Originally posted by Tarantino
Oooooh, another football movie!!!

I'm passing on this one. I've seen Varsity Blues already.

Originally posted by Josh Hinkle
I definitely want to catch this sometime. I had to read the book for a Journalism class a few years back and it was pretty damn good.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but when I saw that this movie was coming out, I knew I was going to eventually have to say something. The movie is based on a high school football team from Odessa, Texas, named the Permian Panthers.

What they don't want you to know is that the Permian Panthers, usually referred to as Odessa Permian, has a long and storied history of cheating, stealing, and major unsportmanslike conduct. The high school has been disqualified several times in the past for UIL rules violations, usually in regard to eligibility requirements. The eligibility requirements can be viewed here (Adobe Acrobat Online file, .pdf format)

The most common reason given for why this high school is disqualified, is because this high school actively recruits players, or in layman's terms, compensates families who move into the district this school is in, either through housing, jobs, or other non-educational forms.

As for the unsportsmanlike conduct, I personally witnessed this myself, when my high school played against them my sophomore year in high school. That year, we had a sophomore year football savant who played on the varsity team. To give you an idea of how good he was, he was pretty much a high school equivalent of Emett Smith. The Odessa Permian defensive line was having a hard time catching him, so the order was given to clip him. For those of you who don't know what clipping is, clipping is where you take you arm, with the area between the elbow and the shoulder, and then hit the person in the back of the leg, right behind the knee.

Clipping is expressly forbidden in high scholl football, because the usual outcome is severe injury to the leg and knee, but I'll get into that in a little bit. The ref originally wanted to get penalize Odessa Permian 15 yards, at which point, my school's football coach went, quote, "apeshit," unquote. An arguement ensued over the call, which eventually ended up in my school's coach pulling out the official UIL high school football rulebook. In the rulebook, it clearly states that any player who clips another play must be immediately ejected from the game.

The Odessa Permian coach fought this, until my school's coach commented that unless the offending player was ejected from the game, he was going to place a call the following Monday morning to the main UIL office in Austin, Texas. The Odessa Permian coach finally relented at that point. I later heard that the Odessa Permian team had already been contacted by the UIL office in Austin earlier that year, about excessive unsportsmanlike conduct, such as clipping, and other illegal tactics, such as face masking. They had been told that any more violations could result in the team being disqualified from UIL competition that year.

Now, about the injury part. The player who was clipped, a friend of mine since elementary school, had to be taken off the field after the incident. Over the course of the next two years, he had no less than three surgeries to attempt to repair the damage done to his knee from that clipping. As most of us here know, knee injuries never really heal; Kevin Nash is a prime example.

So, before you go see this movie, keep in mind all that I've said here. Do you want to support a team like this? Do you want to support the mind set that keeps things this way, i.e., winning is the only thing that matters, no matter how you do it? I, personally, will never see this movie, and I doubt anyone in my home town will, either.

Originally posted by cdollaz
If Odessa is anything like they portrayed in the movie, it's pretty pathetic. These adults act like high school football is and always will be, the most important and significant thing in their life. You are an adult now, move on. It's like the fraternity guy who is still hanging out at rush and frat parties 10 years after college.

Originally posted by Mr. Salty
I live 15 miles from Odessa, and yes, it's really like that.

For those who are comparing "Friday Night Lights" to "Varsity Blues," you're way off the mark. "Friday Night Lights" is a true story and goes a lot deeper than "Varsity Blues," which is teen fluff in comparison.

Originally posted by Chill Pill
Mopower!!! A fellow Hawk fan!! Nice!!

This will be a wild season.

Originally posted by Mr. Salty

For those who are comparing "Friday Night Lights" to "Varsity Blues," you're way off the mark. "Friday Night Lights" is a true story and goes a lot deeper than "Varsity Blues," which is teen fluff in comparison.

Originally posted by Chill Pill
Mopower,

I don't know if I would put any blame on Tate. Seems to me he is one of the few doing well so far.

1. The O-line needs to gel.
2. Cut out all the penalties.
3. Someone needs to emerge as a field LEADER both on D and O.

Then we will be in good shape.

I guess I shouldn't veer off the thread topic too much, some ppl in here might "wig out", so to speak.