A talented but arrogant young basketball star learns to lead, to share, and to love.
Johnny B. Good is at Lehigh College on a basketball scholarship for the Mountain Eagles men's team. Nancy Jones, daughter of the college president, is pursuing a degree in education and has a serious crush on Johnny. She’s there at all the games supporting him, but he seldom notices her. Shortly after being drafted into the NBA, an injury takes Johnny out of the game forever.
At first, he thinks he might try to be an on-air sportscaster, but he does not have a broadcast journalism background and would have to take an unpaid internship to start the different career. Then he tries teaching business and history classes at a local community college but is bored and uninterested in teaching students who do not take his class seriously. After he erupts at the students, he is fired.
As a last resort, when Johnny is just about to move back home with his mother, Nancy’s father calls on behalf of Nancy to ask him to coach the basketball team. Nancy is now an assistant professor at the college. The president gives his condolences to Johnny for his sports injury and wishes Johnny had a long career in the NBA but coaching the college team seems to be a perfect fit. After a moment of silence, Johnny agrees to take the job.
Johnny is hard on the lax, unmotivated team; but Nancy confronts him and begs him to be friends with the team players, instead of bullying them. Her encouragement works, and Johnny actually begins to take notice of the young woman who has always been his biggest fan and now also it seems, his best friend.
Little by little, Johnny’s coaching gets better, and so does the team. The college has its most successful basketball team ever. And when Nancy agrees to marry him, Johnny becomes a winner for the rest of his life.