It is narrated in the first person by the quick-witted, sarcastic, and athletic "T.J." Jones, an adopted Asian-African-European-American teenager living in Cutter, Washington, a fictional location in the Pacific Northwest's Inland Empire, set about 50 miles outside of Spokane.

The novel focuses on how T. J. jumbles together a shabby swim team of student underdogs in order to aggravate and shame his high school's elitist athletics program.

His non-involvement irritates much of the faculty, who pride themselves on the physical achievements of their students, displaying favoritism toward their star athletes, such as Mike Barbour, a vicious bully.

T. J. often finds Barbour harassing Chris Coughlin, an intellectually disabled student who must unfairly live in the wake of a widely admired older brother who died in a freak accident.

Inspired to spite the school's pretentious athletics program and its glorification of bullies like Barbour, T. J. assembles a deliberately bizarre and motley crew of six swimmers, including the cognitively slow Chris; the obnoxiously sesquipedalian Dan Hole; the bodybuilder and musician Tay-Roy Kibble; the rude, antisocial, and one-legged Andy Mott; the completely nondescript Jackie Craig; and the obese and insecure Simon DeLong.

T. J. hopes to have the whole team meet letterman requirements in order to embarrass the rest of the athletics program and their cherished school symbols.

Meanwhile, an even more vicious friend of Mike Barbour, the racist and alcoholic Rich Marshall, is a die-hard alumnus of the school's athletics program.

Rich has recently adopted the half-black illegitimate child of his young wife, Alicia, and renamed the little girl the whitest name he can think of: "Heidi."

Shocked, the rest of the athletics program, led by Barbour and a prideful teacher, Coach Benson, challenge the requirements that Simet set for the team.