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1. Title Case.
The question I keep starting with is, "What does it mean?" but that's not enough, really, because if the names Boobie Miles or Tim Riggins mean anything to you, you've probably made up your mind about what it means, and truthfully, I'm not going to be able to change it. I don't know enough about Texas to do it, and you don't know enough about me to believe me even if I did.
And besides, this is not a story about the sanctity of youth.
Then I'll come around with a second question - "What should it mean?" - but even I'm not green enough to think I can win that argument.
And besides, this is not a story about the demise of amateur athletics.
No, this is a story about myths - myths that grow from legends, myths that become self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating, myths that allow us to believe whatever it is we really want to believe as long as we want to believe it enough.
Which is why when it comes to high school football - or, rather, Texas high school football, an institution unto its own - I keep coming back to this third thought: Texas high school football has become something us non-Texans accept as gospel. We talk about it on Friday nights as we sit and watch our own high schools play games of consequence, some more so than others. And I doubt I'm the only one who's thought about what it must be like out there in Texas, where even the filaments that lit up the stadiums had become worthy of title case.
And then this non-Texan started wondering if I was asking the wrong questions. If this is what we knew - the lights, the traditions, the spark that comes just from putting the words "Texas" and "high school football" in the same breath - was there any way it could actually all mean more?
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2. Odessa Permian.
Sam picks up on the fourth ring. "You won't believe where I am right now," I tell him.? I barely believed it a week earlier, when I'd seen the schedule for the weekend's games, and I barely believe it now. I'm standing on the field in the end zone at the Alamodome. It's the second game of a Texas Football Classic tripleheader. I hold the beat too long.
"The Odessa Permian game."
Sam cusses. There's no use hiding it behind some polysyllabic coating when a single one will do. And even in a word, even in the pauses between breaths, I can hear him becoming jealous, the same way I can tell over the phone when I've just woken him up from a nap. I can hear him pull the phone away from his face. I can hear him mutter to a friend, "My brother's at the Odessa Permian game." I can hear his friend spurt out the same syllable. I can hear the jealousy there, too.
Sam is 16 years old. He lives in Bethesda, Md., a town just inside the Washington, D.C., beltway. He has never played a down of varsity high school football. He has never been to Texas. He couldn't find west Texas on a map, though that's not saying much; sometimes the kid gets lost coming out of our parents' driveway. He doesn't know who plays for Odessa this year. But he knows exactly who the Panthers are.
That's just the problem.
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3. Purpose.
There's this argument that's been keeping me up at night lately, and I think it's the same one that Texas high school football got lost in some years ago. The argument is about purpose versus meaning.
Purpose, I keep arguing, should be about demanding certain things from ourselves, about giving ourselves reasons to live a certain way, about setting goals. People with purpose tend to seek out others with purpose; they tend to stand out because they know exactly what it is they want out of life, and they are selfish in the pursuit of that purpose, no matter how selfish or selfless their goals may be. And yes, purpose can almost certainly come as the search for meaning, which is why we've got telescopes pointed to all points in the galaxy and why psychologists have poured thousands of hours of research into the cognitive ramifications of "Blues Clues."
Then there's meaning, and that's where the argument bogs down. See, the way I argue it - and please, allow me to indulge in a brief tangent, for argument's sake - life can have meaning without purpose. Paris Hilton is proof.
Hilton is not particularly attractive. She has not proven herself insightful in the public sphere. She has not been overly charitable or generous. She has, if anything, been self-serving, banal and moderately repulsive. Of the human qualities that men tend to gravitate toward, Hilton has none.
And yet, she has money. And fame. And in our society, that tends to pass as a desirable human quality.
So it is that Hilton does have purpose, not necessarily in her own life, but in ours: she is a symbol. She could be the hood ornament on a Mercedes or the sign in the Hollywood Hills; she just happens to be a hollow symbol of our eternal wanderlust for fame and notoriety and wealth, wealth at any cost, even if we're only using wealth as a stand in for meaning.
And if someone as empty as Paris Hilton can have meaning, it's not hard to believe that something as unmistakably widespread as Texas high school football could become almost mythical.
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4. Jo Jo Walker.
