John Carluccio (Paul Carafotes) is the star running back on his high school football team until the district’s new chief doctor (Dennis Patrick) rules that John can no longer play because he’s partially deaf and wears a hearing aid.  Coach Rizzo (Val Avery) protests but John is off the team.  John stops hanging out with his squeaky clean best friend (William R. Moses) and instead becomes friends with the school delinquent (Stephen Nichols).  John starts smoking pot and gets a bad attitude.  Whenever anyone tries to help him or suggests that he can live a productive life even without football, John gets angry.  Can his new girlfriend (Demi Moore) turn his life around?

I really wanted to feel bad for John and cheer him on as he fought to be allowed to play football but he was such a mopey character that it was hard.  He acted like the rest of the team should have refused to play until he was allowed to rejoin them.  It didn’t help that the new running back was just as good as John ever was.  Eventually, John discovered that he loved music and Demi Moore but even all of that felt like it came out of nowhere.  I know a lot of people who have had setbacks as bad as John’s who managed to get through them without treating everyone around them terribly.

Demi Moore is the big “name” here but she’s only in the movie for a few minutes.  I recognized a few of the other actors.  William R. Moses later played Ken Malansky in the Perry Mason movies and Stephen Nichols will always be Patch on Days of our Lives.

If you’re looking for football action, you won’t find it here.  My choice, if I could do it again?  Don’t watch.