Ever since his mother died, David Sinclair, a tenth grader, can’t seem to finish anything he starts. After his alcoholic father gripes about all the money he’s blown on Karate lessons, tennis lessons, and several other things for his son that came to nothing, David decides to try out for the Heather Heights High School football team as a placekicker. Their star player, Glenn Samson, believes nothing matters but football. David has always admired Glenn and starts thinking the same way. Although he’s never kicked a football in his life, he sticks with it—lifting an old abandoned telephone pole lying on the ground on the huge lot behind his house over and over to gain strength, and practicing until his foot can boot the ball fifty yards. But being a football hero costs a precious price, threatening to ruin his football career before it even gets started. Can David recover from that cost? And will the lessons learned eventually carry him to a much sweeter victory that takes him beyond football?