Episode 13: Best football movie ever? Friday Night Lights: Part 2.

Welcome to a special GenX Classic Sports Movie episode. Shon, David, and Mark take a trip under the bright lights of small-town Texas to explore Friday Night Lights, the iconic 2004 film that captured the intensity, heartbreak, and unyielding passion of high school football. From the unforgettable performances to the themes of community, ambition, and sacrifice, we’ll unpack what makes this film more than just a sports movie. So, grab your oversized shoulder pads, your neck roll, and your helmet and get ready to relive the drama, triumphs, and struggles of the 1988 Odessa Permian Panthers—MOJO!

This episode is Part 2 and covers the post season for the 1988 Panthers as well as points out some factoids from the book that might not have been covered in the movie.

Credits:
Haylee Wolf: narration.
Mason Enis: theme music.

Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2024. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

Transcript

welcome sports fans to Gen X classic Sports where we bring the Nostalgia of our Sports filled youth into the present

day grab your favorite retro jersey grab open a cold one and let's stroll down memory lane together we're here to

discuss iconic Sports moments teams and athletes from our generation this is Gen

X classic sports sports talk for Gen xers by gen xers hello folks and welcome

back to part two of our Gen X classic sports movie series where we're covering

Friday Night Lights and just to catch you up really quickly on what was going on before uh the Odessa peran Panthers

have pretty much finished up the regular season and where we pick up part two uh

we're winding down the regular season and we're heading into the playoffs thank you very much for joining us and

let's pick back up with Friday Night Lights so they lose that game to Midland Lee get this 14 to7 and they now have uh

SE uh two losses on the season which is you know lots of teams go eight and2 they're throwing a parade especially if

they make the playoffs um but the problem with them is they've now gone

uh they've now gone eight and two and may not make the playoffs and that's just not good for Coach gains at all so

um that puts them in a three-way tie for the playoff spot and even though this

was Texas there was only two playoff teams per conference so who this was to decide the first

place team and the second place team because three different teams had the same amount of losses so um y'all

remember the scene with gains and Winchell driving to the uh truck stop after the to flip literally to flip the

coin after the game they have to go they have to go flip the coin after the game y'all remember uh Winchell and Gaines

riding together in the car I do but remember the conversation

much other than other than WN saying something about being cursed exactly he feels like he's been cursed his whole

life that's correct Winchell asked the coach say you ever felt like you you just have a curse on you and you can't

do anything right kind of thing so they have that whole deep back on on that on that mid that mid in the leag game wi in

the movie he he had a open receiver throwing before touchdown and he threw it high on the last play of the game so

that you know that's that's probably goes towards his lack of confidence or his insecurities or hurts his

insecurities anyway that's correct and uh and and I

and then the next scene he's in the car well after you know after the football scene yeah they

uh they make sure to play the DJs talking on the radio while Winchell's

riding with gains and they're both just getting blasted and they're both sitting there having to listen to it I guess

they choose to and so you know 8 and two got to go flip a

coin so when I saw the movie again recently

first thing I thought was there's no way a state like Texas would decide their

playoffs situation with a coin toss this has to be done just for the movie and

boy was I wrong so I'm gonna jump out of the movie for a second because it's important to point out that that is

exactly how it was settled with a coin toss here's what's really funny it was a

secret location the media would not tell anybody where the coin toss because they

were scared they would have riots because three three teams were

going to walk into a what turned out to be a an interstate uh Cafe all night

Diner I bet they had good food too cuz all those places have good food they

were gonna they were gonna flip this coin and three teams were coming in and one team

was going to leave very very unhappy and the state troopers would not let them

televis or announce where the secret meeting was because they were scared of rioting by hundreds if not thousands of

fans that would show up yeah yeah that's crazy wow so now they left that part out

in the movie they did say it was undisposed location the media said that but they didn't say because of rioting I

didn't think about that so so that's true that really happened and it was live on television you can go

to YouTube right now and I'll probably put it a link to it in our uh YouTube

episode of this you can go to YouTube right now and watch that coin toss just like it aired that night it was on live

