Losers Take All

Gr 7 Up—"This is not a typical story about the birth of a sports team dynasty…" warns 18-year-old Jack Logan. It's his senior year at Fremont High (aka Muscles High), where the jocks reign supreme. Even though he comes from a family of athletes, Jack himself has never shown much prowess on the field. So when an oppressive new principal takes over and makes it a rule that every single student must participate in a sport, Jack, along with some nonathletic friends, decides to create a third-string soccer team called The Losers, with the school's part-time Latin teacher at the helm. Tensions mount between The Losers and the jocks as their mission to dramatically lose on purpose attracts more and more attention from the student body as well as the local media. Jack then begins to wrestle with the idea that maybe avoiding victory isn't all it's cracked up to be. While this book addresses the excessive emphasis that some schools can place on athletics and the effect that has on students, it's equally one about parent/child bonds. Jack's father never got to fulfill his own professional athletic dreams, so by projecting them onto his son, he creates a strain on their relationship. Many teens will relate to the pressures that adults can sometimes unfairly place upon them.