Yup. This is My Team (not counting the North Otago rugby team and Liverpool, of course).
This is the story of how I came to love the Permian Panthers and a place called Odessa and the phrase "Friday night lights".
But it is also the story of generosity, of small-town America, and of finding your second family a long way from home.
It was some time in the late-1990s that I heard about this book that told the story of a Texas town's fanatical obsession with its high school gridiron team.
A guy I knew ordered Friday Night Lights, by H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger, for me over the internet. As soon as I looked at the cover, with its beautiful black-and-white image of three players walking hand-in-hand on to the field of battle, I sensed something special lay within.
Friday Night Lights became a phenomenon after it was published in 1990. Bissinger, a writer disillusioned by the shallowness of professional sports, spent a year in Odessa, a town smaller than Dunedin, where the religion is football.
He followed the Panthers from Permian High School, charted their highs and lows, told the stories of the boys and their backgrounds, shone a light on some of the area's less savoury history, and explained the mystique of "Mojo", long ago adopted by the team as a sort of spiritual mantra.
It was less a sports book than a social commentary, and I bloody loved it.
Some hated it - the coach at the time (Gary Gaines, who has now returned to the team) famously refused to discuss it, and Bissinger received hate mail from local residents annoyed they had been portrayed as racist rednecks.
In 2004, they made a decent attempt at a Friday Night Lights movie, filmed in Odessa, starring Billy Bob Thornton and directed by Bissinger's cousin, Peter Berg.
A couple of years later, Berg devised an even better Friday Night Lights television series, based on a different (fictional) school but containing much of the spirit, drama and heart of the book.
Season three is screening here on the Four channel.
I knew, when I received the opportunity to go to the big country in 2004, I had to go to Odessa and see the Friday night lights for myself. And, bizarrely, a little Oamaru-Odessa connection emerged.
My mother had mentioned to a fellow Waitaki Girls' High School teacher, Jess Wright, that I was heading to Texas during my American trip. "Oh, what part?", says Jess.
"You won't have heard of it. It's a funny little place called Odessa," says Mrs Meikle. "I was actually bridesmaid for a woman who married a guy from Odessa," says Jess.
So, I was given a contact for the parents of "the guy" - Paul Acosta - and Paul sen and Emma Acosta said they would be delighted to host me during my visit.
They met me off the bus, the Greyhound from Dallas to Odessa, and took me straight to a local diner for some good, honest Texan cuisine.
The next day, Paul showed me around town, proudly telling everyone we met I had come all the way from "Noo Zealand" just to see the Friday night lights. The people were warm and interested. Perhaps they'd seen the likes of me before.
We bought some Panthers memorabilia at the local sporting goods place, ate real Texas BBQ at Jack Jordan's, found a box of my beloved Twinkies and popped over to neighbouring Midland to check out the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum (oh yes, this is big oil country).
Paul took me to Permian High, strolled right in and told the lady at the office who I was, and managed to get us in to the pep rally. You've seen them in the movies - the cheerleaders, the football heroes up on stage, the screaming student section - but they are even more spectacular in person.
We knocked on the door of the coach's office and he was home and happy to speak to us. He took me inside the locker room, and into the famous building featuring the sign "Through These Doors Pass The Hardest-Working Football Players In Texas", and better weights facilities than most New Zealand sports teams could imagine.
Friday night came, and we sat in the stands at Ratliff Stadium, the $6 million, 20,000-seat mecca of football on the outskirts of town.
We watched the Panthers get whipped by the Abilene Eagles. But I felt no pain.
Could I stay a couple of extra nights, I asked Paul and Emma. As long as you don't mind homemade cheeseburgers for tea, they said.
I stayed, we watched football on TV all day Sunday, we talked about Odessa and New Zealand and the approaching US election and life. I told my new second father, who served two tours with the Marines, I was considering getting a tattoo with the name of this girl I was serious about back home, and he scolded me.
Monday came too quickly. I left Odessa and the Acostas with a heavy heart.
The rest of my American trip included time in beautiful Indianapolis and sun-baked Arizona.
In the years since, I've been to France and Scotland and Wales and Belgium and Rotorua and Whangarei.
But nothing will ever compare to Odessa, the Friday night lights, and my Texan friends.
- In memory of Pablo "Paul" C. Acosta, who died on March 30, aged 64.
Hayden Meikle
ODT sports editor
• Team: Permian Panthers.
• Sport: American football.
• Fan since: About 1999.
• Favourite player: Boobie Miles.
• Greatest moment: The book, the movie, the TV series, you name it.
• Been to Ratliff Stadium: Yes, and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.