Texas it was on live Texas television wow that is crazy so uh the

coin toss two of the participants were peran and midin Lee again and I don't

know who the third team was but doesn't really

matter Co Cooper wasn't may have been so as soon as that happens by the

way I was wrong earlier this is the road trip home that billingsley's Dad throws the ring out the window doesn't matter

it it happened his dad kicked the windows out threw the ring out so that happened this time this is the first

time in the movie we hear about Dallas Carter after the coin toss and so who's Dallas Carter and all

of this they're the the enemy they're the they're the best team

in Texas obviously a p yeah best team in Texas in the movie um Powerhouse out of

uh Urban portion of Dallas yep uh lots of uh well I say lots

several future college and maybe a couple of NFL players on the team ever

heard of Jess Armstead he was on that team yep okay they were some grown men in

that movie definitely they they they were okay so they were the best thing in

Texas they played their home games at Texas stadium they were known for being for their size and while we're talking

about that to make this they didn't make this point in the movie like they should have Permian was known for for not

having any size traditionally peran had smaller players

lineman and everything that was their whole deal they were they were tougher than you they were in better shape than

you because they practiced out in the Heat or whatever so did the other Texas teams we know that but but perian uh

their whole deal was being tough because they were not big so Dallas Carter they did a good job

in the movie of showing how much bigger that team was than peran for

sure okay and by the way they were 5A in Texas and I think I read that there were

2400 kids in high school and that was only big enough to be 5A in

Texas that's a big high school

gez bigger than the town we grew up yeah

yeah I don't know what uh Arkansas's biggest high school is but

it's it's probably a little more than half of that well yeah I mean especially since Rogers and a bunch of those split

in half it would have been right but anyway so they get to the playoffs and they more or less just oh by the

way by the way after after we find out who Carter is there's a scene where

booby is cleaning out his locker and comr watches

him and the implication of course is booby booby's done he's had enough it's

he's he's his knees his knee's done and therefore he's done so he packs his locker Comer's watching him but so does

Winchell and Billingsley and the the defensive was he a defensive end or a

safety Chavez was their best one of their best tacklers defenders and he was

watching defensive end line defensive linebacker or something outside line

they had the guy they called preacher that played linebacker too and then they had I think anyway so um

so booby's done so then they kind of Montage their way in the movie through one two three four playoff wins you

don't really see a lot of details about it and that puts them in the finals against of course Dallas Carter so we're

getting close to the end I'm I'm probably wearing y'all out so Dallas Carter Dallas Carter is up next in the

finals in the movie so then what happens between Dallas Carter officials and the coach

and Permian officials and the coach coach y'all remember that scene we know they're in the finals

against each other what happens before that so they before theame yeah what do

they have to decide on what all has to be decided Well what officials are using

well not not only that what else other than the officials neutral site location the site

the site cuz neither team wanted to play at the other team's home okay so that

happened in the movie and while I'm sit if you'll remember the coach and a principal and some lawyers get off the

plane and Coach gains and his principal and whoever athletic director they're

waiting on them so it's like Five Guys from each school and they get in a little conference room at the airport and when I'm watching that I'm thinking

this is completely made up for the movie there's no way the state handled it like this that's why you have uh Activities

Association in Arkansas and whatever they call the equivalent of that it take this stuff should have been decided

beforehand right no that's that's that's exactly

what happened in the book that is exactly what happened in the book so they said normally this happens over a

phone call and I'm wondering if it's because of the size of the crowds and that tended to lend it to going into

these college and pro stadiums and stuff normally they make a phone call and they settle it Dallas Carter is like nope

we're doing this in person they fly to Midland Odessa perian officials meet

them in Midland and they wanted to ha hatch out the location and the officials and so

there's a whole discussion where they're not really saying what they want to say

about who's going to be officiating because there's a whole white and there's a black school and a white

school a mostly white school involved and all of this and and they're wanting fairness both

teams I found it really interesting though in the movie in the movie what

stadium did they decide on the Astrodome yep and the movie they

decided on the Astrodome in real life that's not what happened but in the movie they decided on the Astrodome um

and they had an argument about uh referees and they ended up um making

sure that the referees were racially balanced because Dallas Carter was afraid of that they didn't want to be on

