I'm a big fan of the show/movie/book Friday Night Lights, and it was definitely an inspiration to me in the conception of this project. I don't know if I expected to find Ratliff stadium and 20,000 fans in the middle of Van Nuys, but it's been interesting to see just how different things are at Birmingham than the football-crazed world of West Texas Buzz Bissinger discovered in FNL.

I asked a couple of kids who were walking by the field the other day if they were excited about Friday. By the confused looks on their faces, I could tell they had no idea what I was talking about.

``What's Friday?'' one of the girls said. ``You mean like, the weekend?''

``No, the City championship game at the Coliseum,'' I explained.

``Oh, yeah. That's cool. Who are they playing?'' she asked.

``Carson,'' I said.

``Oh, cool,'' she said.

I relayed this conversation to senior defensive back Evan Jenkins, who has family in Texas and a cousin who plays at Oklahoma state.

``I'm not surprised,'' he said. ``The more we win, the less people here care. They think it's easy for us. But they don't even know how much goes into it. That's OK though. We don't let it bother us.''

Then I asked how different it was from the games he'd been to in Texas.

``It's totally different there. The locker rooms are like college locker rooms. They've got your name on your locker, your uniform is all hung up in there, your cleats are set out. The seniors have their own seperate locker room. There are tons of fans at every game. It's crazy.''

This isn't to say that there's a complete lack of fan support for the Patriots. Actually, Birmingham's sidelines and stands are almost always more full than their opponents. And I've come to know and respect a large group of support staff and administrators who are at every game, cheering for the team. But it's very clear this is LA, not Odessa, Texas.