After Alicia, Heidi, and Heidi’s half-brothers move in with the Jones family under the advice of Georgia, the former child therapist of T.J. and his parentsin the lives of Rich’s estranged wife, Alicia, and Rich’s stepdaughter, Heidi, a little girl whose African-American heritage makes her a target for Rich’s racism and abuse. The other source of tension is the involvement of T.J. that he will make it through the anniversary of the accident without hurting himself. Although he is depressed, John Paul assures T.J. discovers a depressed John Paul listening to recordings of whales on the anniversary of the accident one day. John Paul, T.J.’s adoptive father, has been atoning for accidentally killing a little boy in a trucking accident thirty years before.T.J. Meanwhile, the positive developments in T.J.’s life are undercut by trouble at home and escalating tension between T.J. block their move by asking for research on the Council’s authority to intervene in a coach’s letter requirements, the decision is postponed.
The team begins to receive some support from the school, but when the members of the Athletic Council, which provides guidance on matters like athletic letters, discover that the swim team’s letter requirements are easier to achieve than they thought, the head football coach and Mike Barbour begin a campaign to prevent the swim team from lettering. is competitive on a state level, the members of the team develop a bond that allows this group of loners to thrive socially and emotionally.As they travel to their swim meets, each athlete gains a sense of belonging. He convinces Simet to set beating one’s personal best time at each competition as the requirement for lettering, a standard that sounds difficult to people who are unfamiliar with swimming but that is easily achieved by inexperienced swimmers. recruits Chris (a strong swimmer), a one-legged swimmer, a drug-free bodybuilder, a genius, a swimmer who is overweight, and a swimmer who refuses to talk. T.J., who has been the target of racial taunts from football players Rich Marshall and Mike Barbour since he tried to stop Rich from killing a baby deer several years before, agrees to be the anchor and primary recruiter for the team after he witnesses these players bullying Chris Coughlin, a developmentally-challenged classmate, for wearing his deceased brother’s athletic letter jacket.Ĭonvinced that the creation of the swim team, which he names the Mermen, is the perfect chance to undercut the favoritism shown to athletes at Cutter High, T.J. The inciting incident of the novel occurs when T.J., a skilled swimmer who refuses to participate in organized high school sports, agrees to help his English teacher, John Simet, recruit a swim team.
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