Ted Stewart and his friends Joshua Johnson and Sue Evans are all runners at Green Ridge High School in Meadow County. The boys’ track & field team at Green Ridge won the state championship last year, but many of its stars have graduated. Now they are the underdogs, although Coach Bill Mallory is confident that Ted, Josh, and others can fill the gaps and compete with archrival Riverside High. Ted, however, will have to deal with his teammate Sonny Lamar who rarely has a kind word for anybody else, let alone Ted.