53 pages • 1 hour read
John FeinsteinLast Shot
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005A 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 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Roaming the Halls”
The press conferences for the teams continue, and they’re rather bland, although Coach K is compelling and Martelli, St. Joseph’s coach, is witty. The moderator keeps saying student-athletes, and Stevie still doesn’t have a topic for his first story, so, in search of ideas, he walks to the locker rooms in the Superdome. Much to his surprise, Susan Carol joins him.
Susan Carol and Stevie argue about biases and the importance of objective journalism. Susan Carol thinks he is biased against Coach K, while Stevie thinks she is biased because of how much she likes the coach. Susan Carol admits she favors him, but if he ever did something wrong, she wouldn’t cover it up. She then names one of Coach K’s faults: He’s a Republican.
After a brief discussion of Southern stereotypes, Stevie and Susan Carol arrive at the locker rooms. A security guard stops them. Stevie is upset, so Susan Carol calmly explains who they are and shows the guard the letter from the USBWA. The guard lets them pass, but the locker rooms are unexciting, so they walk to the CBS area. They encounter more security guards and, in a poorly lit area, Chip whispers to a man in a gray suit.
The man blackmails Chip. He tells him to play extraordinarily hard against St. Joe’s and poorly against Duke in the championship. If Chip follows the plan, his dad will get a large contract, and Chip will make millions in the NBA. If Chip rebels, Minnesota State loses its wins, and his dad loses his job. Stevie and Susan Carol can’t believe this is happening; it’s unreal and makes them feel like they’re in a movie.
Chapter 6 Summary: “What Now?”
Stevie and Susan Carol aren’t sure what to do about Chip and the mysterious man, so she writes notes about Chip and the man while Stevie quickly writes his first article on his laptop and sends it to his editor. Now, Stevie can return to the pending scandal. He and Susan Carol have to do the spadework—digging—to get to the bottom of Chip’s predicament. At Minnesota State’s public practice, the young reporters spot two men in gray suits. To correctly identify the man they’re looking for, they need to hear his voice.
Stevie tells Susan Carol to use her Southern charm to get by the security guard so she can talk to the men. She wonders if he thinks she’s Scarlett O’Hara—the heroine from the epic Civil War novel and film Gone with the Wind. The plan works. With help from the Minnesota State media guide, they figure out the man is Thomas R. Whiting, an influential figure who was on the NCAA’s gambling subcommittee, serves as Minnesota State’s athletic department faculty representative, and teaches a class called “Ethics and Morals in American Society Today.”
Chapter 7 Summary: “Planning and Plotting”
Stevie and Susan Carol can’t believe that the same man who teaches a class about morals and ethics is blackmailing Chip. Up close, the duo realizes college basketball has problems. They’re not sure who to trust or believe, and Stevie thinks Chip might not be such a victim.
Susan Carol thinks they have to confide in someone, so they tell their guides, Brill and Weiss, who are somewhat skeptical but encourage the young reporters to stay alert. The teen journalists conclude that it’s up to them to prevent the fix and expose the perpetrators. They have to talk to Chip and get him on record.
Chip and Minnesota State are staying at the Marriott. Susan Carol and Stevie agree to meet early in the morning and head to the hotel together. As their dads can’t know what they’re up to, they lie about appearing on the radio. Due to the enormity of the scandal, Stevie no longer cares about his dinner with four prominent college basketball coaches. The potential fixing of the NCAA championship consumes him.
Chapter 8 Summary: “A New Friend”
At the dinner, the coaches delve into the misleading term student-athlete. They discuss the All-Star Minnesota Timberwolves player Wally Szczerbiak, who chose Miami of Ohio over Harvard, even though the latter is a top Ivy League school. The coaches make it clear that the athlete part comes first. They then tell riveting stories about other coaches, but Stevie’s mind is on Chip, Susan Carol, and the looming scandal.
In the morning, Stevie’s dad teases him over how well he’s getting along with Susan Carol. The two young reporters reunite at breakfast, and both of their dads comment on their clothes because they’re in jeans instead of dressing more professionally. The teenagers purposely wore jeans to look nonchalant and harmless.
