:
5 I
The Department of History
of
Texas A&M University
invites you to the ninth annual
J. Milton Nance Lecture in Texas History
entitled
Lady Bird Johnson and Beautification
by Lewis L. Gould
Thursday, November 17, 1988, at 8:00 p.m.
Room 701 J. Earl Rudder Conference Center
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas
Reception following
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The Volkswagen way
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Page 10 The Battalion Wednesday, November 16,1988
Secret of Permian’s success
sought by eastern journalist
20 years of winning even impresses outsiders
ODESSA (AP) — What is it about Permian
High School’s victory-prone football team? And
is varsity gridiron the amalgam that binds this
West Texas community?
An investigative journalist, a New Yorker
named H.G. Bissinger III, found these questions
intriguing enough to shelve his newspaper career
for a year, load his family in a van and move
south by southwest to do a book on the hard-
driving Panthers, who haven’t endured a losing
season in two decades.
Call it a midlife crisis a few years early or the
challenge of conceptualizing and executing a
book unrelated to one’s experience.
Call it what you will, but the 33-year-old Bis
singer is here, meeting players and their families,
attending morning and afternoon practices,
booster club meetings, pep rallies, games home
and away.
“Last February, sitting in my hermetically
sealed office, editing, I knew if I was going to do
it, I’ve got to do it now,” said Bissinger, who had
taken a post as a suburban section editor at the
Philadelphia Inquirer after helping it win a Pulit
zer Prize by exposing the hanky-panky in the
city’s court system.
Permian players and staff, who quickly learned
to call him “Buzz,” have accepted Bissinger’s
presence so thoroughly that he can weave unob
trusively between broad-shouldered tangles of
quarterbacks and tight ends on the practice field
— yellow legal pad and red ballpoint poised, eyes
darting, probing, ever observing.
“It’s been fun for both sides,” said team trainer
Tim “Trapper” O’ Connell, 30. “He has blended
in, like a coach or something.”
There on the beaten grass. Panthers chat com
fortably with the writer, who’s dressed in dark
“Permian played Marshall at
Marshall and there was a visiting
Russian delegation — each mem
ber was given a Marshall Maver
icks shirt, hat, miniature football.
But they were given the worst
seats. It was a big game — sold
out — and I guess no one wanted
to give up their seats. ”
H. G. Bissinger III
In vestiga ti ve journalist
glasses, pink buttoned-down shirt, gray jeans,
white socks and penny loafers, as if it’s the most
natural thing in Odessa.
Then a drill is called and the players scramble.
“I do get hit coming out of the huddle,” Bis
singer, who stands 5-foot-6 and weighs 145, said
of a newly discovered avocational hazard. “It’s
the one thing you want to avoid. You don’t want
to get knocked down by one of these guys.
“I got jostled once and my hat was askew, but I
kept taking notes. The coach came over and
straightened it.”
The soft-spoken Easterner is an avid sports
fan but never had professionally covered a foot
ball game until Yale met Harvard last year — and
he did that as a lark. So how did this outsider se
cure the trust of these Texas teen-agers?
“At first he bribed us,’’joked Ivory Christian, a
17-year-old senior and tri-captain of the team.
“He took us all out to eat. I got to go to Long
John Silver’s. He took some to a Chinese restau
rant. We talked about a whole bunch of stuff —
the future of the team, the community, how I felt
about growing up here.”
On a coast-to-coast drive two years ago, Bis
singer was impressed by the close identification
small Southern towns like Bessemer, Ala., have
with their high school teams, he said.
He never made it to Odessa, getting only as
close as Big Spring, 60 miles away.
But he had heard about Texas’ football obses
sion, and after consulting with a friend who
worked in the front office of the New York Gi
ants, the Permian program became the obvious
example for a book on nigh school football.
A Reading, Mass., publisher, Addison Wesley,
liked the idea and gave Bissinger an advance to
finance his field research.
Bissinger maintains there will be themes in his
account of the Panther recognizable anywhere in
the nation. Things he has seen here remind him
of go-for-broke ice hockey in Minnesota and sim
ilarly fierce basketball in Indiana.
“It’s an awsome period in these kids’ lives. For
many of them, it will be the most glorious period.
