Friday Night Football
When we introduced the new Snow Village Harvest “Friday Night Fanatics” it got me thinking, when did Friday night become synonymous with football games?
Our “Friday Night Fanatics” is certainly a tribute to all those Friday nights spent at the local high school football stadium cheering on the hometown teams. The uniforms. The music. The stands decked out with school colors. The cheers of the fans, and those Friday Night Lights!
Obviously, the term conjures up all the feelings that come with the giant floodlights looming high above the football field that make the high school football game a “bright spot” (pun intended) in any town as the weekend gets under way. It brings the community together whether you have kids playing on the field now or you did 20 years ago. Maybe you were one of the stars on the field!
But where did that term originate, and how did it get so popular?
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but it was made famous in the early 1990s, and it has Texas roots when H.G. Bissinger published his nonfiction book “Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream” which followed the Permian High School Panthers' 1988 high school football season in Odessa, Texas. The book shined a spotlight on what it means to be a small town in the U.S. that thrives on those weekly football games. And we know that most high school football games are played on Friday nights.
Did you know that the “Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961” made it so that the NFL can't broadcast after 6 PM on Friday nights? That time is reserved for high school games. But the rule doesn't kick in until the second Friday in September. In 2024 the Green Bay Packers (from the NFL) caused problems when they overlapped with a high school football Friday night, competing for local attention. This particular Packers game was the first Friday night NFL game in 60 years. With an earlier than usual Labor Day, the Packers were cleared to play in one of the popular international football games in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a pre-season game against the Philadelphia Eagles. That must have been a tough decision for fans of local sports – do you go to the stadium to watch the high schoolers play, or cheer on the Packers playing in Brazil at home? Thank goodness in today’s advanced telecommunications cybersphere – just set the DVR and cheer on the local team.
Get your Snow Village Harvest ”Friday Night Fanatics” (which includes 264 stickers to personalize the pennants over the front door to your team’s colors) set up early, so you’ll have plenty of time to get to the high school stadium to cheer on the hometown team – it’s sure to bring back memories of the days when we cheered our Crusaders, Knights, Mustangs, Cardinals or Longhorns to victory!
Melinda Seegers
Ms. Lit Town