Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (19 page)

In no less than six different areas, Shannon concluded on the
basis of testimony, the school system "not only continued to fail
to meet its duty to dismantle its dual school system, but actually
increased the segregation in its schools of both Blacks and
Mexican-Americans."

It was a moment of euphoria for the minority community,
until Shannon strongly hinted at a solution. Opposed to increased busing, Shannon concluded that the quickest, surest
way to achieve desegregation was to close Ector High School,
since it had a relatively small population. As a result, its students were dispersed across the railroad tracks to the remaining two high schools in town, Permian and Odessa High.

As a school, most whites never had much use for Ector once
it had become pegged as the minority school. It was on the
Southside, and the less heard about the area the better. "I think
the community perceived it as a minority place, a place they
wouldn't travel into," said Jim Moore. "I think most of them
perceived it as a place to keep 'em over there and let 'em have
their school."

But with Ector's closing, members of the white community
suddenly began to see enormous value in some of its black students. It had nothing to do with academic potential. It had everything to do with athletic potential.

Once the plan was announced, a hotly debated aspect of it
wasn't curriculum, or how minorities would fare in schools that
had always been predominantly white. Instead there was remarkable focus on which school, Permian or Odessa High,
would ultimately get the greater number of black students, and
thereby the greater number of black football players. The answer depended on how the Southside was divvied tip between
the two schools in the aftermath of the court battle. The curious
zigs and zags of the proposed division gave Permian a clear
edge over Odessa High in the number of blacks assigned to go
there based on where they lived. Gomez said the line was drawn
that way not for the cause of desegregation, nor to satisfy any
academic purpose, nor even to meet any racial quota, but to
ensure Permian a greater number of black running hacks down
the road than its rival.

"It was gerrymandering over football," said Gomez, who had
not been in the least surprised. In the endless deliberations
over desegregation, the board spent more time worrying about
how the high school athletic programs might be affected than
how the curriculum might be affected. "Whatever they did,
they did not want to hurt the dynasty that was being established at Permian," she said. "I think it clouded their vision. We
spent more time talking about the athletic program than the
curriculum."

Iv

You could search high and low for a black city councilman in
1988, or a black county commissioner, or a black school board
member in Odessa. You wouldn't find one. You could search
high and low for it black at the Rotary Club breakfasts over at
the Holiday Inn. Or at the luncheon meetings of the Optimist Club over at the junior college. You wouldn't find one there
either, just like in every other community in America. But on
Friday nights in Odessa, you could gaze down at the football
field and see several black players tearing up the field for
Permian.

Thanks to desegregation, football was blacks' claim to fame
in Odessa, the thing they were known for, and there was no
better proof than the Wall of Fame. Just inside the entrance to
the Permian field house, the wall contained the framed pictures
of sixty-one players, each of whom had been All-State. To have
one's picture hanging there in a little frame with black trim was
a cherished honor.

The wall also offered a quick and easy lesson on the history
of race relations in Odessa. From 1959, when Permian opened,
until 1982, there was only one black face on that wall out of
pictures of forty-five players. (The name of the player was
Daryl Hunt. He happened to be from the first black family ever
to live across the tracks in the northeast part of town. He also
happened to be the best football player ever at Permian, becoming an All-American linebacker at Oklahoma University and
then a member of the Houston Oilers for six years.) Since the
desegregation of the schools, the representation of black players on the Wall of Fame had dramatically increased. Of the sixteen pictures added to the Wall of Fame since 1982, five were
of blacks.

Desegregation had not altered the essential character of the
Permian program. It was still a white institution. The overwhelming majority of its fans were still white. The overwhelming majority of its players were still white. But those few blacks
attending Permian had made enormous contributions, one after another shipped across town to Permian for the mass enjoyment of an appreciative white audience and then shipped right
back again across the railroad tracks to the Southside after each
game. Boobie Miles came from the Southside. So did his replacement, Chris Comer. So did Ivory Christian. So did Brian
Johnson, who started at defensive end.

"We fit as athletes, but we really don't fit as a part of society,"
said Nate Hearne, the only black coach at Permian in 1988. "We
know that we're separate, until we get on the field. We know
that we're equal as athletes. But once we get off the field we're
not equal. When it comes time to play the game, we are a part
of it. But after the game, we are not a part of it."

In the fall of 1988, there were 147 blacks-6 percent of the
student body-attending Permian. There were none among
the forty-seven students taking honors physics I. There were
none among the eight taking honors physics II. There were
none among the fifty-two students taking honors biology II.
There were three among the sixty-five taking honors chemistry
1. There were four among the ninety-three taking honors algebra II. There was one among the eighty-two taking honors
pre-calculus. There were none among the thirty-seven taking
honors calculus. There were none among the ninety-nine students taking honors English III. There were two among the
ninety-one students taking honors English IV. There were
none on the student council. There were none who were
cheerleaders.

