Permian climbs back

Might the Mojo be rising again?

A return to the glory of bygone years appears within reach for the Odessa Permian Panthers of “Friday Night Lights” fame. They are 9-0 going into their regular-season finale since the last time they were unbeaten in 1993 when they were 8-0-1 in the regular season.

“What’s happening now has been a thing that’s kind of brought back the good-old days,” John Wilkins, a former Permian coach who went 148-16 with two state titles in four tries from 1973 to 1985, said. “The crowds are coming back.”

Permian’s won six state championships, three of them in the 1980s when the Panthers lost only 11 games. Then, assistant coaches were lured to better jobs and Mojo’s pre-eminence gradually faded.

The last title came in 1991, and the vaunted Panthers lost an unthinkable 49 games in the 10-year stretch from 1997 to the end of last season. That included the longest losing streak in school history, a six-game skid to finish 2004.

But a young coach — the only one of 11 since 1959 who also played for the school — is turning things around in this West Texas city known for two things: oil and football. Last year in only his second season, Darren Allman led the Panthers to a 9-4 season and a regional semifinal loss to Southlake Carroll, this generation’s version of Permian with four state titles in five years in Class 5A, the state’s largest.

Gary Gaines, one of Allman’s predecessors whose 1988 team was depicted in the book “Friday Night Lights,” said the 38-year-old Allman has returned the team to fundamentals and is fortunate to have talented players.

“He just had a little better insight as to what was needed,” Gaines said. “He has just put it all together.”

Allman scoffs at the notion that he’s made the difference, instead lauding his supporting cast of coaches and a dedicated group of “strong-willed” and mature players.

“I think the coaches and the kids have a great chemistry,” Allman said. “They can really finish a game off.”

One player from the 1988 team Buzz Bissinger chronicled in the book, Brian Chavez, said Allman’s focus remains on what’s essential to solid, consistent performances.

“Regardless of the talent or the wins or the losses, you can see when a team’s disciplined,” Chavez said. “On top of that they’ve had great talent. When you mix those two, you have great teams.”

Chavez, who fell two wins short of a state title in 1988, witnessed firsthand the town’s fervor for football. After the book came out, he said, he believes some in the school district took a step back from emphasizing football.

Made into a movie in 2004 and now a television series, the book was a hit every­where but Odessa, where locals felt Bissinger betrayed their hospitality by writing about the sociological woes surrounding the team and town, including claims of racism and a win-at-all-costs mentality.

“I think the book kind of painted a picture that Odessa didn’t really like, although it was the truth,” Chavez said, who went to Harvard and is now an Odessa attorney. “It was very much pretty evident that football was king.”

Gaines and others, though, countered that the book fostered a false perception that academics was a stepchild to football. Some in the district responded by spotlighting academics more, they said.

“It became a brighter light,” said Wilkins, who was the district’s athletic director when the book was released. “It was one of those things that did bring to the public’s attention, ’Is there too much emphasis on athletics?’ I don’t know that anyone came to that definite conclusion.”

Becky Hagood, a counselor at Permian in the late 1980s and early ’90s, said her kids got a “very good” education there. The school and the district, though, were forced to counter Bissinger’s negative portrayal.

“They wanted people to see that there were academics going on,” Hagood said. “And I think they had to do things to emphasize that because there were people who thought it was all football. You can’t tell me that they weren’t stressing academics at Permian.”

Allman, who graduated from Permian in 1987, saw the questioning of academics as an outgrowth and that most high schools with similar winning traditions “fight” what Permian endured after Bissinger’s book.

“I think that’s mainly because when people try to figure out why they’ve been so successful over an extended period of time, and naturally the first thing that comes to mind is, ‘Football is more important,’ ” he said.

The flap over the book is now part of the past, and Permian fans are again filling the 20,000 seats in Ratliff Stadium, where the Mojo chant is louder and comes more often than in recent years.

Allman likes his team, but he’s not ready to act like he’s watching “Best of the ’80s” reruns.

“We can’t really tie ourselves in comparison to the past until we’ve done something more special than we’ve done now,” he said. “We’re not there yet.”

They’re close, though. Permian returned to The Associated Press poll for the first time in 11 years this season, rising to No. 5 with victories in packed stadiums against then-No. 6 Abilene High and crosstown rival Odessa High.

Such seasons were seemingly endless 20 years ago, but now Permian fans know what it’s like for their Panthers to lose more games than they win. Perhaps that’s making 2007 a little more gratifying.

“It’s hard to say more special,” Allman said. “But I think just like anything else, you don’t miss the water ’til the well runs dry. That’s how it’s been here.”

Permian is 9-0 for the first time since 1991 and has secured a share of the District 3-5A title. The school is seeing a resurgence in fan support and popularity not scene in more than a decade.