美国国家公共电台 NPR 'What Carter Lost' Tells The True Story Of 'Friday Night Lights' Football Rivals

 

(SOUNDBITE OF W.G. SNUFFY WALDEN'S "'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' THEME")

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

That theme song - I could play it any time of day. It's from "Friday Night Lights." I was totally addicted¹. It is the story of a high school football team from West Texas fighting for the state title. There was a book. There was the TV series and also the movie, starring coach Billy Bob Thornton.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS")

BILLY BOB THORNTON: (As Gary Gaines) Now if you want to win state, you're going to have to beat a team of giants, a team monsters over in Dallas.

GREENE: Now, those so-called monsters were from Dallas Carter High School. They won the state title in the movie. Their players were almost caricatures, really thug-like.

ADAM HOOTNICK: I wouldn't say almost caricatured, and I wouldn't say almost thug-like. They were huge. They came out wearing garb² that, you know, seemed like it might be suggesting that they were gang members.

GREENE: That's the voice of Adam Hootnick. He's a film director who got interested in telling the story of the real Dallas Carter High School, which he's done in a new documentary. Dallas Carter is really an afterthought in "Friday Night Lights," that evil team that stole the championship. But the real team's march to the state title in 1988 is a story about race. It's a story about the pressure on young athletes. It's also the story of a darn good football team.

HOOTNICK: Their entire defense³ could run faster than a 4.6.

GREENE: That's NFL...

HOOTNICK: ...NFL caliber⁴ of speed, yeah.

GREENE: ...Level of quickness, yeah.

HOOTNICK: The number of scholarships they got, the number of guys who went on to play some form of professional football - you know, by every measure, this was one of the greats.

GREENE: And it's not the story of a great team that was a bunch of, like, inner-city kids from a down on its luck neighborhood making good. This was middle-class Dallas. Right?

HOOTNICK: Absolutely. This was a black, middle-class neighborhood, mostly two-parent families, mostly professionals. The teachers would say the joke was the student parking lot was a heck of a lot nicer than the teacher parking lot. And...

GREENE: (Laughter) Nicer cars there.

HOOTNICK: Yeah.

GREENE: The trouble for Dallas Carter came during the playoffs. There were questions about an algebra⁶ grade for one member of the team. The other mostly white schools fought a legal battle to kick them out of the playoffs.

HOOTNICK: There is no question that if Carter had been one of the predominantly white schools that was always there, everything would have been handled differently.

GREENE: Parents, teachers, school officials - they fought back. And in the end, Carter was allowed to play. And they won the state title.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WHAT CARTER LOST")

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Your final, 31-14.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: This game was bigger than us.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: To win the state championship in Dallas - that's big.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: I just remember feeling a sense of pride and elation⁷ that they succeeded.

GREENE: Offers from big-time college recruiters started coming in. There was all the celebration. But that was not the end of the story because this happened.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WHAT CARTER LOST")

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Unintelligible) For 148 North St. Andrews (unintelligible).

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: The robbery-in-progress call was a holdup alarm at a video store.

HOOTNICK: After the roller coaster of this season and postseason, you had a few guys on that team really, to my mind, inexplicably⁸ going and joining an armed robbery ring for pretty much no reason. They did it - you know, they were middle-class kids. They had cars. They had all the clothes they want. But I think they weren't ready for the adventure to be done.

GREENE: So football was done, and they needed just some way to be risking and feeling like they were doing something exciting or dangerous?

HOOTNICK: Yeah. I think, at some level, they were chasing a rush. I don't personally believe, having spent a lot of time talking to them, that any of them were malicious⁹ people, that they were looking to hurt anyone. That - but they were so divorced from any sense of what the impact of their actions might be that they just didn't care. They weren't thinking about it. So I think they believed that no matter what they did, somebody would get them out of it 'cause they were that special, they were invincible¹⁰.

GREENE: Can you describe that - there's some old footage that you used of two of these young men trying to keep themselves together to deliver a statement before their sentencing to make the case, you know, that they're not bad kids.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "WHAT CARTER LOST")

GARY EDWARDS: To Mr. Rousseau and to Carter High School - you did not deserve the disappointment, the embarrassment¹¹ and the shame that I have brought on you.

GREENE: What was happening there?

HOOTNICK: That scene that you're talking about was after the guys had been arrested and before they were sentenced and during the period when, depending on how cynical¹² your perspective is, you know, their lawyers were trying to demonstrate to the community that they were contrite¹³, that they were good kids who never intended to be hurting anybody. And I think it was largely genuine. But it certainly was done for - in front of press and to, I think, try to lay the groundwork to minimize whatever sentence they were going to get from the judge who was hearing the case.

GREENE: And some of these kids - I mean, we should say, many members of the team did nothing illegal. And a handful went on to, you know, NFL careers. But for these kids who ended up going to prison, how far was that fall?

