Inspired by the book "Friday Night Lights: A town, a team and a Dream," Theron Hopkins took the country's passion for high school football one step further.

H.G. Bissinger wrote about the 1998 Permian High Panthers football team from Odessa, Texas, in his 1990 best-seller that eventually was made into a movie and a TV series.

Hopkins, an English teacher at Wheatland High, traveled the country for 20 weeks, spending time to get to know the players, coaches and staff of 20 different teams. The result was his own book, "The 80-Yard Run," which features, among other teams, Sutter High's highly successful football program.

"It's pretty cool," Sutter head coach Scott Turner said of his Huskies' inclusion in the book.

Turner noted Hopkins spent the week leading up to Sutter's game against Winters in 2003 with the team, standing with coaches along the sidelines during practice and at the game.

That's what Hopkins did in every town he visited, starting in Blanco, Texas, and ending in Katy, Texas.

Along the way, Hopkins visited high school football teams in Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as California, writing one chapter on each team.

"Every week had its own uniqueness," Hopkins said, when asked which is his favorite chapter.

Whereas it was his intention to travel across the U.S. writing about different high school football teams, Hopkins admitted, "Blanco, Texas, nearly changed my mind. I almost stayed there the whole time," because he bonded so well with the players.

Hopkins saw both ends of the football spectrum. At one end was Washington High in Massillon, Ohio. The nationally-acclaimed program that has state-of-the-art facilities. When the team travels to out-of-town games, 10 buses are chartered — two for the team, three for the band and five for fans.

Then there is tiny Corcoran High in Syracuse, N.Y., where the varsity head football coach works the snack bar at Saturday's JV games, and Waldport, Ore., where the varsity team numbers slightly more than a dozen players.

"It's like two totally different worlds," Hopkins said.

Hopkins enjoyed delving behind the scenes to enlighten readers about high school football in America.

"I wanted to try and tell the story from the perspective of the people there," he said. While the 336-page hardcover book was released this year, Turner noted it's been around for a few years.

"It actually was released first as a paperback," Turner said.

Hopkins financed the printing of the paperback edition himself in 2004, and following a favorable review, Skyhorse Publishing decided to publish it.

Hopkins is a football fan — he even wears Wheatland High football shirts to school on casual Fridays — although he admitted to not being a great player while growing up near El Centro in Southern California.

"Let's just say I liked football way more than I was good at it," he said.

Hopkins was teaching in El Centro when he decided to leave his job and tour the country gathering notes for his book. It was only after he was through writing it that he landed a job at Wheatland High four years ago.

Wheatland and Sutter happen to be spirited rivals in the Butte View League, but Hopkins didn't even know about Wheatland when he wrote about the Sutter football team.

When asked if he takes a lot of good-natured ribbing from faculty and students at Wheatland for writing about the Huskies and not their beloved Pirates, Hopkins noted he hasn't received a lot of teasing.

"I really don't think a lot of them have read my book," he added.

A lot of authors have written follow-up books, but Hopkins said he has no plans for a sequel.

"If I do write another book, it probably won't even be a sports book," he said.

If there is one thing he learned from his experiences, Hopkins said it would be "kids need to get involved in extracurricular activities, whether it's sports, student government or whatever. They need to learn that what they do has an affect on others. They are part of something bigger than themselves."