43 pages • 1 hour read
Mike LupicaTravel Team
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Danny is shorter than other kids and is often to be thought to be younger than his twelve years. However, he is very talented at basketball, knowing that “[o]ne good passer changes everything” (3). Danny believes this is why he almost always makes the team. His favorite place to practice is his driveway, which his mom has tried to widen. There, he imagines himself as famous shorter players like Muggsy Bogues or Richie Walker.
Danny stays out late in the October evening, practicing and wearing out his shoes. Danny’s parents are divorced, and he thinks about the “sneakers his mom called ‘old school,’” Danny knows that this is a euphemism for affordable. He finishes by doing five crossovers, dribbling the ball between his legs, just as he always does, though this night “was the worst night of whole life” (5). Danny has not made the basketball team this year.
As he practices, his mother, Ali, watches from inside the house. She thinks about giving him bad news that night. She reminded him that if this is the worst news of his life, then he’ll have a very good life.
A man drives past their house, seeing Danny practice in the driveway. He stops the car and gets out. Ali asks why Danny doesn’t go over to the man, Richie Walker, Danny’s father. She notes that this is a night where Danny could benefit from his father’s guidance. Ali tells Richie that Danny didn’t make the travel team because they told him he was too small.
Chapter 2 Summary
Richie goes over to Danny, who has imagined fathers who appear and put their arms out for their kids. Richie is not like that, having taught Danny the “guy hug” where there was no physical contact and “you sort of look like you’re trying guard somebody, just not too close” (10). Just like their relationship.
Richie asks if there’s anything new with him, and Danny remembers the news about the travel team. He starts crying. This surprises Richie, but, uncomfortable, he continues to talk about basketball, then asks about the tryouts.
Danny relates how Jeffrey Ross, the president of the Middletown Savings Bank, the Middletown Chamber of Commerce, and Middletown Basketball was there. He was one who called to tell Danny he didn’t make the team. Danny also overheard Ross talking to a few of the tryout evaluators that he wants to make the team physically bigger.
Chapter 3 Summary
Ali never forgave Richie for leaving her and Danny, and Danny believes that his father “had been mad at everything and everybody” his whole life” (20). Danny knows to manage his expectations of his dad so that he won’t be disappointed.
He Googles his dad. Richie, like Danny, was small for his age, taking his travel team all the way to nationals when he was twelve, which they won on national television. It made his dad famous. He went on to play for the Golden State Warriors and the NBA’s All-Rookie Team. His career ended with a car accident in San Francisco.
When his dad appears in the doorway, Danny tells him he wasn’t looking at anything.
The next morning, Danny asks if Ali knows why Richie is in town, and she says that his dad isn’t sure. She also says that he may stick around for a while. She tells him to be strong today since his friends might ask about the travel team, though he’s sure that no one else from his school made the team since he’s the best. Ali also works at the school as an eighth-grade teacher. Danny says that he’ll be okay, especially since the letters aren’t supposed to arrive with the team decisions until that afternoon.
Chapter 4 Summary
When Danny walks into St. Patrick’s School, he realizes that everyone knows that he didn’t make the team. Two girls, Tess Hewitt (who Danny likes) and Emma Carson (who he doesn’t) are waiting by his locker when he arrives. Emma asks if he’d heard about the team; he says that he didn’t make it, adding that she already knew that. Tess apologizes for him not making it. He thinks about how he thought about going online the night before to chat with her about it—or even to chat with his dad because he feels like he could have a real conversation online. As Tess and Emma leave, the former mimes a computer, implying that she’ll talk to him later.
Will Stoddard, Danny’s talkative best friend, didn’t make the team either. During their first class, he expresses his disappointment, and Danny agrees.
Chapter 5 Summary
The travel team’s first practice is that Friday, and because the gym at Springs School—the other school in Middletown—is getting a new basketball floor, practice is at Danny’s school. Usually, Danny practices in that gym, and he decides to do so until the team arrives, despite his mom’s protests. Will also tries to convince him to do something else.
Ty Ross is the first of the Middletown Vikings to appear, and Danny knows that he is a great player and a great person. Ty’s dad had wanted to be a great player but was second best in comparison to Richie. Ali tells Danny that Ross never got over it. Ty comes over to Danny, telling him that he should have made the team.
