Plot

A small-town basketball star goes to college and tries to impress his tutor, teammates, and coach.

Henry Steele is a basketball phenom at his small-town high school, but when he matriculates to a big-city university on a scholarship, he soon realizes that he has few skills outside the sport. Expected by his coach to contribute significantly to the team, Henry is overwhelmed by the demands on his time, the "big-business" aspect of college sports, and the fact that he never fully learned to read. Things look bleak for Henry when pretty grad student Janet Hays is assigned as Henry's tutor. Her intellect and strength lift Henry out of his doldrums just in time to battle the coach, who attempts to rescind Henry's scholarship.—Rick Gregory <rag.apa@email.apa.org>

Having turned down other scholarships, high-school basketball star Henry Steele of small-town Colorado accepts a four-year basketball scholarship to attend Western University in Los Angeles, recruited personally by the college's renowned and winning basketball coach, Moreland Smith. The offer includes the basketball program handling almost every aspect of his life on campus, from the provision of housing in the dorm, to paying for a tutor--grad student Janet Hays--to help him with all his courses, to provision of a job-in-name-only for some pocket money, all for the goal of being able to focus on basketball. This situation is Henry and his parents' dream as all his future hopes are pinned on basketball. He quickly shows his naivete about his new situation, such as that the showboating style that wowed crowds and won games back home doesn't sit well with the coach, as other team members are just as good as or better than Henry. And Janet has a well-founded condescending attitude toward Henry, having seen so many like him before who assume they don't need to do any schoolwork to get by. Henry will also learn of the corruption that exists within the system, which allows Coach Smith's administrative assistant B.J. Rudolph to use her position to try to gain sexual favors from the basketball players--Henry is her latest target--and allows Coach Smith himself to use less than ethical tactics to reach his end goal: a perfect, untainted record, both on the basketball court and for himself personally. With someone unexpectedly on his side within this environment, Henry must prove to himself and others that he belongs, while hopefully seeing the bigger picture of there being more to his life than just basketball.—Huggo