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My first real beef with Friday Night Lights

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by hondo, Dec 2, 2010.

  1. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Concerning the episode about the road trip:

    Let me see if I have this straight: the team's stars escape the motel, find a party and swill moonshine out of Mason jars until 5 a.m. While this is going on, the coaching staff is in a room, shooting whiskey and playing poker.

    Like that would happen in real life. A coaching staff would have some kind of safeguards on kids leaving motels on road trips. A coaching staff boozing on the road trip would get fired.

    I always liked this show for its realism. That episode was not realistic.
     
  2. Beef03

    Beef03 Active Member

    Haven't seen the episode yet, but that sounds an awful lot like the year my hockey team went to provincials in bantam -- I was in Grade 10. Coaches started drinking at 9 a.m. on the bus ride down, didn't stop until four days later when we arrived back home. Hell the team captain was their bartender. It was one hell of a party, team didn't play for shit though -- obviously. And before the outrage starts up "where were the parents?" they were drinking right along with the coaches. Small town. Big issues. Especially with booze.
     
  3. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Must be way different in Canada. We had a football coach fired here a few years ago because the younger brother of his assistant coach, who was on the team, was seen drinking beer at the coaches' apartment with his brother. Someone snitched, he was canned. Can't do that kind of thing these days.
     
  4. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Rare is the high school football team that stays overnight the night before a game. Staying over a second night after the game is over is unheard of. Totally unrealistic.

    Also, no football coach worth a damn would let his kids act like that at a hotel.

    That said, as long as Connie Britton is on the show, I'm a fan.
     
  5. Beef03

    Beef03 Active Member

    I totally agree. My story was more of the extreme than the norm. And it was a long time ago. I was more than a little bit shocked when I saw what was going on, and I think in most cases the entire coaching staff would be gone in a heartbeat.
    But things can be a little bit different in rural Alberta -- good and bad, this would fall under the bad category. These were volunteer coaches (small town) who were taking full advantage of this being the last weekend of the season and a roadtrip to the otherside of the province with many of the parents being good friends of theirs or at the very least drinking buddies. But saddly this also wasn't the only tournament they drank their way through, they did at a tournament mid-season over Christmas/New Years as well. I think their saving grace was they were actually certified coaches, something that was lacking in the place I lived, so they almost had to keep them around.
     
  6. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    Meh, I've had to stay overnight as a coach before at the track state finals. We drink in the room. Kids are always asleep a few doors down. They have no idea.

    And I know some smart ass is going to say "what if the kids left and got drunk?"

    Well they don't.
     
  7. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Exactly. And I'm sure you had someone making sure it didn't happen.
     
  8. Smash Williams

    Smash Williams Well-Known Member

    You guys didn't have very adventurous high schools.

    When we stayed at hotels on some sort of high school trip, the coaches would put a piece of tape on the top of the door after they did bed check. If that seal was broken overnight, then they knew you'd been out.

    The trick was to make friends with the trainers (student and assistants, not head), who did not have their doors taped because they had access to the instant cold packs, advil, tylenol and other things kids weren't allowed to keep. If you were their buddy, you could call for advil, they'd bring it down and retape your door after you left/came back. Heck, sometimes the student trainers would go with you and tape you back in when you got back.

    High school was good times.

    I haven't seen this particular episode so I can't speak to it, though I know several rural Texas teams that would stay a night before for a noon game or possibly after the game if they were more than 4-5 hours away from their opponent. But both nights would not happen.
     
  9. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Hondo, what kind of high shchool life did you have? Sneaking out and gettting drunk happens all the time. Another nugget for you, teenagers have sex. I know it's shocking, but really, it does happen.
     
  10. I don't watch FNL, but I wouldn't think twice about this or consider it a plot hole. Me and my friends would sneak out of every hotel we ever stayed at on a field trip or hockey road trip, and my hockey coaches were fun, beer-swilling dudes once we checked into the rooms. Maybe it's a hockey thing.
     
  11. YGBFKM

    YGBFKM Guest

    Someone did not expand their mind in high school.
     
  12. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    I know sneaking out and getting drunk and getting laid is a part of life for most teenagers. But I know a bunch of high school coaches and that stuff doesn't happen on their watch, on road trips. If it did, they'd be out of a job quick.
     
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