Hey, I am Ron lester the actor that was 508lbs. You might know me from such movies as...

Hey Everybody, My name is Ron Lester. You might know me from such movies as Varsity Blues and Not another teen movie. I was 508lbs and lost 348 of it!
I am now with OH and I am here to help you guys! Please feel free to contact me anytime and feel free to ask me anything you think you might want to know!
I hope you guys will add me as a friend and tell your friends to do the same!!!
Hope this finds you "WELL" and "HAPPY"!
Cheers
Ron Lester

Please look at my website....
www.Ronlesteronline.com
 

Welcome to the locker room! Rocky Top

Thank you so much!!!!  I will be the first to say that I have never really been in chat rooms before and now to be talking about something so close to my heart is kinda weird! hahhaaa
How are you doing?
Cheers
Ron

As a former HS football coach I would just like to note for the record that Varsity Blues presented a highly unrealistic portrayal of what HS football is really like. At least out here in Texas. Which ties you with almost every other movie that has ever tried to capture the essence of HS football. Although I'd say that Remember the Titans probably gets close. Also I'd like to add that Not Another Teen Movie cracks my ass up. Every time.

So anyway, thanks for dropping by. Congratulations on the -348 and good luck with the movie business in the future.

Welcome! You've lost quite a lot of weight. Congratulations!


JFish,

HS Football? My realistic memories were that the coach only cared about helping the players who were already somewhat good. That and memories about guys getting stoned during summer football camp. Maybe it's changed now.

Dave

Football coaches get fired for not winning games. That being the case, they tend to spend a great deal of their time and effort with the kids that can help them win some games, at the expense of those who can't.  It's a bit Darwinian in that way. But the good coaches, and there are a lot of them,  will find ways for less talented kids to step on the field and contribute and will be patient with late bloomers in hopes that they will develop and mature enough to  be able to contribute at  some point. But like every other endeavor in life, there's not guarantee that you'll have good ones. There's a lot of mercenary *******s out there who concern themselves with winning enough games to be able to join in the hunt for a job down the road where some athletes are coming up the pipe.

Hmmm  on Friday nights at my school, we remembered the Trojans (if we were smart, that is) ..  

  btw, I would think that Friday Night Lights came the closest to the real thing, but then I'm not from Texas ..  

  Wow, Ron ..  you really exist, dude!    Welcome to the MF ..   Come on in, put your feet up  and bash a few gals (j/k   )   Look forward to seeing you speak at Houston in November .. 

  Speaking of the gals, it appears a few of our OH ladies are in lust with the new you, based on their recent posts ..       Sorry I had to break their hearts though and let them know you were already married, to a tri-athlete, no less ..       (please send the rejected ones my way, if you would be so kind ..    )

I actually coached at Odessa High School, the cross town stepchild to Odessa Permian, which the book chronicled during the year that the book was written. So I didn't have a front row seat as to how the book was written, but I wasn't to far back. I visited with Buzz Bissenger over a couple of beers at a New Year's Eve party at the Permian trainer's house during the year he spent in Odessa writing the book. I don't recall what we discussed. I don't know how close he got to portraying the Permian kids, coaches,and program, as I was on the outside looking in from across town, but I thought he nailed the town and it's attitudes perfectly. He was brutally criticised for bringing a preconcieved agenda with him to the book, but from where I stood, it looked like he hit the ball dead solid perfect.

As to the movie, the football scenes should've looked realistic. Most of it was actual game footage shot at Permian football games during the season that the movie was made. ('02 or '03 I think) Which forced them to have to juggle the schedule somewhat, as Permian went about 4-6 that year and missed the playoffs. So non-district games became playoff games and what have you, but it didn't affect the quality of the movie if you didn't know about that. After seeing the movie, the only complaints I had were 1) Billy Bob Thornton is to much of a hick to play head coach Gary Gaines. Gaines was a much smoother and more polished individual than Thornton could possibly play. I don't know who of the current crop of actors should've played coach Gaines, but the best fit I can think of would've been the guy who played Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. That guy's probably dead by now though. 2) The Billingsly kid's dad was an  abusive alcoholic, but he would've never walked out on the practice field and thrashed his kid for fumbling and had the coaches just stand around and watched. If a daddy had tried something like that, he'd have been frogmarched off school property by a couple or 6 assistant coaches. Think Ron White's story about being thrown out of a bar in NYC. 3) In my opinion, the movie and the book were both way to sympathetic to Boobie Miles. It was a sad story for sure. His future went up in smoke on one football play. But Boobie was not a sympathetic character in real life. He was a narcisistic pain in the ass who was tolerated because of his amazing talent. Think Terrell Owens or Chad Johnson on the HS level and you''ve got a pretty good fit. And he didn't get hurt in a blow out game. That was more theatrical license. He got hurt in a pre-season scrimmage.

Other than that, the movie was OK.

Great writeup and additional insight into one of my favorite moves and books, Fish. Great point about Odessa. Reminds me in a way of Lincoln, NE which was just over the river from where I grew up. Football is a religion. Mojo, baby!!

I think there are plenty of Boobies out there in high school and college. To me, he did come across as a marcisistic pain in the ass in the movie. Despite that, I feel for him since, like a lot of youngsters, he was "king for a day" then it all vanished. It's a hoop dreams [another of my all-timer movies], take advantage of the stud then throw him away when no longer needed kind of story.

To me, Billy Bob was very good in the role but I'm sure I'd be like you if I actually knew the Gaines personally. Sounds like he was a Barry Switzer, Jimmy Johnson kind of guy, huh? 

I bought the hi-def version of Lights and it's amazing to watch and hear in surround sound. I especially like the scene where Permian is running out to the field against Dallas Carter.   

Cool stuff.

I'd say that coach Gaines is closer to a Tom Osborne type than Switzer or Johnson. I always thought that coach Osborne carried himself with a lot of poise, polish,  and gravitas.  In my eyes, Switzer and Johnson are borderline outlaws whose image has since been polished up by the fact that they won and won big on the national stage. Although I will say this, I think Switzer should be commended for playing black players all over the field in an era when there was still a significant amount of "conventional wisdom" that stated that you needed white players in certain positions or a certain mix of blacks and whites on the field in order to be successful. In todays game where, at the pro and D1 level,  you can easily see 22 blacks on the field at once, it doesn't seem possible that a generation back this only happened at Grambling and schools like that. Johnson? Right place at the right time with the right friends. At least in my book.