When Will leaves, Danny says that he’s meeting his mom soon, but he still has time since she is helping to run the drama club practice. He decides to watch the travel team.
Mr. Ross is the coach this year, even though Coach Kel had been working his way up from fifth to sixth and then, theoretically, to seventh. However, Mr. Ross seemed to want to coach Ty. Danny thinks about his height: 55 inches. As he watches, he notices times when his passing skills would be very useful.
Chapter 6 Summary
Danny doesn’t play basketball for a week. When his mom asks about it, he blames his knee. She tries to get him to talk about it, and, after she asks about tryouts for the YMCA basketball team, he asks, “What would you think if I didn’t, like, play basketball this year?” (53). She is surprised and notes that basketball has been a critical part of his life, saying, “You need basketball” (54). Danny replies that it doesn't seem to need him. She thinks that he should talk to his father, though Danny knows she won’t call him. He says he plans to tell him himself.
When he goes to his room, he sees that he has an instant message from Tess. She asks him what’s going on, and he shares that he might not play basketball this year. She says that basketball is part of who he is and that quitting means that the “dumb Basketball Dads win” (57).
Tess signs off by saying, “I’m just your biggest fan. Talk more tomorrow…Love, Tess” (57). She always slips “love” into the conversation, and he never stops her. Danny isn’t exactly sure how he feels about her, but he cares about her a lot. He still plans on quitting basketball, though.
Chapter 7 Summary
The McFeeley Fair is organized on the last Saturday in October each year. With Emma nowhere to be found and Will working in one of the booths, it’s just Danny and Tess at the fair. Tess takes pictures, which is her hobby. She tries to get him to participate in a pick-up game of basketball but attempts to hide her intention by saying she wants to get some photos. When they get to the court, Ty immediately picks Danny for his team.
Richie watches them from afar, noticing that Danny and Ty are a good team. Their team wins the first game, and they’re close to winning when Richie’s attention is interrupted by Jeff Ross. Richie asks why Danny didn’t make the team. When Jeff offers an excuse, Richie accuses him of being too focused on Danny’s size. Jeff retorts that size didn’t have anything to do with it. As they continue to argue, Richie angrily says, “So that’s the way it’s gonna be? You’re gonna get back at me through my kid?” (69).
Ross leaves, and Richie continues to watch the boys play.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
In this first set of chapters, Lupica lays the foundation for the novel’s themes and motifs. The theme of being the bigger person emerges in conflict between Danny and the Vikings and the history between Richie and Mr. Ross. Height makes its first of many appearances as a motif, with Danny always noticing “first how tall somebody was […] like he was comparison shopping” (48). For Danny, this comparison destroys his confidence, which is made even worse because he knows that he was left off the Vikings’ roster because of his height. Additionally, the novel foregrounds the sport of basketball and its symbolic importance to Danny as a means of escape, especially when he practices on his driveway.
There is a rift between Danny and Richie, given that Richie left his family. This rift will be healed in time, and soon, Richie will announce that he’s starting a second travel team, one for those like his son who were rejected by the Vikings. Danny isn’t sure exactly why his father is the way he is, noticing that Richie seems to be mad at everyone. As readers, we’re left wondering why. However, Richie (like Danny) develops throughout the novel, and his decision to stick around indicates that there will be a change in him and in his relationship with Danny, both of which happen through the Warriors and the way that Richie models good coaching for Danny. This marked difference between Mr. Ross and Danny touches on the theme of teamwork being about the players.
We also meet Tess, who is Danny’s sounding board and potential romantic interest. Her messages with Danny illustrate one way in which the virtual world is a recurring motif. She also later proves to be a critical member of the Warriors, joining the team as the manager after Richie’s accident. When Danny realizes that his dad’s plan is for him to coach and he gets both his mom and Tess on his side, he thinks that he will later think of “getting the answer he wanted from the two women in his life pretty much at the exact same moment” (185). Tess and Ali make their appearances as the two most important women to Danny, but slowly more and more women join the Warriors in one form or another as part of the theme of the importance of girls in sports, demonstrating the inclusivity of the team that Richie has put together.
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