Page 2
AUSTIN, Texas -- When you get out into the vast space between the major cities of Texas, the sense of sun-charred nothingness overwhelms you. In its visceral desolation and sprawling abandonment, this is a place like nowhere else. Recently, I made my first trip to the Lone Star State. In an effort to tap the mojo of high school football in the sport's most holy land, I spent five days deep in the heart of Texas.
I made the voyage to attend a taping of NBC's new series "Friday Night Lights" and check out the show's set in Austin, but I made sure to leave myself enough time to also catch some real Texas high school football and log a couple hundred miles on my rental car to grasp the lay of the land.
It was a lot to get my mind around, frankly -- the heat, the space, the horizon, the enormity of it all. I recognized the unrefined landscape from the movie "Friday Night Lights," based on Buzz Bissinger's 1990 book of the same name. Looking out the windows, I observed the desolate, sprawling vista, and it was not unlike the raw, hand-held camera shots in the film.
Over this land in western Texas blows an opaque melancholy, but pillars of hopeful optimism rise with conviction from the dust, pulling wandering eyes up and away from the monotonous prairie. High school football stadiums stand like monuments, a testament to the celebration of the sport. Out here, burdensome labor may find fruition only as often as oil sputters from exhausted derricks, but once a week towering lights illuminate the landscape four quarters at a time.
On a Thursday evening, I was returning to the city after a drive out west when I spotted my first set of lights shining tall above House Park in Austin. I pulled into a packed lot and walked into LBJ's blowout of Johnston High. I watched from behind an end zone and chatted with the police officer who had let me in.
"You know, tomorrow night's the big one," she said. "Westlake and Austin High, right here. This is nothing."
I stood staring at the animated crowd and the enormous band that took up an entire section of the stadium. My arms flailed as I swatted gracelessly at black bugs that seemed to be breeding in the lights and then falling from the sky. I turned to the officer who stood, hands on hips, still and unaffected by the commotion.
"Where you from?" she asked.
"Los Angeles."
|
|
|---|
|
"Friday Night Lights" airs Tuesdays on NBC at 8 p.m. ET. Here is the cast of main characters: • New coach Eric Taylor (played by Kyle Chandler) |
"No crickets in Los Angeles or no football?"
It's not that I am completely unfamiliar with big-time high school football. I went to Cheshire High in Connecticut at a time when my Rams were the biggest thing going. We won six straight state championships and were ranked in the nation's top 25. At a game when Cheshire won its state-record 49th game in a row, I stood among the other 13,000 fans in attendance and cheered for my classmates who would assemble a 46-4 record in their four years at CHS. We sent players to Notre Dame, Virginia, Syracuse and Yale. Our star quarterback could have gone to a Division I program but he chose academics over football glory and made his mark with a solid career at Colgate University.
When I got this assignment to study football in Texas, I sent an e-mail to Todd -- an old friend of mine from high school who played football and now works in insurance in New York City. I wanted to get a sense of what high school fame meant to him today, if anything. He responded:
- "I played baseball and football in college and neither compared. At CHS, we could do no wrong, we were celebrities. We had news crews following us down the halls to class. The amount of attention we got from the press, the teachers, the town and the other kids in school was far too much for a 16-year-old to handle, and thus went straight to our heads.
"Believe it or not, most of my good friends from the team are very successful businessmen at this point, still, when we get together, Cheshire football is brought up every time. I am fortunate enough that I will never have to consider all that the highlight of my life, but it was something special and something I will never forget. … That is a huge difference between Northeast kids and kids from other parts of the country. I played summer baseball in the NECBL [New England College Baseball League] and the kids from Texas, California, Oklahoma and Alabama didn't really care where they went to college; they couldn't believe I chose to go to Williams because of the education when I could have played somewhere bigger. It was all about the sport for them and that's what I imagine it's like for those kids playing football in Texas."
I guess that's what makes for the difference between football as a part of life and football as a way of life. In areas of prosperity, kids know they have the chance to be more than football players and, more accurately, are expected to be. If you are fortunate enough to grow up in a place like I did, the potency of high school football is diluted by baseball … and lacrosse … and semesters abroad … and summer camps … and music concerts … and student government …
The milieu of western Texas does not always provide such privileged distractions.
There is no doubt that in several pockets of this country, football programs are sturdily woven into towns' tapestries. As a result, high school football players enjoy a bouquet of exclusive advantages -- maybe they come to school late on game day or walk right into crowded restaurants or get a free pass from a town cop when they roll through a stop sign. But something feels different about western Texas. These kids aren't just playing for free dinner rolls or clemency from speeding tickets. The stakes are higher and the spoils are richer. They are the main event. Teenagers playing football. I wonder what accounts for their extreme status here and I think back to my conversation with the cop at that game in Austin.
