H. G. Bissinger

H. G. Bissinger is the author and narrator of “Friday Night Lights.” Bissinger, a journalist with a wife and children, finds the hold that sports have on America to be fascinating. He is especially astonished by football's power to hold a small community together. His fascination leads him to quit his job and move with his family to Odessa, Texas, where he has heard the football games turn out massive audiences. Bissinger spends 1988 following the lives and fortunes of the Permian Panthers and observing the town of Odessa itself. The result is the book “Friday Night Lights,” which is published in 1990. The book shows the good and the bad. Bissinger is not welcome in town for some years after the book is published, but the citizens of Odessa eventually forgive him for his brutal honesty. More than a decade later, Bissinger revisits the area when...