allh crew and uh peran agreed and I think they said they picked um referees

out of San Antonio or somewhere to be the uh officials so everybody was happy

totally everybody was happy with the arrangement we're going to the Astrodome in the movie

right right so we're in the finals and then there's a scene where gains comes

out of the grocery store with his family what happened y'all remember oh yeah the the

booster oh kind of in a not so subtle way

threatened him threaten games that if they don't win it may be rough on games you know games of shoot yeah Mark you

remember that yeah the booster is in a convertible with another booster the two

old guys I guess and I don't remember the exact quote but they exchang

pleasantries and they say we really need you to win this game and gains is like well yeah it means a lot to me too and

they said well it's going to be really rough on you if you don't that's literally I think they said it it's going to be rough on you if you don't

kind of thing yeah be rough wow so in a two-hour movie the fans three times have

told the coach now how to do his job you don't think that happens now no

it we totally know it does I know um but it's fun to see it play out

in a movie right right okay so I think G his wife gain's

wife in the movie after that little interaction when they were walking away I think she sarcastically said that

was I thought that was kind of funny you know wasn't anything subtle about it

right right okay so they play each other in the finals and we don't have to go blow

by blow and play bypl on that but

um so in the movie they play a clo they they get behind Quick quickly and then

they catch up and it's very dramatic and it's nothing like what happened in real life

but they make it look like peran of course has a big comeback uh before they go what happens

when they uh they're getting on the bus y'all remember booby shows up bo boy

shows up and and gains lets him on the bus so I mean how much do you want to

talk about the the final game I mean is it enough to say they came up short I mean they had a dramatic flurry there at

the end and they came up short that's the the bottom line right

right yeah yeah bottom line is I mean they were totally overmatched

undiz intimidated actually intimidated there was maybe a little dirty play from

Dallas Carter and some in the movie I don't know if that was actually true in real life I mean but it was a hardfought

game and and and you know they lost they came up short up short they lost um like

six CES short yeah um in the in the movie they actually look intimidated but

then they kind of play their way out of it they they get a halftime speech or two from a player and the coach and they

come back out and they start doing their own hitting and and so forth so yeah it

it plays out like it should in a movie except to be honest in most most movies

they would just lie and say they w but at least they right they they you got to have a feel good ending but that one

didn't end feel good well and I think we all know growing up playing ball you you

probably learn more from losses than you do wins anyway right or at least right

um so yeah so uh W Winchell comes up short at the end on a scramble and they

lose in the movie they lose 34-28 he was scrambling for the tie

in the book they only lost like 14 to N I

think something like that yeah I think it was a lot closer uh lowc scoring game

and it was in the semifinals in the book they lost in semis to Dallas Carter and they lost 14 to

n but hey 3428 is much more

cinematic so they come up short now we can we can

switch off the movie part of it now and talk about I guess what really happened and and most of that by the way if you

just took the football side of it and said go make a movie out of it that's what they did they just changed the

semis to the finals and made that a little bit more dramatic but honestly the rest of that stuff about the actual

football was dead on I mean they they lost to they lost a game or two they

shouldn't have uh they they uh they beat everybody they were supposed to by mercy

rule type scores and uh they had a little their hiccup early in the year and they got booby hurt in a practice

game in real life it was like a a formal scrimmage before the season it's when booby boy actually got

hurt in in the movie I like the fact that they actually

it was realistic the uh the game it was

scenes everything I mean you these were real athletes out there in the movie

yeah it looked like wi the winell character could actually told football he actually looked like Sling Blade kid

looked like a high school quarterback I was impressed with the football the football you know that's one of my big

pet peeves as guys that don't look like they've ever played they did a really fantastic job making this look like an

actual football game going on and I found out right I found out that the director took actual imagery from real

games and dispersed it into the football action when he and so there is there is some actual

peran football action in there yeah but even when the actors were

actually yeah it's not it's not footage from another game no it was great the

way they filmed it I don't and I never did find out how they filmed it um but I

wouldn't be surprised if they just paid two high schools to show up in scrimmage and put those uniforms on them or something plus the actors you know what