"Westlake is the team here in Austin. … The thing is, my roommate is from west Texas so we go visit and spend some time out there. It's like, I don't really want to go see a high school football game, but there's s--- else to do.
"That's the difference. Everybody goes to those games. The towns literally shut down; it's the truth. If you want to do anything else you'll have to get out of town and you'll need gas to do that, but you better fill up before the game or else you won't find an open station. … We joke about how you bump into everyone at those games. It could get kind of messy, you know, say you get a divorce or something, and you're trying to avoid your ex. You might be able to go weeks without bumping into them around town but chances are you're going to see them at the game Friday night. You can probably make a whole TV show just about what happens with people in the stands and around the game."
And that's almost exactly the idea behind "Friday Night Lights," the television series.
Unlike the book and movie, which tell the real-life story of the 1988 Odessa Permian High School football season, the television series is based in the fictional western Texas town of Dillon. The series is almost as much about life and love in rural Dillon as it is about football on Fridays. The show is the brainchild of writer/director Peter Berg, who was at the helm of the movie "Friday Night Lights" and also happens to be the cousin of Bissinger, the book's Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
Berg has retained the movie's unrefined, documentary-style camera work for his small-screen project and brought back the Midland, Texas, band Explosions In The Sky for the poignant sound track.
Although the television show is not retelling the story of Odessa Permian's historic season, viewers will recognize some striking similarities to the film, including a major injury to blue-chip quarterback Jason Street (played by Scott Porter), the timorous backup QB Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), the flashy African-American running back Brian "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles) and the reckless party boy Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch).
Viewers will also recognize the typical scenes like gatherings at the burger joint, booster club dinners and the haunting bull-in-the-ring practice drill that coach Eric Taylor (played by Kyle Chandler of "Early Edition" and "Grey's Anatomy") employs on his hungover offenders. The unique bonus of a television series format is that more time for character development allows for a focus on several lovely ladies, including the quarterback's girlfriend/cheerleader Lyla Garrity (played by Minka Kelly), the sexy vixen Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki), the coach's supportive wife Tami (played by Connie Britton, who was also Billy Bob Thorton's wife in the movie) and their sassy teenage daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden).
While in Texas, I had the opportunity to spend some time with the cast on location at their "home field" of old Del Valle Stadium in Travis County. The planes coming in and out of nearby Austin-Bergstrom International Airport are actually rerouted during filming so as to not disturb the shoot -- just another example of the world revolving around football. It's pretty intense, especially if you're an outsider, which describes most of the cast. On a Friday night in September, under the bright stadium lights, we had the following conversations about high school, football and what it takes to harness the mojo of Texas.
The Star Quarterback: Jason Street (Scott Porter)
The word on the street is that you were a stud wideout in high school. Can you confirm?
"Ahh, this is true. I started all four years at Lake Howell High in Winter Park, Fla. We went to the state semifinals two years in a row and three future NFL players played while I was there: Trevor Pryce, Kawika Mitchell and former Giant Tam Hopkins all played at my school. My senior year, we were in a three-way tie in the district to go to the playoffs and I caught the game-winning touchdown on fourth-and-9 to go to the playoffs. That was my real-life hero moment. (laughs)"
Did you ever think about playing football in college?
"I had some offers to play D-I but I think I knew that ultimately I wasn't destined to go on in football. I had a great finish to my playing days with that catch. Not everybody gets lucky enough to have that special moment end their career; it makes it easier to walk away. And now, it's been great filming this show because I get to play football again. We [actors] run every play you see right up to the tackles … we don't take the hits. I try to! But they make us wear those bright red jerseys so nobody nails us. I practiced with the team of extras for two weeks and I had a quarterback coach to help me get the mechanics down and ''look'' like a real star QB. By the end of that training, I could hit my targets. Every pass you saw completed in the pilot, I was hitting those guys!"
Before taking this role, what were your preconceptions about football in Texas?
"I didn't think that what they did in Texas was going to be much bigger than what we had in Florida, I mean, Florida is a hotbed, too. There is serious high school football all over the country, but here in Texas -- it's really like the "Hoosiers" of football. It's insane. I couldn't quite believe it before I saw it. I think the perks and notoriety the players receive here is one of the biggest differences between Texas and everywhere else. Sure, in Florida we got handshakes and free meals, but there is a whole different level of celebrity for guys on big, winning programs in Texas. Here, it seems like they can pretty much have whatever they want -- girls, money, food, cars. Anything they want. The stakes are higher. A high school program is practically treated like a professional team. A town that has 13,000 people in it has a $1.8-million turf on their high school field, not to mention the press box and locker room and everything else. Some of these stadiums hold about 20,000 people. It's like, where are the other thousands of people coming from? You don't even have that many in this town! It's unbelievable.
