SUBMITTED BY Timbo

March 30, 2004 — The New York Times takes a look at how the filming of "Friday Night Lights" is helping to expunge some of the negativity that grew up around the publication of the best-selling book on a town's obsession with football.

[The book] not only examined a high school season of football but also dug much deeper into sociological issues, describing race relations after federal court-ordered desegregation in 1982; Odessa's boom-and-bust oil economy; weak academic standards; and a university official's statement that girls were "dumbed down," or taught not to pursue high goals.

Jo Ann Davenport, a City Council member from 1990 to 1998, said she never read the book. "I don't have time for negativism," Ms. Davenport said.

"Friday Night Lights" was released in fall 1990, and then the Panthers, the state champions a year earlier, were disqualified from the district playoffs for exceeding permitted workout hours.

"Everyone blamed the book," Mr. Bissinger, now a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, said by telephone from his home in Philadelphia.

Trapper O'Connell, the longtime athletic trainer at Permian High, said, "I don't think the book was to blame, I just think it was the notoriety."

Mr. O'Connell said, "Mr. Bissinger got his information right, but the book "didn't mention enough of the positive things." The movie, coming 14 years after the book, will be a "positive spin" for the community, he added.

The film's director, Peter Berg, has promised a "softer, gentler" portrayal of Odessa, focusing on football rather than sociology.

Dale Jenkins, who owns the Proteus beauty salon in town, said he agreed with the book's portrayal of the people: "It's not a pretty thing sometimes to look in the mirror."

But Mr. Jenkins added that Odessa had grown "a little bit more sophisticated, a more equal place."

Read the whole thing.