I mean right um so the the season itself played out

the same way except they got beat in the semis um can I run down a list with you guys of just some more stuff that that

actually happened now to jump out of the movie a little bit by the way I love yeah we gonna talk about Dallas Carter

after after that's whole I mean to me that's a whole thing I mean there's a

lot of legal problem Dallas Carter was stripped of the State title after they won it because they won it the next week

in real life they got stripped of it because they had an illegal player one they they proved one was illegal but the

thought was there were more than that is that what you're talking about yeah yeah and then there's a

bigger story and there was like 50,000 people that watched that tunnel game

yeah that game that yeah and so in Real Life the game was at the University of Texas Memorial Stadium by the way it was

not in the Astrodome and it was in the rain and Winchell late in the game had a

key pass he needed to complete and he said the wet football cost him the completion that would have whatever won

the game for him or at least kept them alive or whatever so I thought that was interesting

um so the airport thing happened and that is that that happened and the coin

toss both happened and I would have sworn they were both made up for the movie and they were not and real life when Carter came to

Midland Carter wanted peran to come to Dallas and play at Texas stadium their

home and peran said fine but you got to pay a $166,000 and they said why 16,000 they

said cuz we're going to fly up there and we need Hotel money and flight money so it's 16,000 bucks to do

that so Carter countered with well we'll play it at your Stadium but we need

8,000 SE 8,000 tickets for our fans and peran balked at that they said

there's no way you're bringing that many people and they said yeah we are well and peran said well you're not going to do it at our Stadium then so that's when

they decided to go to to Tex uh University of

Texas Carter countered their proposal at about uh their first counter was after

uh Texas stadium was to go to the Cotton Bowl which was much closer to their actual neighborhood their school neighborhood and peran didn't want to do

that either so they got the Texas state the Memorial Stadium at UT and they got San

Antonio um officials in the actual final game I'm

just going through various things I've written down in the finals Winchell he completed four of 24 passes

for 57 yards and an interception but like I said it was it

was wet at time I don't know if it rained the whole game but it was wet

um they said that uh in real life the Billingsley kid his dad that Tim McGraw

played uh he won a he did not win a State title that was just for the movie

David um mentioned that in a text to me but he did play in

thek okay well he is he was in one of the finals that they lost but he did not it was in the 70s they lost in the

finals so he didn't really win a ring but but uh his dad's reputation in the

that was implied in the movie was dead on they said that his his dad was the meanest kid that was in Odessa High

School like he fought everybody like he got in fights in football games he fought his teammates he fought other

kids at school he fought everybody like he had a bad bad temper and so you know

Tim McGraw probably played it downplayed it

honestly the book was a New York Times bestseller uh it still sells 5,000

copies a month right now 40 years later 35 years later g

wow and uh and uh the movie came out in ' 04 and the same people that made the

movie made the T TV Series in 2006 I know David has seen it it's set

in a fictional town called Dylan Texas and it ran for like four or five seasons it had a pretty good run and I just read

yesterday today that they're rebooting it and doing another peran foot or another Friday Night Lights TV series

it's coming they're doing another one Winchell the year before had 1,800 yards passing so they were expecting good

things that season

okay I'm just I'm just trivia I'm fact I'm doing facts um uh Comer's real stats that year

were pretty good I don't know he had to have over a thousand yards 1200 yards 1200 That season yeah yeah

so because the next year he he really went off yeah um he ended up with over I

forgot I know 3,000 yards or 4,000 yards Russian Kore yeah and so after they lost

in 88 in the finals um I mean in the semifinals they won it in 89 so peran

actually won three state titles in the 80s 80 84 89 so gains head coach gains

Billy Bob thoron after he woned in 89 left and he went to Texas Tech as an assistant coach

for the um Red Raiders M and he he went on and

recruited this chump of a linebacker named Zack Thomas to Texas

Tech ohuh so gains only stayed at peran for three years

nope so he goes to Texas Tech spin a while and 20 years after he left gains

came back to peran oh he returned to perum once again as

their head coach and athletic director but his first season back they went eight and4 and he retired from coaching

and went um well in in 2012 he went just to being

he went back to being just the athletic director and gave the coaching up so they didn't have the same kind of run with him the second

time I told y'all that coach gains died in uh 2022 so he's no longer with

us anything y'all got to throw in there just jump in I'm just going down my list

does it say how old he was when he died you that uh 1949 he about how old he he was born in 49 so he was born in