"A friend of mine was just telling me a story about a high school up in Dallas, Southlake. He just moved there and somebody asked him casually if he had his tickets yet. My friend was like, "Not yet, my boy's only in Pop Warner now, but when he's gets up there I'll go to the games." The guy told him that parents don't get tickets automatically. Can you believe that? His kid is in fifth grade and he's got to sign up for tickets to his high school games now. It's ridiculous! A waiting list for high school tickets -- it's like the Packers! It's high school and it's got a waiting list longer than Lambeau Field!
"That only happens in Texas."
The Vixen: Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki)
What was the football program like at your high school?
"I grew up in Ohio, so football was big at my school. The weirdest thing is that I went to Whitmer High in Toledo, we were the Panthers, and we had the exact same uniforms and the exact same cheerleading outfits that they wear in the show. It's so weird."
Were you a cheerleader in high school?
"I wasn't, no. I was a basketball player and I ran track."
In the show you're not a cheerleader or an athlete, but a groupie. What's it like portraying that type of girl?
"Umm, well … you know it's not far off (laughs). This role hits close to home for me. I'm not quite as bad as [my character] Tyra, but I did date a jock in high school … a couple of them, actually."
I caught a sneak peek of an episode where you're making out with a jock and his mom walks in on you. It makes me cringe just watching. Has that ever happened to you?
"You know, believe it or not, it's never happened to me, thank God!! Just acting it was so awkward, I can't even imagine. But I love how my character reacts in that scene. That attitude is one of my favorite things about being Tyra."
She's a badass.
"She's a complete badass. I love it."
Did you have any preconceptions about football in Texas before you took this role?
"Coming from Ohio, I know how big football can be, but I didn't quite realize how crazy it is here. This is life for these people. I love that, and actually I think that's what makes for such a cool show, the fact that people's lives are so affected by the team. That's what allows us to do a show that centers around football but is not held to what happens during the game. They live it in these towns. I really like being able to bring that out in a show for people outside of Texas to see."
The Backup QB: Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford)
What was your real-life high school football experience like?
"I'm from Chicago. We couldn't have games on Friday nights because they thought it would get a little too rowdy. Not because we were really invested in the sport of football, but because, well, my town had its bad side so they only held games on Saturday mornings and it was kind of like, if you got up, you might go. I played football for a year, mostly because all of my best friends were on the team, but then I had enough and just played volleyball. (laughs)"
Jesse (Plemons, who plays Landry Clarke) told me you get the Most Improved Cast Member Award.
"I've come a long way learning the mechanics and techniques. The cool thing is that since my character is the backup, he wasn't really supposed to be all that great -- lucky for me! So it's cool because I personally am getting better just from playing and shooting every day and that coincides with my character getting better as he get more playing time. It all worked out. I didn't look like a quarterback or even a football player when I started."
Did you have to go through some kind of intense two-a-day tryout to get the role?
"No! They asked me when I auditioned for the role if I had ever played football before. I said yeah. That was the end of it. There was no football tryout; it's a good thing because I'm not sure I would have made it."
|
|
|---|
|
• Texas High School Football Rankings • National High School Football Rankings • More high school coverage from MaxPreps.com |
Had you seen the movie or read the book for some prep?
"I saw the movie the weekend it came out and I was blown away. Pete Berg is just amazing; he's just figured it out, he doesn't do some cheesy rendition of high school football. Everything about the movie was sort of raw and that style carries through to this series and I love it. That movie prompted me to read the book and I thought it was great, too. I learned a lot but this project was still in a lot of ways my first introduction to Texas football. If I hadn't had 'Friday Night Lights' [the book and film] as an introduction I would probably be completely blown away right now. I went to college at Northwestern and some of these high school stadiums are bigger than our field! It's very cool to be here and see it … and if you never see it you'd probably never believe it. It's incredible."
When locals find out that you are the TV face of Texas football, what's their reaction?
"Mostly the reaction from people down here has been so positive. Every now and then, you'll have a guy come up to you and say, "You kno-oww, my wi-iife's from Odessa and I've seen treeees in some of y'all previewwws. There are no trees in Ohh-desssa like that." (laughs) And I'm like, OK, well, the show doesn't take place in Odessa, we've got our own thing now, a new town, a new team. Some people have said to me, "You're not from Texas, you don't understand. It's life. This is it in some places." And honestly, I get it. I get that you've got 16-year-olds with the pressure of the whole town on their shoulders. If they lose a game they might get a brick thrown through their windshield and, in the meantime, they still have to do their algebra homework. I get the pressure that is on these kids and I think we do a pretty good job depicting what goes on."
How is it turning a Chicago accent into a Texas drawl?
"It's not easy! The good thing is that since we live in a made-up town, we don't have anything to really compare to. I have just tried to listen to people here in Austin, we've all had to get apartments here while we're filming so I just try to take it all in. It's funny, in this area, it's almost like no two Texas accents are the same, and considering the cast is from all over the place and we all do it a little differently, that's a really good thing."
