Why is high school football taken so seriously in the state of Texas? It seems like it almost a religious experience for them there.

I just finished watching the movie “Friday Night Lights” and it says that it was based on a true story. Near the end of the movie and before the state championship game, each school had representatives negotiating over what stadium they would play in and whether the referees were going to be Caucasian, African-American, or a mixture of both.

Additionally, the high school football stadiums they showed in the movie are larger than some community college stadiums that I’ve seen here in Phoenix, Arizona and they were perfectly manicured to boot.

Has anyone experienced the Texas football phenomenon first hand or maybe have some opinions on why it is such an obsession in the Lone Star state?