49 so 50s so he was in his late 30s early 40s during during this year about

l so yes Dallas Carter was stripped of the title and it was given to a school called Converse Judson that I don't know

who that is uh is that who they beat in the finals

yeah okay when booby was a junior he had

rushed for 1300 yards that's why they had so much uh hope in him as a

senior what what then comr rushed for 1300 yards in 88 yeah I think he was

yeah he had something like that himself yeah yeah what I'm getting at he was pretty

good back himself he was very good I think his deal was he fumbled also he was a fumbler early in his career and

that's why booby was out there instead of him TV series was from 06 to 2011 so

that's a pretty good run for TV okay so in the book there was an

English teacher talking about all of this because there was a whole thing about their grades and as you can imagine their grades were not great

among the football players there was an English teacher who said that the budget

for the athletic tape at peran was greater than the budget for the entire

English Department at the high school I don't doubt that that goes on

nowadays when Gaines got hired to come to peran in 86 or seven whatever it was

he was making $48,000 a year and that was absolutely scandalous that they were paying a coach

that much money because their average teacher was making 30 grand

you can hear the DJs in the movie mention that dur some of their great mention his think now there's coaches in

Arkansas make 120 Grand uh booby's injury ended up being

felt like nothing like that uh booby booby's injury for sure ended up being a torn

ACL uh comr had 1,200 yards in 88 I'm sitting here looking at

it okay uh Arkansas was recr recruiting booby we talked about that uh booby moved out of his uncle

lv's house the day he returned home from his ACL surgery they got in an argument and booby left and he did not catch the

bus to the game um like in the movie he was done when he when he walked out he

was done with them uh Roy Williams from the Cowboys and lions the receiver not the safety I think he went to Odessa

peran later on if it wasn't Odessa it was one of the schools they played against I I may have written it down

wrong but there was a note in there about that somewhere oh guys there was a scene in the movie where after the coin

toss either on the way to the coin toss or coming back from it the fans are calling in while Billy Bob uh coach

Gaines is driving and at some point one of the fans says I'll tell you what the problem is there's too much learning

going on in this school and not enough

football I laughed about that man that was good that was really good I'm trying to

think oh uh I didn't write it down here but I do remember uh so the the team

Mark we talked about how far they had to ride on the bus they chartered Jets to a lot of their

games yeah that that's I was just sitting here reading about that and they had a $70,000 budget for travel That

season yeah they they went to iume like a nonconference game somewhere up in

Northeast Texas Marsh they played Marshall Marshall that's it and they chartered a jet it was like $30,000 or

something for just that trip alone yeah yeah they spent 70 grand in

chartered flights for a high by the way that that remind that's 1988 1988 that's

200 Grand now right by the way uh I found it very interesting in the book and in the movie

they kind of show it but in the book they mentioned that they had only 55 players on the

roster now right what I wonder does that mean the varsity roster and they had

another 55 JV or sophomores or whatever because it was definitely pointed out

that you didn't play for peran until you were a stud as a junior and then you

might get to play as a senior but sophomores pretty much did not play so I don't know if that 50 whatever was a

traveling Varsity squad but that seems really low for a school with that many players or that many students early in

the Billy Bob is or coach gains is talking to him he says there's 1,200 Boys in this school and you're the 50

whatever that stuck it out and made it and blah blah blah and the book back that the book had that that those same

numbers in it so at the time was 5 a the biggest classification no I think six or

seven was wasn't it Mark six or seven was at the time still I mean Mark I'm I'm not sure I'm

thinking 58 might have been the bigest okay maybe it was cuz it's probably change back then now now they have a six

and a seven and and they also split them out into divisions within

those uh those classifications S1 and 72 for different

sizes yeah forgot what I was going to say um

anyway I like that movie I like it a lot I liked it when I first saw it I've liked it rewatching it two times this

week now I've i' still enjoyed it I think the football scen David's laughing because I've seen it twice in a

week uh I think the football scenes are very realistic for high school football as

opposed to some I could mention um that that pro pro sports and movies that look

horrible and I thought they did a really good job with the football part of it they must have had some coaches on standby to help them script all that

