When it comes to high school football, the state of Texas is king. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in the Lone Star state will testify to just how adamant these high school football fans are. To hear Texans talk about high school football you may think it’s a religious experience.
Texas is a state where you can drive through hundreds of small towns and find t-shirts for sale that bare the name, color and logo of the local football team. While many of these podunk towns might seem a bit dead, you will see them come to life when the stadium lights come on each Friday night. The state has over 165,000 teenagers playing the game at over 1,000 schools. This represents the most teens playing football in all of the United States.
In Odessa, Texas, you will find the Odessa Permian High Panthers. This high school’s football program was the inspiration for the popular TV show and book centered around high school football, Friday Night Lights. The school’s yearly game against Midland Lee is commonly called a “blood rivalry”. Around 20,000 Panther fans flock to Ratlilff Stadium on Friday nights to sound the cowbells.
The annual Texas high school football championship is held at the stunning home of the Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium. These games are absolutely enormous events that draw more people than the average college football bowl game. When your state’s high school championship game outdraws college bowl games, it can be safely said that you love high school football the most. Super-fan, Bennie Cotton of Orangefield, has driven across the state throughout the past 50 plus years to take in as much pigskin action as possible. He has attended over 2,000 Texas high school football games since 1960. His devotion is a testament to the state’s claim as America’s high school football hotbed.
Perhaps the strongest evidence of Texans’ obsession with high school football is Allen High School’s $60 million football stadium. The suburban Dallas high school built this impressive facility in 2012. It seats a total of 18,000 rabid high school football fans. You will be hard pressed to find a high school football stadium outside of Texas that cost anywhere near this amount of money. The next most expensive stadium is also from Texas. Katy, Texas has its own $58 million, 12,000 seat football stadium that services 7 different high school football teams.