Unless you were paid to cover him or paid to watch him - my father falling into the latter category - you almost certainly do not remember who Scott Milanovich is. You shouldn't, even though Milanovich holds an NCAA record for career completion percentage and is the all-time passing leader at the University of Maryland, a school that produced NFL quarterbacks like Boomer Esiason and Frank Reich.
In the mid-1990s, the Maryland Terrapins were not very good at football. Milanovich was the focal point of an offense that threw the ball a lot, but with minimal success - assuming you consider victories to be a measure of success. The most exciting feature of the Milanovich-led offense was that he was also the team's punter, which meant that fans never knew when the Terps might try some razzle-dazzle move. The third down pooch punt was a particular favorite of those Milanovich teams. Some games, watching the Terps elect to not use their full complement of downs was the most exciting thing that would happen all day.
But early this decade, Maryland did something remarkable: they starting playing well and winning bowl games. Then they did something unthinkable: they signed the best high school football player in the state.
His name was Chris Kelley, and he played for a school north of where I lived called Seneca Valley. Kelley was, unquestionably, the best high school football player I'd ever seen. His team wore these green jerseys, almost like the ones quarterbacks wear in practice when their coaches have granted them the status of They Who Shall Not Be Tackled. But Kelley didn't really need that jersey for practice, or even for games; he was untouchable.
One game, in the state playoffs, I saw Kelley score a touchdown in no fewer than four ways: he passed, ran, returned a kickoff and returned an interception. He may have caught a touchdown pass, too; I don't really remember.
What I do know is that it was uncommon for Kelley to score in less than three different ways during a game, which was why he was the no. 1 football player in the entire state of Maryland.
Kelley eventually narrowed his list to two schools: he could go to Nebraska, where he might become the next Tommie Frazier, a Cornhusker legend; or he could go to Maryland, where he could be asked to punt occasionally on third down. He chose Maryland.
The next day, the lead story in The Washington Post's sports section was about Kelley's signing, and for a day or two, high school football mattered in Maryland. They talked about it on the radio; people mentioned it at the lunch tables.
And then it went away, the way high school football talk always does in Maryland.
A few years later, a much less heralded recruit signed with Maryland. His name was Jo Jo Walker, and I remember excitedly thumbing through the depth chart and showing my dad the stats. Walker stood about 5'9'', and he could run 40 yards in the 4.4 seconds that great wide receivers needed to break away from cornerbacks. Dad and I agreed that Jo Jo Walker was about to become one of the greatest wide receivers in Maryland football history, because Jo Jo Walker had one thing that all those other wide receivers before him didn't:
Jo Jo Walker had played his high school football in Carrollton, Texas.
For us non-Texans, playing high school football in Texas is like graduating magna cum laude from Yale: you don't need to know much to know that it means something.
Jo Jo Walker was the first Maryland recruit to come from Texas in more than a decade. Dad and I had no doubts: Jo Jo Walker was going to be a star.
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5. The Once and Future Coach.
The tunnel inside the Alamodome is a bit like a concrete megaphone. Directed the right way, a phrase spoken at field level - an "'atta boy" from a coach, or a "go get 'em" - bursts through the tunnel and straight out of the building, and as the 'atta boys go speeding past me, I feel myself reaching to secure any loose items that might be blown away in the next sonic burst.
Inside the giant concrete megaphone is where I first hear the chant, a little bit of west Texas verbal symmetry echoing past. I hadn't known what to expect, but now part of me thinks I'm going to step out of that megaphone and onto field level, and out there, some 30,000 Odessa fans will be on their feet, primers in hand, as some cheerleader instructs: "Now, we will repeat as once was:
"Mo! Jo! Mo! Jo!"
I get to the end of the tunnel and look left and up. There are only five or six thousand Permian fans in the stands. They're wearing black, mostly, but also blue and burnt orange. Some are on their feet, still chanting those letters two by two as they always have. I feel my lips curve.
"Mo! Jo! Mo! Jo!" the Panther fans call out.
"Oh," I feel myself say, barely managing the vowel.