They’re playing in front of 20,000 people,” he
said.
And their fans are solidly behind them.
“Permian played Marshall at Marshall and
there was a visiting Russian delegation — each
member was given a Marshall Mavericks shirt,
hat, and miniature football. But they were given
the worst seats. It was a big game — sold out —
and I guess no one wanted to give up their seats,”
Bissinger said.
“The Mavericks won by one point — 13-12.
Their coach was apoplectic, and it was a victory
for the community. The team bowed to the side
lines, and the sideline bowed to the team; some
thing very innocent about it.”
It was Permian’s first loss of the season.
But at Permian, local support is unique, Bis
singer said. There were 50 people lining up
when the ticket office gates opened one Monday
morning, 34 hours before the start of sales at 6
p.m. Tuesday.
“Some had camped out since Sunday at 11,”
Said Bissinger. “It’s very festive. Some come out
in their Winnebagos. ... It tells you they take foot
ball very seriously.”
And for those who miss the game, there’s the
live radio coverage, followed by delayed tape of
the entire action.
“I really believe that football is the glue that
holds together this community,” he said. “It’s the
most stable thing the city has — certainly more
stable than the economy.”
Bissinger said the level of Texas 5-A high
school football is far more sophisticated than
what he has seen among Eastern high schools,
and even a few universities.
“Without a doubt, the execution and precision
of this team is five times better than what I saw at
“I really believe that football is
the glue that holds together this
community. It’s the most stabk
thing the city has — certainlj
more stable than the economy.’’
Bissingti
the 1 larvard-Yale game. Of course, they’renoi
big.”
Returning to the question of what mat
Odessa Permian so successful!, Bissinger aitr
utes it to the chemistry created by comraim
support and phenominal player dedicate
“They work their butts off.”
In records compiled since 1951, Permiant
competed in more state finals — eight—tk
any other high school. It had the best record;
the 1970s, winning 109 and losing 14. Thisi
cade, it hasn’t done too badly, winning 94,lost
10 and tying six through 1987. So far thisya
they’re 7-2. Before a weekend loss, Permian*
ranked fifth in the state by the Associated Pres
Whether a take-no-prisoner quotation fns
H.L. Mencken on the wall inspires or not,itn
veals something about the coacnes.
“Every normal man must be tempted,attime
to spit on his hands, hoist the blacK flagandlt
gin slitting throats.”
Learning the meaning of the Permian diec
“MOJO!,” lias proved more elusive. The chi
can be traced back to the mid-1960s andsomea
it was begun by some Texas Christian Universt
students who may or may not have beenalumn
While Bissinger said he’s not losing sleepov
the MOJO mystery, he does sweat out yardage
a Permian partisan along with the coaches s
fans, said football program staff members.
“During the Marshall game, Buzz would a
things like, ‘God, I’m nervous,’ and ‘Oh dai
shouldn’t he have caught the ball, shouldnthe:
recalled O’Connell. “This was a big game. Allli
had to do was take notes, and he’s nervous!"
But throwing in his lot with the Panthers hi
not spared him from jokes and public ridicule.
During a call to his sister on Nantucket Islam
off Cape Cod, Bissinger expressed his enthi
siasm for involving himself in West Texas i
telling her he had been taken along to fire a gii
and was invited to take part in a popular pastil
— snipe hunting.
“It was explained to me that it was likesquim
hunting where you take a big burlap bag and
stick and beat the ground. And I suppose tires
little animals — the snipes — with big eyes tb
glow in the dark, run into the bag.
“Everybody was in on it, the trainer, thf
coaches, the players. I didn’t catch on until»
sister said, ‘You idiot, there’s no such thing. "
“He believed it, too,” laughed O’Connell,whj
added in conspiratorial fashion. “We’ll try to p»!
something else on a Yankee.”
ATTENTION: 1
RECOGNIZED STUDENT
ORGANIZATIONS
DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY!
Find out how your organization can earn money and promote itself to the
campus community.
Send a representative to one of the fill Night Fair organizations meetings.
7:00pm or 8:30pm
Wednesday, November 16
402 Rudder
(you will be able to register your organization at this time)
4rAII
Night
Fair
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