What Carter Lost
ESPN Films continues a busy summer of sports documentaries on Thursday, August 24, with a 30 for 30 documentary about the highs and lows of the 1988 Dallas Carter High School football team. “What Carter Lost,” directed by Adam Hootnick, will air at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
There’s high school football, and then there’s Texas high school football. Oddly enough though, one of the greatest teams in state history has been lost to time—and fate. “What Carter Lost” is the saga of that team, the 1988 Dallas Carter Cowboys.
With 21 players who were offered college scholarships and several who went on to the NFL, Carter took on the best that Texas had to offer, including the Odessa Permian team that inspired Friday Night Lights, as well as the worst: in a racially charged state-wide dispute over one player’s algebra grade and Carter’s legitimacy. Somehow, the team won the championship that year. Yet not too long after, the legacy they worked so hard for was thrown away after a group of players made a terrible decision. With personal interviews with players, coaches and family members, as well as glimpses of their lives today, “What Carter Lost” is ultimately about what Carter found.
“The movie Friday Night Lights showed the world a skewed and fictionalized version of one of the best high school football teams in Texas history, the 1988 Dallas Carter Cowboys, but very few of the players, coaches, parents, and teachers involved in that controversial season ever had a chance to speak for themselves,” said director Adam Hootnick. “In ‘What Carter Lost,’ I was honored to help bring the Carter saga to life in the words of the people who lived it, even as I struggled to make sense of everything that had happened. Nearly three decades on, there still aren’t any simple answers, but I hope everyone who encounters these unforgettable people and events will walk away asking hard questions about what it means to be a teammate or a leader.”