Friday Night Lights 10-Year Reunion: An ATX Television Festival Celebration

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

It was the mantra of the Dillon Panthers for five seasons on Friday Night Lights, and when thousands of fans flocked together on Panther Field to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the series, they too had full hearts.

When we arrived on Panther Field during the ATX Television Festival, we asked some of the fans what they were most anticipating from the reunion.

Fan Carissa Pavlica said “If Adrianne Palicki is here…I have a girl crush on her, so I want to see her!” Elizabeth Bowry also chimed in on a cast member she was excited to see. “Most importantly, I want to see Smash.”

While seeing the cast was a major part of the event, fan Tamar Barbash had a different take on the night, saying, “Just in general, being here…it’s awesome. We’re…on the field where it all happened!”

ATX Festival Co-Founder Emily Gipson introduced the event, sharing her sentiments for the series and for its impact on Austin. “When we started this festival we knew, because we are in Austin, Friday Night Lights is a very important show to the two of us, it’s a very important show to Austin, so we knew that was going to be the heart of the festival.”

Wanting to “blow it out,” for the 10-year reunion, Emily Gipson says that she and ATX Festival Co-Founder Caitlin McFarland, “drove up to this field, which was completely overgrown, had not been touched in five years, and we decided this is where we were going to do this.”

The field house was also open for the night, and fans were able to take a walk down memory lane with the cast and crew of the series, taking a tour of the house, seeing famous names written on the locker room walls, and putting their hands on that beloved Dillon Panthers wall.

The event included a performance by the infamous band, Crucifictorious, a Christian-metal band led by Landry, played by Jesse Plemons, complete with Grandma Saracen herself,  fan-favorite Louanne Stephens, dancing on stage alongside them, wearing a tiara and playing tambourine.

Nearly every major cast member from the show was in attendance, but fans were happy to see two surprise faces on the field: Jason Katims, the show’s creator, and Connie Britton, who played Mrs. Coach, Tami Taylor.

When Katims was asked if being on Panther Field felt like home, he replied, “It definitely felt like home. I knew I was coming out for a Friday Night Lights screening, I did not know that it was going to be here. So this is the first time that we’ve been here since doing the show.”

Katims also shared the last time he was on the field with the crowd. “In fact, the last time that we were here was when we had the wrap party for the show. After the wrap party, many of us came out here and played a little football and had a last moment with each other. So for a lot of us, literally our last moment of doing the show was here.”

Some of the guys who played football day in and day out for years on the show shared their own memories of the field, or as Jesse Plemons described them, “Very sweaty, happy memories.”

Scott Porter, who played Jason Street, shared this story from the field. “We used to play flag football out here, not while we were working, but we’d come out on our own to this field and sneak in, and Jesse tore his ACL, with [Taylor] Kitsch covering him, going, ‘Show me what you got, come on Plemons! Give it to me, let’s GO!’ and then he tore his ACL and production found out, and we were banned from ever coming back here.”

The cast was also asked if there was a piece of memorabilia that they kept from their time on set. Connie Britton revealed, “I have the Reserved Parking for Tami Taylor sign. It’s in my driveway.” Stacy Oristano, who played Mindy Riggins, said that she, “stole all of the framed pictures from the Riggins’ house. Every picture that was there.”

Adrianne Palicki got the biggest laugh with her answer. “I did a very Tyra-esque thing. I took all of my boots and my bras.”

After going down the line, and sharing who they would have had a crush on if they were a student at Dillon High (spoiler alert: almost everyone said Tami Taylor), the cast and the fans were treated to a special screening of fan-favorite episode, “The Son,” a Season 4 episode in which Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) handles the death of his father.

The cast agreed that this may be the last reunion that they have for a while, but the feelings of love and admiration between them are sure to be felt no matter what the distance is between them. Remember, Texas forever.

And, really, the big party on Panther Field was a great way to “blow it out” for one last hurrah.

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You can check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. (There is a lot more to come!)

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