I keep walking, past the cheerleaders, past the M-O-J-O signs resting against the benches, and almost past the girl wearing the black shirt that reads, "We're Kind of a Big Deal. People Know Us." The slogan feels odd: she's part of the first generation of Panthers who weren't even alive when "Friday Night Lights" was published. She was born into something - a world where a cornfield in Iowa can somehow be forgiveness; where an undersized defensive lineman hoisted high above South Bend can be perseverance; where a football field out beyond the oil rigs in west Texas can be all that once was - and it feels strange to be boasting about one's inheritance, especially on a t-shirt.
These kids are simply bit players in a cyclical drama, it seems, a drama that's finally traced back to its beginnings now that Gary Gaines - leader of the Odessa Permian Panthers from 1986 to 1989 - has returned. The Once and Future Coach is back for his first Panther game in 20 years, and if there's a reason why Panther fans are at the Alamodome today, it's to see if there's still life in what once was.
At the center of everything - of this legend that the game is simpler in Odessa, that it is purer, that it is free of excess and ills - there is Gaines. There is a way back to once was; there is hope that the cycle has come round again.
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6. Silk Street.
I found it by accident. I was wandering the alleys, a block from the Silk Market in downtown Beijing, trying to find a building that I just couldn't will into existence. July 2008 was quickly rolling into August, and my Mandarin Chinese wasn't getting any better. I was lost, and the alleys weren't marked, and I was on a street I'd never seen before, and then -- it was just there.
Tim's Texas Bar-B-Q sat on a corner of a street that translates as Silk Street No. 2 (though it's worth noting that I never did find Silk Street No. 1). The owner's name was Tim Hilbert, a Texan from a small town I'd never heard of called Seguin. We talked barbecue that day. He told me about how tough it was to get two giant smokers through Chinese customs. He told me about his months-long search for a good Chinese meat supplier. (The complication, he said, was that there is no Chinese word for "brisket," so he had to show them exactly what he wanted his cut to look like.)
He introduced me to his staff, and I took a few photos. The one above is of a server at Tim's. He's a Beijinger named John - his English-appointed name - and each day at work, he wears a shirt made to look like the Texas state flag. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone; a doubly oversized belt buckle hangs from his jeans. Behind him in the photo, there's a giant Texas A&M flag on the wall.
John greeted me with a "Howdy." He wasn't familiar with the rules of football, but I couldn't blame him for that: he'd never been out of Beijing. Even so, he could ID the UT helmet on the wall. He was vaguely familiar with the words "Vince Young," and less so with "Kliff Kingsbury." I tossed him a "Hook 'em Horns," and he laughed and said that he gets that all the time.
Patrons shuffled in and out of the restaurant. Some ordered the ribs; some ordered baozi, a one-of-a-kind barbecue dumpling with chopped beef inside. Customers sat under framed photos of Tom Landry and helmets with the A&M logo, chatting in Mandarin and eating their barbecued dumplings. Even an ocean away, customers who had never seen a football game or been to Texas or spoken English sat, surrounded by football memorabilia and Lone Star knick-knacks, and thought, 'This is what Texas is really like.'
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7. A Great Light.
Margarito Vasquez just plods out of the bathroom and into the locker room. He's just finished vomiting - at least, based on everything I've ever read or seen about the Permian Panthers, that's what I assume that he'd be doing minutes before game time. He walks into the locker room, and seconds later, he's walking out of it, followed by his teammates. They gather underneath the tunnel. They are wearing white jerseys, not their legendary all-black uniforms. I recognize the helmets instantly; the "P" looks exactly like it's supposed to.
They stand in line, and players call out to fill in rows with too few football players. They stand shoulder to shoulder. They are a perfect unit, a cliche in cleats.
A few take deep breaths and close their eyes, but then I start looking around, and the legend doesn't seem to hold up. Some look absolutely terrified. One player is looking up behind him at all the seats, craning his neck until it looks like his football helmet might just pop off.
It's not fair, really, that these kids are forced to carry the Permian traditions, the records, the knowledge that anything less than State just isn't going to be good enough. They're not football players; they're bearers of a great and eternal torch, the keepers of a light flicked on some 20 years ago in the desert and shone all across the land. They are legend - they're part of it; they've become it - but most of them are barely old enough to drive.