On the Permian team, six of the fifty-five players were black.
In the basketball program, fifteen of the thirty-nine players
were black. Blacks also made up relatively high percentages in
remedial courses.

Numbers aside, their domination of the football team was
astounding. Of the six who were with the team at the beginning
of practice in August, five were starters and the sixth was hurt.
Two of these players started both ways, the only ones on the
entire team to do so. On offense black athletes started at
flanker, split end, and fullback. On defense they started at
middle linebacker, defensive end, safety, and rover.

There was an apocryphal story that football coaches all over
the state of Texas had cried when desegregation came to
Odessa, because it gave Permian the one thing it had never had
before-black running backs. The story may have been apocryphal, but it was also true that Permian football benefited from desegregation. It was clear that the coaches expected black athletes to be better because of a belief that their bodies matured
earlier than did those of whites. If a black didn't perform up to
expectations, it usually had to do not with ability but work habits. "There will never be a mediocre black athlete to play at
Permian," said Hearne.

Because of their skill, blacks were openly coveted in Odessa
in the football arena. Some would never accept their presence
on the team, but many others did, based on the ability to meet
the following special conditions: having a speed of 4.6 or better
in the forty, great hands, and the perceived ability to cover
twice as much ground from the middle linebacking position as
could any white boy. The only way to lose that preferred standing, of course, was by not performing.

"We don't have to deal with blacks here," said Lanita Akins.
"We don't have to have any contact with them, except on the
Permian football team. It's the only place in Odessa where
people interact at all with blacks." As she sat in the stands,
Akins watched with fascination how the fans accepted the
presence of blacks on the Permian team as if they were for
the time being part of a different race altogether, as if something magical happened when those boys donned the black and
white.

"Those boys are not niggers to them," said Akins. "They
are Mojos."

To Laurence Hurd, there was nothing surprising in that
attitude.

He was well aware of the enormous allure of the black athlete
and the doors that participation in sports supposedly opened,
the barriers that it supposedly broke, the way whites suspended
all racist judgments when they sat in the stands and gazed down
at a football field or a basketball court or a baseball diamond.

He also knew that many black kids thought their easiest way
out of the ghetto, perhaps their only way, was through sports.
After all, what universally accepted black role models did these
kids really have besides the Three J's-Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson and Magic Johnson? Where else in the world, particularly the white world, did they see blacks consistently gain such
praise and prominence and acceptance? Considering the circumstances of their lives, how could they be expected to accept
the harsh reality of studies showing that of the thirty million
children taking part in youth sports in the United States, only
about two hundred would go on to become professionals in any
given year?

Laurence Hurd had an opinion about sports. He firmly believed that football, like other sports, used blacks, exploited
them and then spit them out once their talents as running backs
or linebackers or wide receivers had been fully exhausted. For
a few lucky ones, that moment might not come until they were
established in the pros. For others, it might come at the end of
college. For most, it would all end in high school.

And what would they have after pouring every hope and
dream into sports? Hurd believed he knew the answer: a few
memories and an education so inadequate they might have difficulty reading their names in "big boxcar letters."

"Before, it was take the blacks and put 'em in the cotton field.
Let'em do farm work. Let'em do share crops. In the twentieth
century, because of football, the real smart people use these
blacks just like they would on the farm. And when it's over, they
don't care about them. Some people say in their mind, that's all
they were good for anyway.

"Today, instead of the cotton field, it's the sports arena."

They were strong, provocative, important words, the very
trademark of Laurence Hurd. But no one was listening.

He wasn't any longer a gifted, powerful minister leading a
community in a struggle for social change. Instead he was just
another repeat offender in the middle of the desert, in the
middle of nowhere, behind rows of razor wire that glinted and
gleamed in the sun like jagged teeth.

Some considered his life a poignant tragedy, an impossible
battle that he ultimately lost between the two souls that raged
within him-the Laurence Hurd capable of doing marvelous good for the community, and the Laurence Hurd who had
spent much of his life as a street hustler after finding little appeal in being a pantry man for the rest of his life.

"If only he could have kept that other boy down," sighed the
Reverend Hanson. "I don't understand how you can do so
much good for people, speak up for them and care about them,
and do so much harm to yourself."

Others, not quite so benevolent, believed his actions had let
down a community where the role of black leader was a precious, almost sacred commodity. Hurd had had it all in Odessarecognition, respect, dignity, clout-and then he let it go for
reasons that were hard to fathom.

"I guess that's the mystery, I guess that's the mystery that I've
never been able to figure out myself," he said in the prison visiting room one day, his voice, turned throaty with age, sounding like the bristles of a broom pushing against a slate floor.