Section 04
Odessa
The real Odessa: oil booms, Ratliff Stadium, Permian's state titles, and the integration record the book made part of the story.
Photo: Erik Mclean / Pexels
19,302Seats at Ratliff Stadium
$5.6mConstruction cost, opened 1982
6State titles, 1965–1991
5 pieces in this section. Every one of them is listed here; the archive holds the whole site on one page.
- 19,302 Seats for $5.6 MillionRatliff Stadium's construction in 1982 — the cost, the capacity, the moment in Odessa's oil economy when the money was voted, and what the stadium looked like by the time Bissinger arrived in 1988 and Berg's crew arrived in 2003.
- The Five State Titles and What They Were Built OnPermian's UIL state championship seasons — 1965, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1989, and 1991 — framed as a factual record and set against the school's enrollment, classification, and the oil economy's cycles that funded the program.
- The Town the Price of Oil Built, and Twice UnbuiltThe relationship between Odessa's petroleum economy and the Permian program's fortunes — the boom that funded Ratliff Stadium, the bust that Bissinger arrived during in 1988, and how the cycle shaped the community's investment in high-school football as civic identity.
- Ector County Schools and the Integration Record the Book Made VisibleWhat Bissinger documented about race and the Permian program — the integration timeline for Ector County schools and the inequities the book placed on the record — treated as documented history with named facts and dated sources.
- Boobie Miles: What the Published Record ShowsJames 'Boobie' Miles's story as it appears in the book, the film (Derek Luke's performance), and subsequent journalism — a factual account drawn entirely from published sources, in his public capacity, with no speculation about private circumstances.