Superb film profiling football in West Texas.

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2005)

A fine ensemble cast brings West Texas high school football to life in this film. Billy Bob Thornton is one of my favorite actors and he is Coach Gary Gaines at Odessa Permian, where all the locals, many of them members of one of the 4 former state champion football teams, expect him to bring home another class 5A state championship in 1988.
The fine young actor Lucas Black is Mike Winchell, the quarterback. Derek Luke, who was so good as Antwone Fisher, is Boobie Miles, the gifted runner who is destined for a great college and pro football career, until he is injured. Tim McGraw is the demanding father, Charles Billingsley, who rides his son who has trouble holding onto the football.
SPOILERS follow. The film follows the 1988 season, where the team ended up in a 3-team tie for the district championship, and one team was eliminated by a coin toss. As Permian was one that went forward, we See that they won each game that led to the state championship game in the Houston Astrodome. That may have been a fictitious location, as one of the extras on the DVD appears to show the final game being marred by rain. Anyway, Permian lost to a larger Dallas team, but won the state championship the next year.
The film shows how these young boys had to grow up young, to handle the demands placed upon them to win. It deals with the relationships they developed. A fine 22-minute DVD extra shows many of the real members of that 1988 team, and what they have done with their lives. One went on to Harvard and is a successful lawyer. The interview with Boobie Miles is touching, as his knee injury cut his career short, and he really wasn't prepared for anything but football. he makes a point that young boys really need to get an education, have a "plan B' in case "plan A" doesn't quite work out.