It’s 1953 Oklahoma, and Charlie Fuller,16, is well on his way to a professional career as a rodeo roper until polio strikes him down. After two years in the hospital, Charlie is released into an unforgiving world. His younger brother resents the attention Charlie has taken from him, his mother treats him like porcelain, and his father wants him to be practical…his rodeo days are over. Charlie schemes to win the Oklahoma National Rodeo Championship by refusing to tolerate the small-town prejudices against polio victims and the limitations others place on his life.