Sports are a great way to bring a community together. However, sports have more to offer than just being a fun activity and a way to hang with friends. Lewis Lapham is correct in his assertion that sports represents more than trivial games between winners and losers; sports are deceptive and offer the illusion of hope, innocence, as well as lightness triumphing over darkness. H.G. Bissinger shows how these illusions affect a town’s reality in his book Friday Night Lights.
Through the illusion of hope, Bissinger writes that the Permian football players wanted to achieve the goal of winning the state championship and ultimately playing in the National Football League (NFL). In fact, the state championship was as big of an event as “Neil Armstrong
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Bissinger presents this illusion throughout his novel. All seems good in Odessa as the team prepares to face the Carter Cowboys in the quarterfinals of the playoffs. The sense of lightness-that Permian will beat the Cowboys and advance to the semifinals-is without a doubt something that the citizens of Odessa think will happen. However, when the facts are laid out, it is clear that Permian was never going to win. But it is the overwhelming arrogancy that the players and fans have regarding their own talent that is Permian’s downfall. The darkness that is exhibited is the cold, hard truth that Carter’s players were bigger and better than Permian. The Carter team has at least “ten players were sure to be recruited by major colleges” as well as others on the team attending big name football colleges on full ride scholarships (Bissinger 290). Permian barely has one. With this in mind, the town of Odessa does not seem to care and lets the “lightness” overcome reality.
Overall, sports such as football represent more than just a competition, they create various deceptions that mask the true intentions of the sport. Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger does an excellent job in portraying the claims of Lewis Lapham through many anecdotal