The 1999 football film Varsity Blues, you can compare to the series of Friday Night Lights. You could even compare it to the original movie version of Friday Night Lights. It’s all about high school football under the lights in the state of Texas. How some of these small Texas high schools treat their football program like it’s at a college or professional level. How the small towns close down practically to watch the home games. The coaching staffs are always on the hot seat because of the pressure cooker jobs they have as they need to win. Everybody is obsessed. Everyone eventually wants to get out of the town like the players and cheerleaders. Like most small towns, they are stuck there as they are rooted and never leave. Like playing football is the key to leaving these small towns. Throw in high school kids drinking & doing drugs after the football games like it’s a college town. Then the addition of all the twisted sex plots to the mix between the cheerleaders and players. Every team has a football player that is laid more than Hugh Hefner in these epic high school Texas football movies. The West Canaan Coyotes established a solid cast as Varsity Blues is not the worst football movie. It’s also not the best. But it is entertaining. Now the cast seems like they dropping dead like flies in recent years at young ages which has snake bitten this 90’s movie. Or perhaps Varsity Blues is getting a better following as they have already lost three main actors who played ball players in this movie over the last several years.

This movie starts with John “Mox” Moxon who was played by the star of Dawson’s Creek, James Van Der Beek. Van Der Beek is the most recent star of this movie to have passed away, he on February 11th. He was the star of the movie. He passes away at 48 years of age after dealing with Colorectal cancer. Mox is the back up quarterback for the Coyotes and is probably better than the starter. Before Mox is thrown into action when the starting QB for the Coyotes is hurt and lost for the season, he was enjoying life as the back up. He had a girlfriend & they talked about future plans for going to college as football was not his forte even though he had a cannon for arm. The Mox also had a high IQ for the X’s and O’s of the playbook, so he didn’t like to do conservative style play calls like his head coach wanted him to do so. The Mox butted heads with the head coach Bud Kilmer who was played by Jon Voight for not using the back up’s plays. You can tell early on in the movie that Mox does not see eye to eye on things with his father or head coach. A precision pass by Mox to his father hits him dead on the nose that breaks which was on purpose. Things change when Mox takes over the starting duties for the team and the Coyotes look better, but Kilmer is not a fan of how they are winning. Mox’s head grows bigger by each contest which draws friction in his relationship with his steady girlfriend.

Anybody for dessert? The whipped cream bikini in the movie Varsity Blues will always be compared to Princess Leia chained up to Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Two fantasies men would love to live at some point in their lives. The actress in Varsity Blues, Ali Larter, wears the whip cream bikini well. You may know her from the series Landman where she plays Billy Bob Thornton’s other half on that epic Paramount show. Larter’s character in Varsity Blues was Darcy Sears, who was the boyfriend of Lance Harbor, the QB that got hurt and was the captain of the team. Knowing Lance was not coming back on the field, Darcy quickly showed Mox everything and wanted him as her ticket out of this Texas town. Lance Harbor was played by Paul Walker who died in 2013 at the age of 40 from being in a car crash.

Lance Harbor would play a important role later in the movie. He would take over the head coaching duties after Mox and the entire team stood up to the dictator Bud Kilmer. Kilmer was a bad dude who only cared about himself and winning football games. When his players went down with injuries, he wanted to pump drugs in these high school bodies to get them back on the field quicker. The character Wendall Brown, who was the running back for the Coyotes, almost was a victim of Kilmer telling his staff to plunge a needle into his knee. The character Brown was played by actor Eliel Swinton. He is a black guy like most running backs in football. Kilmer was a racist asshole who did not mind Brown running the ball up and down the field. On the goal line the ball for the touchdown went to the white dude for the touchdown. Mox changed that mindset and called a play for his running back to get the easy goal line score. Kilmer did not like that.

Everyone loves a big fat dude that can drink his own body weight. Varsity Blues had the blind side protector in a perfect Texan named Billy Bob. Ron Lester played Billy Bob who would drive a old pick up truck that had his name on the door. He would shoot his gun. He would do anything for his quarterback playing the offensive line. He is a guy that could drink by the gallons. For dinner he probably would consume a 145 pound defensive back. He was one of the big stars in this movie as he died at the age of 45 in 2016 of liver and kidney failure.

The child actor who played John Moxon’s brother in Varsity Blues Joe Pichler went missing when he turned 18 years of age. He was last seen on January 5th of 2006 after hanging out with friends in Bremerton, Washington. They found his car on January 9th of that year as it was abandoned. He vanished without a trace.

In Friday Night Lights the series, Tim Riggins played by actor Taylor Kitsch slept with an older woman while in high school. In Varsity Blues the team finds out one of their teachers strips at the local strip club. Of course they all went to see her. She would then proceed to party with her students after her dance in the club. In the series of Friday Night Lights, they certainly had a local strip club which both establishments looked like they were on the outskirts of town. Not affecting the local Applebees in town. Texas high school football is under the lights. Along with sex, drugs, country music, and all kinds of drama. Coaches that are pressured like they coaching the pros. Finding out that for some of these towns the local high school football is all they have. As they breathe and die by it.

I have read plenty of reports that James Van Der Beek before he died raised some money for cancer in general. He autographed a bunch of John Moxon West Canaan Coyote jerseys to raise money to fight this terrible disease that takes younger people away far too early in life. In general, cancer can kill people of all ages which is terrible. It is sad in general that this movie has lost that many people already after being released in 1999. Jon Voight always plays a great bad guy in many movies. Voight is 87 years of age. I loved Voight in the series of Ray Donavan. Another questionable character he played in that. Varsity Blues did not take home any awards. It was a movie that had some really good moments. It is a movie many people that grew up in the 90’s most definitely watched. Friday Night Lights was the Jaws of Texas under the lights of high school football. While Varsity Blues was maybe that second best shark movie that you can’t quite think of the name. You know you have seen many bad shark movies trying to be better than Jaws on shark week. I rewatched Varsity Blues as I thought I had it. I may have it on VHS. I was able to stream it and the first time was still better then watching it today. It did entertain me and I did not fall asleep during it as it may have been past my bed time while I enjoyed old times. Let’s hope the rest of the cast stays healthy for many years to come to stop the snake bite from oozing anymore more venom.