stuff speaking of movies that are bad Pro mov or athletic movies are bad we

there would be a whole lot more topics of that to talk about than there would be good movies true we should do a we

should do an episode on worst actor in a baseball movie worst actor in a football

movie like like athletic looking performance like zero ath ability yes

yes because I know I like these people are actors and only actors so that's why I found it was

interesting this was interesting the actors looked appropriate and the uh action looked appropriate and I I can't

say that about very very many football movies you're right the action did look

appropriate for sure I'm telling you man Lucas Black who played Winchell he looks I mean I you could buy him as a high

school quarterback easily he just he looks the part man yeah and you know I

saw a picture of of the real Winchell and Lucas Black did look kind of like him and the same way with uh comr the

guy who played him looks like the running back pretty close they did a good job

casting those two for sure yeah right for anybody interested you can go on YouTube and just type Odessa perian or

Friday Night Lights Odessa peran there's a lot of videos by the author I've been watching some of those and he's got

a man Buzz Binger is quite the character He he'll he will

drop word bombs in any setting it don't matter who's in the audience so you got to kind of understand that he's he's a

different kind of cat when you listen to him talk but there's highlights of the movie there's the coin toss actual

footage there's game films of them from the 80s grainy looking VHS out there so

you can go watch booby run the ball if you want to he was a big old upright I don't know how tall he was he looks like

he's six feet in the film he ran kind of upright and just trucked people man he

was big and fast and he wore those huge shoulder pads and he was just out there

yeah that's just Trucking dudes yeah that's what I'm just sitting here looking at a picture now

and the Big Wide 1980s pads um how did we play how how did we

ever play in those run in them neck rolls neck and the neck rolls but you know

there's also a book out there of all the pictures taken during the right during the research I got find that that the

photographer that was that was ding along there's I don't know I read it's

you know hundreds of pictures that they took and somewhere there's a book out there of those pictures I saw that

recently they did a uh 25th anniversary article and uh Sports Illustrated about

it and they sent a photographer to Odessa and they took pictures of Chavez

Ivory Christian the dend or linebacker whatever he played um

Winchell and somebody else they took pictures of them on the on the I mean as 40 something year old man it was that

was pretty cool but there's a lot of information still out there about and now I want to watch the TV series

there's a ton of good there's a ton of young actors in that that I've seen and other stuff and I'm gonna go back and watch the series

now the series is more has more comic relief in it than the movie you know

movie is pretty serious the the TV series has some you know

little comical have a couple characters in there that

are pretty funny by the way the wife is the same wife or it's the wife of the coach in the series and the movie and

the top booster guy is the same in both right same same actor yeah

right yeah same guy same basically same character and their team is the Panthers in the TV series and apparently the p on

their helmet looks a lot like the peran P it's just even though they're blue and yellow for team colors it looks like the

same P to me but you know I don't remember thisy this guy could have picked I think what he found out in

writing the book at least was that he could have picked just about any town in America and he would have had a very

similar experience as far as the football and the connection to the town and all that but the city itself is a

character in the book Odessa y'all know he goes into so much of the history and the boom and bust

days of Odessa and how it affected people and then there's a whole thing in there about they didn't really integrate

their schools until 1982 despite the federal government telling them to do that in the 60s or whatever they didn't

do it till 82 so there's a whole lot of stuff in the background of this uh story

and he just caught lightning in a bottle man he picked the exact right location to do this one in

and um uh he moved the writer moved there uh moved his family there in July

and was at the first first summer practice like two weeks later and followed them every step of after the

book after the book came out I don't think think he was thought very highly of no uhuh in

the town of odess after that well they thought he was coming in to do a a puff

piece a big tribute yeah tribute piece and you know painted in a great light

but he did not I I think it's the same way that These reality shows people get through and go wait a minute I didn't I

didn't say that and they're on camera saying it because they forgot that the camera's there all the time I think

that's what used to happen with these writers is that we studied these when I was in

school we studied they're called immersion projects is what we called them in school where you go live in a community and write about it I think

they just forgot the guy was there doing anything he just became part of the scene and some of the off-color said

