Hail to the Chiefs

Book excerpt: In 1969, five players from a powerhouse high school soccer program enroll at Bainbridge University, where football is everything and soccer has only just become a varsity sport. Worse yet, the coach has never played the game, the upcoming schedule is a killer, and the Bainbridge team has only won two games in the past year. Life is about to become very challenging for these freshman used to being winners. Andrew Paxton, a captain of the former high school soccer team, is now sharing a dorm room with his best friend and star teammate, Brian Barrett. But trouble soon brews when Barrett clashes with the coach and members of the football team. Paxton, ever loyal to his best friend, has his own share of problems. He has silently and agonizingly carried a torch since the seventh grade for Barrett's ex-girlfriend, who followed him to Bainbridge hoping to win him back. Meanwhile, the soccer team faces one hurdle after another when Barrett threatens to quit, the team loses one of its stars to injury, and the coach's inexperience becomes painfully obvious. During a time when soccer was still in its infancy in the United States, the players must try to turn around a losing college program and, in the process, come to grips with the realities of friendship and love.