ODESSA – The coach at the center of the Friday Night Lights book and film is back on the sidelines for Odessa Permian.

Gary Gaines, who was portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton in the 2004 movie, moved into college coaching just after leading the school to a state title in 1989. He then worked in athletics administration.

Now he has returned to help turn around a storied high school football program still looking to rekindle its glory days.

"The thing that I missed more than the competitive side of it was just being around young people," said Gaines, 60.

Gaines' career journey has brought him full circle to the program he led to a state Class 5A championship in 1989. It came just one season after H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger, a Philadelphia writer, spent a year in town researching his best-seller, which chronicled how high school football binds a West Texas oil patch community.

Made into a movie in 2004 and now an NBC television series that's less about football than the community depicted, the book was a hit everywhere but Odessa. Locals felt Bissinger betrayed their hospitality by writing about the sociological woes surrounding the team and town, including allegations of racism and a win-at-all-costs mentality.

After leading the Panthers to the state title 20 years ago, Gaines left Permian to become linebackers coach at Texas Tech. He left coaching in 2005 after five years at Abilene Christian to return to Odessa as the school district's athletic director. Two years later, he moved north to take a similar post in Lubbock.

Along the way, others who'd given up coaching for a desk job told Gaines the yen to be on the field would wane.

"But it never did with me," Gaines said.

Permian has won six state championships in 50 years, three of those coming in the 1980s, when the Panthers lost only 11 games.

But the once-vaunted Panthers haven't won a state title since 1991, losing an unthinkable 49 games between 1997 and 2006.

More recently, the Permian program has enjoyed something of a revival, making it to three region finals the last four seasons while compiling a 38-11 record under Darren Allman, a former Permian player and Gaines protégé who left this year to take another coaching job.