Football: The Role Of Racism In Football

Friday nights in the small town of Odessa, Texas have always been dedicated to football, the whole town comes to a stop to support their football team. In 1988 at Permian High School, racism, education, sexism, and life have major impacts on the team’s performance and the player’s futures. The town will do whatever it takes to make the most successful team, including hindering the players future. The fathers, whose lives are a drag and unsuccessful, live vicariously through their sons and push them harder than they have been pushed before. Racism causes a lot of drama on and off the football field. All the schools surrounding Permian have become desegregated, while Permian hasn’t. They are being outcompeted by other schools because black …show more content…
Teachers and staff were letting players get away with not doing any work because they didn’t want the players to get bad grades and not be able to play in the Friday night game. If a student was put on academic probation and ineligible to play the town would turn against the teacher and staff involved. This prepared the players very little for their future, in college they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the other players and students, causing them to fail out of school. Permian players were taught that football is more important than getting an education and preparing for what future career they might have. Most of the players would end up just like their fathers, working in the oil rigs and deteriorating their …show more content…
The desegregation and discrimination that was experienced in the book wasn’t something that was experienced in my school. I feel this is due to the fact that we are in a different time now. Discrimination does still occur but I feel that it is a lot less severe than when the book took place. Where I grew up also had a huge part in the amount of discrimination that took place in our schools and town. There weren’t a lot of other races in our town and what we had were accepted and welcomed in our community. In school the students that played sports were allowed to get away with a lot more than other students. Some of the teachers also favor the student athletes and give them extended time and made them exempt from certain assignments. I don’t feel that it hindered their ability to get a college education like it did for the football players. A majority of the athletes did go on the college and were success, but there were some that never left our town and are stuck there