In Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger uses flashbacks in “East Versus West” to develop the change that Odessa has gone through. Bissinger describes how the Panthers have beaten the Bronchos twenty three years in a row. Then Bissinger makes a flashback to 1946, “If you wanted to see real football mania, if you wanted to see a group of people who cared about a team and loved them as if they were their own children, go back to 1946 season when almost half the town was crammed together on the wooden benches of old Fly Field like pencil points.”(157) Bissinger shows that Odessa used to have as much pride as Permian now has. “Go back to the days when people camped out overnight for the tickets with huge smiles on their faces, as if they were performing an important service for their country.”(158) Bissinger then goes on to explain how football started changing in Odessa when in 1959 Permian High School opened.
Rhetorical Analysis: The Ambivalence of Ivory In Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger uses characterization to develop Ivory Christian’s feeling towards football. Bissinger shows Christian’s mixed feelings toward the game, “There were moments when Ivory Christian loved the game he tried so hard to hate.” Bissinger then describes how Christian is hesitant toward football. “Much of the time Ivory fought to rid football from his life, to call a merciful halt to the practices, to the dreaded gassers, the reading of page after page of plays and game plans, the endless demands on his time. He liked the game there was no denying that, but it was hard not to find the rest of it pointless.” (112) After the coaches denied him the spot at middle line backer Bissinger describes Christian as angered toward the coaches. “But something snapped in Ivory after middle linebacker was wrested from him. The common explanation, he wasn’t rah-rah enough, didn’t make any sense to him, although the coaches were hardly the only ones who found him