Odessa was settled in the 1880’s by a group of men from Zanesville, Ohio, who wanted to attract people to the land they had bought. But the land was virtually impossible to farm anything, because of the difficulty of getting water, so it eked out a living from the livestock trade. Then, the droughts came and raising livestock became impossible. Fortunately, the town was sitting in the midst of the Permian Basin, a geologic formation that would ultimately produce roughly 20 percent of the nation’s domestic oil and gas. Then, it became inundated with men simply known as boomers, because the town’s fortunes now became entwined with the oil cycles of boom and bust. It gained a reputation for a hearty, hair-trigger temperament and earned the distinction in 1982 of having the highest murder rate in the country. By 1987, Money Magazine ranked it as the 5th worst city to live in in the country out of 300. Nonetheless, it was “a place rooted in the sweet nostalgia of the fifties - unsophisticated, basic, raw - a place where anybody could be somebody, a place still clinging to all the tenets of the American Dream, however wobbly they had become.”
Whatever else Odessa had or didn’t have, there had always been high school football. Everyone knew where they had been when the team won a State Football Championship, so it isn’t unusual that expectations are high at the beginning of the 1988 season. No one can see how Permian could miss a trip to State. Coach Gaines hates the assumptions, because it creates more room for anger and disappointment if the team doesn’t get there. For the moment in the field house on this first day of practice, the team belongs to no one. But all too soon they will be unveiled to the public, and then they would become the property of those so desperately devoted to it. The great unveiling will take place in late August at the Permian Booster Club’s Watermelon Feed, when the excitement and madness will quickly move into high gear.
Whatever else Odessa had or didn’t have, there had always been high school football. Everyone knew where they had been when the team won a State Football Championship, so it isn’t unusual that expectations are high at the beginning of the 1988 season. No one can see how Permian could miss a trip to State. Coach Gaines hates the assumptions, because it creates more room for anger and disappointment if the team doesn’t get there. For the moment in the field house on this first day of practice, the team belongs to no one. But all too soon they will be unveiled to the public, and then they would become the property of those so desperately devoted to it. The great unveiling will take place in late August at the Permian Booster Club’s Watermelon Feed, when the excitement and madness will quickly move into high gear.
Diversity
A major part of the town of Odessa was the lack of diversity and integration that came along with it. Although the entire nation began integrating fully in the 1960s, it was not discovered until the 1980s that Odessa was lacking behind and still holding a sense of segregation, including its mostly minority-based high school, Ector, which was 93% minority, while Odessa High and Permian High were both well over 90% majority white. When the town was finally forced to desegregate and Ector High School was shut down to desegregate, the town gerrymandered the distribution of minorities to get most of the black and Hispanic students to go to Permian so that they would have a better football program and take the team to state. Even through all of this, minorities were still outcast, and many had hard times getting high-paying jobs or becoming members of the school board.
A major part of the town of Odessa was the lack of diversity and integration that came along with it. Although the entire nation began integrating fully in the 1960s, it was not discovered until the 1980s that Odessa was lacking behind and still holding a sense of segregation, including its mostly minority-based high school, Ector, which was 93% minority, while Odessa High and Permian High were both well over 90% majority white. When the town was finally forced to desegregate and Ector High School was shut down to desegregate, the town gerrymandered the distribution of minorities to get most of the black and Hispanic students to go to Permian so that they would have a better football program and take the team to state. Even through all of this, minorities were still outcast, and many had hard times getting high-paying jobs or becoming members of the school board.