seemed like a millennium before” (194). Before the failure Boobie would be able to return from the field in the exact same fashion as the first quote from the poem states, "home we brought you shoulder-high." Now, however, Boobie doesn’t receive the chanting and the cheering as he had once before that "had rocked the Watermelon Feed." Without Football, the poor guy is useless, or so Bissinger would have us believe with the contrast between his pre-injury life and his life after the injury mentioned in various places throughout the book.

- Mike and Colleen