HOOTNICK: I don't think you can fall much further. And I say that in part because of the level of the pedestal that - as a Texas high school football star, that's almost as big as it gets, you know.

There are some people in the documentary - Jessie Armstead, who went on to be a five-time Pro⁵ Bowler¹⁴ and LaDainian Tomlinson, who's in the Hall of Fame. And these guys talk about the fact that no matter how far they went after playing big-time Texas high school football, there was no crowd that felt more intense; there was no game that felt bigger than their biggest games in their Texas high school careers. So the level of attention and adoration¹⁵ and intensity¹⁶ around that experience - for a lot of people, that's the top. And so to fall from grace like that, that's a long way down.

GREENE: In the end, six Carter players served prison time. Many of them talk in the documentary about how much they lost and also how they've tried to rebuild their lives. Ultimately, Carter was stripped of its 1988 state title. And no doubt, this Dallas community's fight to defend its reputation got a whole lot harder because of what those young men did.

HOOTNICK: Some of the unsung heroes of this story are their parents, who really fought to keep them in the playoffs. And I think that fight, for them, was not just about wanting to see their football team win but about resisting being caricatured in a way and saying, we're not cheaters. We're not thugs. We're not people whose priorities are all screwed up the way some of these other schools are portraying¹⁷ us, the way the media is portraying us.

And, you know - so the way that those parents were undercut after everything they did to keep that team on the field and to, you know, try to put forward their version of who they were, to have that all undone¹⁸, you know, I think that's the story that's never been told.

GREENE: Adam Hootnick is the director of the new ESPN 30 for 30 film "What Carter Lost." Adam, thanks so much.

HOOTNICK: Thanks for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF W.G. SNUFFY WALDEN'S "'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS' THEME")

1 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

2 garb   

n.服装，装束

参考例句：

• He wore the garb of a general.他身着将军的制服。
• Certain political,social,and legal forms reappear in seemingly different garb.一些政治、社会和法律的形式在表面不同的外衣下重复出现。

3 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

4 caliber   

n.能力；水准

参考例句：

• They ought to win with players of such high caliber.他们选手的能力这样高,应该获胜。
• We are always trying to improve the caliber of our schools.我们一直在想方设法提高我们学校的水平。

5 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

6 algebra   

n.代数学

参考例句：

• He was not good at algebra in middle school.他中学时不擅长代数。
• The boy can't figure out the algebra problems.这个男孩做不出这道代数题。

7 elation   

n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意

参考例句：

• She showed her elation at having finally achieved her ambition.最终实现了抱负，她显得十分高兴。
• His supporters have reacted to the news with elation.他的支持者听到那条消息后兴高采烈。

8 inexplicably   

adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是

参考例句：

• Inexplicably, Mary said she loved John. 真是不可思议，玛丽说她爱约翰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inexplicably, she never turned up. 令人不解的是，她从未露面。 来自辞典例句

9 malicious   

adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的

参考例句：

• You ought to kick back at such malicious slander. 你应当反击这种恶毒的污蔑。
• Their talk was slightly malicious.他们的谈话有点儿心怀不轨。

10 invincible   

adj.不可征服的，难以制服的

参考例句：

• This football team was once reputed to be invincible.这支足球队曾被誉为无敌的劲旅。
• The workers are invincible as long as they hold together.只要工人团结一致，他们就是不可战胜的。

11 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

12 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

13 contrite   

adj.悔悟了的，后悔的，痛悔的

参考例句：

• She was contrite the morning after her angry outburst.她发了一顿脾气之后一早上追悔莫及。
• She assumed a contrite expression.她装出一副后悔的表情。

14 bowler   

n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手

参考例句：

• The bowler judged it well,timing the ball to perfection.投球手判断准确，对球速的掌握恰到好处。
• The captain decided to take Snow off and try a slower bowler.队长决定把斯诺撤下，换一个动作慢一点的投球手试一试。

15 adoration   

n.爱慕，崇拜

参考例句：

• He gazed at her with pure adoration.他一往情深地注视着她。
• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。

16 intensity   

n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度

参考例句：

• I didn't realize the intensity of people's feelings on this issue.我没有意识到这一问题能引起群情激奋。
• The strike is growing in intensity.罢工日益加剧。

17 portraying   

v.画像( portray的现在分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• The artist has succeeded in portraying my father to the life. 那位画家把我的父亲画得惟妙惟肖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ding Ling was good at portraying figures through careful and refined description of human psychology. 《莎菲女士的日记》是丁玲的成名作，曾引起强烈的社会反响。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

18 undone   

a.未做完的，未完成的

参考例句：

• He left nothing undone that needed attention.所有需要注意的事他都注意到了。