The Cheerleader: Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly)
Were your high school football games like this?
"Nooo. I went to high school in Albuquerque. I moved around and changed schools a lot so I never got into the sports or football spirit in high school. Doing this show has been great; I get another chance at high school. Everything I missed out on I'm getting to do now! I actually had no idea that high school was like this in Texas. Actually, I had no idea that anyone took sports this serious, anywhere. I was very sheltered from this stuff growing up in New Mexico, I guess."
What's it like playing a cheerleader?
"At first I was kind of like, ehhh, I don't know about this, you know? I'm not a cheerleader. But now I'm just sort of going with it and I'm learning the routines and I'm having fun. I've accepted it and now I'm into it."
Are you a sports fan?
Uhhhh, no. Not at all. (laughs) This is so new for me! It's been so much fun learning about football and teams and the lingo. I think the fact that I like the show says a lot about it. It has something even for all the ladies who can't really connect with sports stuff. … Of course, being around these boys all night and day in their tight pants and their little butts -- it's just awful. (smiles) Ha ha. It's been great! It's not hard to stand around a football field for hours with these guys.
The Coach's Daughter: Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden)
You're from the O.C.! What's high school football like in Orange County?
It's practically nonexistent. It's there but there is just so much going on. I played baseball with the boys, and soccer, now I'm into surfing and snowboarding -- there's too much to do [in Southern California]. But here, football is the one and only. If you're a boy, you've got to play football, and if you're a girl, you have to be a cheerleader. If you're not, you better make band or else you're pretty much a complete failure. (laughs) I went to a high school football game here just to see what it was like and the stands were packed and everybody was all painted up. They have merchandise -- you can buy merchandise there at the game -- for high school football! It's a huge production. And these giant mums? What is this thing? Are you kidding me? They really do this! This thing is ridiculous."
A real-life Texas newscaster, Krystle Kaliszewski, overhears us laughing at the mum, approaches us and says, "Excuse me, you girls didn't have mums?" We both shake our heads. "What are they called? Mums, like M-U-M, right?"
Kaliszewski is from Houston, and she is disturbed: "Oh my gosh, you didn't have these? You get them from your date on the morning of the big dance. He brings it to school and puts it on you -- but you don't give him his corsage till the dance -- but you wear your mum all day at school so if a girl doesn't have a mum, it means she's kind of, not cool. You get a different one each year -- they get bigger and longer. What you have on right now, that's a freshman mum because it's short and there's only one main piece to it. Sophomore year there are two, junior year should be three in a triangle and senior year it's four in a square."
This happens all over Texas?
Kaliszewski: "Oh yeah! Everybody does this, this is a big deal. I can't believe you girls have never seen this! It starts in about the sixth grade. I still have mine."
Whoa! What?
Kaliszewski: "Oh yeah, girls save them. Mine are all in my old bedroom at home, I have probably seven of them saved. My senior year, I can picture it, it was so pretty! It had a teddy bear and twinkling lights …"
Who makes these things, your boyfriend?
Kaliszewski: "No, moms make them. They'll say your name and your date's name and your year. If you go to Michaels right now they have all the stuff to make them. This is so funny to me, I can't believe you girls don't know this!"
Aimee and I are floored. I take a picture of Aimee and Krystle … and the mum.
The Wingman: Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons)
You're from Texas, right?
"Yep. Just outside of Waco, a town called Mart. Like Wal-Mart."
So you know all about these mums?
"Oh, of course! We bring the ladies mums and the guys get garters. Moms get ridiculous with those things, you have no idea. I've seen huge ones that go all the way down to girls' shins. By the end of the day, girls have the worst freaking rash from it rubbing on them. (laughing) I'm serious, you get the old mum rash going on!"
The Coach's Wife: Tami Taylor (Connie Britton)
You were in the movie "Friday Night Lights." When you got the invite to do the TV show, was there any hesitation? Any sense of "Eh, not again?"
"Yeah, definitely. At first I thought I don't want to play some thankless wife character in another football show. My character actually got cut quite a bit in the film, to the point that Pete [Berg] joked about it all the time. He felt so bad, he said he owed me one. So when I talked to him about this role, he promised this character was going to be different. He said she was strong and complicated and sexy and he so talked me into it. He literally gave me his word that this wasn't just about football and it was about this coach's family and their function in the town -- and it is. He really pulled through. I'm the same coach's wife character but this whole experience feels totally different to me. It's fun to discover it as something new with all these guys but also be able to feel the evolution coming from the movie and, of course, the book. "
You just had to go back for a second helping of Texas football!
"You know, it's really great to be a part of something in a world where that thing you're a part of is what people care about most. That is what it feels like to work on a football show in Texas."
Mary Buckheit is a Page 2 columnist and can be reached at MaryBuckheit@hotmail.com.
