After moving to a small Texas town, a football prodigy recovering from a concussion reluctantly joins the cross country team. There his path crosses with a teenage girl looking to escape an abusive home life, an ambitious freshman determined to prove herself, and the team’s wheelchair-using coach.

SYNOPSIS:

FINISH LINES centers on XION CARTER, a black teenage boy who loves football and sees it as his way to get a scholarship and into a good law school. But after he sustains a concussion, his plans for his future are in doubt. When his guardian AUNT TASHA gets a new job in a small town and prohibits him from playing football right away, their normally warm relationship turns cold. As they adjust to their new environment, both confront varying aspects of racism, especially given Tasha’s new role as the first black female game warden in the county’s history. When Xion tries to go behind her back and join the school’s football team, the football coach offers up a compromise: Xion could join the boys cross country team to keep him in shape and convince his aunt he is ready for more strenuous activity.

Meanwhile, Xion befriends sixteen-year-old MYKAYLA whose only motivation for running is the escape it gives her from a troubled home life. For her, home is a never-ending cycle of verbal and physical abuse between her mother ASHLEY and live-in boyfriend RUSTY—whose creepy behavior towards Mykayla is escalating. Tasha also befriends their next door neighbor STEPHEN, a single dad and music pastor whose ambitious freshman daughter LENA is set on making varsity right away. When Xion meets the cross country coach—TRENT McFADDEN—he receives an additional surprise when he sees Trent is in a wheelchair.

Initially, he declines the opportunity. It’s football he loves—not long-distance running. But when he sees no other option to change his aunt’s mind, Xion decides to give cross country a try. His first practice is disastrous, ending in vomit and humility—a shock to his system as a lifelong athlete. But driven by the hope running could be a second chance at the future he yearns for, he commits to stick with it under Trent’s guidance.