Some fans raise a giant MOJO banner on the field, and the players jog out in formation. This is their moment, but that's really the only measure of time at Permian: moments. Some are as slow as the clacking of cleats outside the locker room tunnel; some are just a whoosh. But they're just moments, and when high school football becomes not just a way of life but a life unto its own, they are the moments that make up an entire existence. These are moments that will later be deconstructed, and be inserted as placeholders for purpose.
The Permian Panthers let out a yell and burst through the banner, just like Permian Panthers teams always do, just like they did when everything once was.
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8. Seen and Read.
I went to Spain, and I brought along a copy of Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises." I went to China, and I took a copy of "China Road," a book about progress along the country's version of Route 66.
I came to Texas, and I picked up "Friday Night Lights."
So it is.
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9. The Leap.
Fourth down. Goal-to-go. The Once and Future Coach calls in the play from the sidelines, and senior quarterback Stephen Pipes runs it into the huddle. Permian lines up in a power formation.
It's the moment of validation for the players, for the fans, for me, for everything I've ever hoped from a Permian game. It's a moment right off book, right down to the sociological details. Permian's offense is mostly white - except, of course, for black running back DeAnthony Fay - and their opponent, Duncanville, is almost entirely black. Permian's riding a 22-game winning streak coming into the game, and true, Gaines doesn't have an incredibly experienced lineup. He's lost twice as many letter winners (44) as he has returning players (22), but he's got two stars-in-waiting in the backfield.
Pipes takes the snap and hands the ball off to Fay, who starts to shift to his right. A linebacker has him lined up in the backfield, but Fay does a little shimmy past him, and suddenly, he's got blockers. I see Fay take another step and then dive for the goal line. He disappears behind a blocker, and then all that reappears on the other side is an outstretched hand and the football. The linesman runs in: touchdown.
Fay gets up and begins to sprint toward the Permian sideline. He leaps and pumps his right fist. Michael Jordan has made that leap. Tiger Woods has made that leap. DeAnthony Fay has made that leap. And like Jordan and Woods, Fay's leap seems to stop time. He hangs there for an interminable, almost uncomfortably long moment, and the Panther fans roar with approval. I get the sense that if Fay could pause at any one instant in his life, he'll always choose that one, three feet above the Alamodome turf, wearing the legendary uniform and becoming legend right before everyone's eyes.
Permian's up 7-0, and I've got all sorts of questions for Fay. I want to know where he's being recruited, because if he's starting at Permian as a junior, he must be getting recruited by someone. I want to know what it's like to put on the jersey, what it's like to carry the legend of Boobie Miles all these years later, what it's like to be known across the state by only a nickname.
Then I start to feel doubt encroaching on the legend. What if he doesn't have a nickname? What if teammates don't call him "Boobie" or "Smash"? What if he's just plain DeAnthony? What if he's not even being recruited?
What happens to the legend then?
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10. Let It Be.
There is this problem, as I see it, with Texas high school football: like bullfights in Spain or a little red book in China, it's become symbolic of an entire way of life, and once something like that is accepted, it's hard to get people to change from that perception. Metaphors define us. And so it is: football is supposed to reveal character in its players, but it has ended up revealing more about the communities it's played in instead.
It is not a way of life, I've wanted to believe; Texas high school football is life. It is all there is, and it's hard to believe that there could be more.
It is why I leave at halftime, Permian down 9-7, instead of waiting for the second half and watching Permian's 22-game unbeaten streak end, instead of finding out that DeAnthony Fay is just DeAnthony Fay, instead of letting the legend end right there at the Alamodome.
I leave, and so it is: the myth can be self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. The legends can live on.
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11. Coda.
They are waiting in the tunnel before the game, the Ps on their helmets lined up four by four, the chants coming in from the stands two by two, the cliches standing right there in cleats, and I can see that they are scared. They are legend, and yet, this is bigger than all of them.
I start to wonder if some of them go home and night and wonder of a far off state, maybe some place like Maryland, where the lights aren't as bright, where the stage is a little bit smaller, but where the kids who play high school football can just be kids who play high school football.
I wonder if some of them don't just sit at home after games and wonder, 'Did it ever really need to mean all this?'
Dan Oshinsky is a digital media producer at KENS 5.