stuff that they said and talking you know bad about some of the players and all that I think they just

forgot I mean he's just there I I think they kind of let their guard down eventually it's not like they started

out you're not going to use not going to use it are you yeah and you know the whole thing is before you publish

something like that you pretty much got to run it by everybody in there that you use and they've got to verify they said

those things or you don't run it so I guess they didn't care to some extent so yeah until it ched a bit of

bad and they yeah yeah right but you know I don't know if it did or didn't in

some ways I think there's plenty of towns that would be you know proud of some of that some of that stuff but there's obviously some bad stuff in

there that didn't make some people look very good at all but um he definitely captured a small Town's relationship

with their sports teams for sure you could probably write this same story in Indiana about

basketball and in Canada about hockey and right right you know whatever so

yeah yeah what else about it anything else you guys I've worn you out I know I

I knew it was going to be hour and 15 and that's pretty much what we did I just reading a little excerpt here

uh that I found I I found it interesting that you know uh Winchell and Chavez and

a couple other guys actually went on and played college football yeah but they lost interest after leaving peran

because they said it just wasn't the same I'm so glad you said that because I had a mental note to talk about that and

I just didn't do it you're right they said it was a let down to go play college ball most of them yeah nothing nothing duplicated

their peran experience in college no bond no bond No friendship you wasn't

famous you were just another kid trying to make a team uh there was even a

specific story I think it was booby booby played for a year at junior college but he lost all D1 offers he

goes to a junior college and the writer the writer went with him through that season or something or he showed up for

he showed up for homecoming at booby's college and there were 400 or 500 people in the whole

Stadium yeah went to Ranger college and boobies Ranger boobies used to walking out to 19,000 and you know like I said

on a slow night they probably played in front of 10 and and so I'm glad you said that

Mark because I forgot it but the fact that college uh Chavez went to Yale or Harvard or somewhere and played Harvard

what a lawyer and their crowds a lawyer foot it wasn't exciting to him not at

all you know he actually got he quit he quit the team and play rugby he went he

started playing rugby and Winchell went to Baylor and he was a walk on or something at Baylor and he was third or

fourth string and only lasted a year and even he said it just wasn't the same I mean all these guys were kind of bored

by the college experience IV Christian went on to play for TCU but he quit after his

fresman year yeah he's the only one who play D1 actually played d one I think I think that kind of proves that they were

undersized and not well thought of athletically and so forth cuz they really didn't have a ton of guys get

scholarships on a yearly basis they had a few but I think that tells you a lot about how they made their living on

toughness and so forth as a as a program you

know yeah can't can't can't coach speed so anyway I love it I love that

story I've probably read that book six or eight times over the years I'm glad I just went through it again cuz it that

that's just the kind of story that I love and and and it proves that that the truth and what really happens is

Stranger than any fiction you could ever or is better than any fiction you could

come up with because if you wrote that out that way for Hollywood they'd say oh

no they've got a win or whatever whatever you want to change about it there's no way that dude's dad was that mean to him all this kind of stuff but

here it is in black and white that it actually all happened that way so I I I find it kind of fascinating

I I think the movie took some liberties with the book just to make it more an interesting movie you understand that

yeah but I think it was Hollywood yeah I think it I think it was really close to

what actually Happ yeah I mean you got two hours to work with and you don't have time to delve into all the history

of everybody you got to show something that sort of quickly represents the point you're trying to get across so

right so yeah there's so much in the book about the Billings Le dad and the town and all that that but if you know

the racial tensions lot of racial tensions and not just black white racial stuff a lot of Hispanics in that town

too so there was yeah it was it was mainly mainly Hispanic like 5% African

americ so yeah it had a lot it had a it was a Melting Pot in some ways kind of

town and hey let's be let's be honest you know people who live in that part of the country they're tough people man

they make a hard living most of them if they're blue collar so it it it has its own kind of folks that grow up to play

ball there so to speak so anyway I love it and I've always liked it this didn't

change my mind any I thought they did a really good job focusing on what they should have for the movie so all right

so I'm going to kill the recording right about here thank you for joining us on

Gen X classic Sports where Nostalgia meets The Thrill of the game tune in next time for more insightful disc

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