Security is tight at the hotel. Susan Carol tells the guard Stevie is her brother, their dad is out, and they forgot their keys. The guard believes her but says she needs to speak to the manager. Instead, Susan Carol approaches a Minnesota State radio engineer, Jerry Ventura, and pretends to be a huge fan. She mentions she’s thirsty, so Ventura gives her his key so they can access the concierge lounge. She also obtains his room number. After getting sodas from the lounge, they head toward Ventura’s room to see if there’s a rooming list with Chip’s room number.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
The motif of good reporting continues in Chapter 5 as Stevie and Susan Carol argue over biases. Their dispute over Coach K and whether Stevie is too against him and Susan Carol is too for him leads to a discussion about stereotypes. She reveals her politics by criticizing Coach K for being a Republican. Stevie reveals his stereotypical view of the South by saying, “I thought everyone from the South was a Republican” (63). Circling back to the theme of illusion versus reality, Susan Carol tells Stevie, “you are just full of misconceptions” (63). She alludes to Scarlett O’Hara—the heroine in Gone with the Wind. The reference to the 1930s movie/novel turns Stevie into Rhett, Scarlett’s rakish husband, and adds to the underlying romantic elements of the story.
Stevie’s search for a topic for his first article links to the motif of good journalism. At first, Stevie wanted to write about Chip. Yet countless articles will focus on Chip, and a good journalist should aim for a unique angle and provide the reader with a story they can’t get elsewhere.
Stevie’s quest for a singular story leads to his and Susan Carol’s stumbling upon Chip and Whiting. Feinstein creates a chilling interaction with a mysterious atmosphere or environment. He has Chip and Whiting whispering and isolated from the action. Their suspicious behavior and the odd location—the loading dock—send a signal to Susan Carol and Stevie that something strange is happening.
Dialogue also plays a key role in the pivotal scene. Throughout the novel, Feinstein’s narrator doesn’t have to do much work. A fair amount of explanation falls on the characters. Through their words, the plot unfolds and moves along. The creepy discussion between Chip and Whiting lets Susan Carol and Stevie know that someone is blackmailing Chip. The dialogue doesn’t give away all of the details, but it provides enough specifics to launch the central conflict of the narrative: the scheme to force Chip to throw the championship game.
Chip’s dilemma brings Susan Carol and Stevie together and introduces the theme of teamwork. To solve the mystery, Susan Carol and Stevie will have to get along and collaborate. While he writes his story, she jots down notes about what they heard. Teamwork links to the theme of illusion versus reality since Stevie’s preconceived idea of Susan Carol as inferior shatters. The narrator says, “Stevie had to admit she [Susan Carol] was smart” (78).
The motif of honorable journalism continues when Stevie and Weiss discuss “spadework,” which means “digging up a good story” (82). To uncover who’s blackmailing Chip, Susan Carol and Stevie have to do a lot of digging. Susan Carol performs a version of the femme fatale trope, using her Southern feminine charms to get close to the two men in the gray suits. As she is a 13-year-old girl, she’s not a true femme fatale but an ironic or playful one. She’s not the female stock character causing havoc and distress as she lures men into a dangerous situation—that part is played by the men trying to fix the championship.
Irony is a literary device that plays a notable role in Chapter 7. After the teen reporters identify Whiting as the man speaking to Chip, they learn he teaches a class called “Ethics and Morals in American Society Today.” This is ironic, or surprising, since an ethical and moral person doesn’t try to blackmail a teen athlete and fix a college basketball game.
The scandal furthers the theme of illusion versus reality. Susan Carol says, “It’s easier to be a fan when you watch on TV” (90). The narrator adds, “Stevie had wanted the inside view of college ball, but he wasn’t liking what he saw. Almost no one was who they appeared to be” (91). Although the teenagers confront difficult and potentially dangerous truths, they’re determined reporters, so they’re prepared to pursue the story regardless of the consequences. As Stevie says, “[I]t looks like we’re going to have to do it ourselves” (95).
The dinner with coaches connects to the theme of illusion versus reality because, in reality, Stevie doesn’t care anymore about dining with four college basketball coaches. The coaches also dispel the illusion of the term student-athlete through Szczerbiak. Stevie and Susan Carol create illusions for their dads, allowing them to take pride in their kids’ made-up radio interviews and hiding the truth from them about the blackmailing scandal they’re investigating. Their lies are not presented as character flaws or immoral acts, in contrast to the lack of ethics demonstrated by the professor. Rather, their mistruths are for a noble cause. Likewise, reprising her femme fatale role, Susan Carol lies to the security guard and the radio engineer at Chip’s hotel to further her research for her story. Manipulating facts is presented as a necessary part of journalism, and the novel does not critique the morality of these acts.
