Billy Walton, owner of Shaken, Not Stirred bar in Lakota, learns from Charlie Mayfield that Gabriel Fisher is playing football for Coach Beathard. Billy and Charlie attend the season opener against St. Mary’s, the defending private school champions. The stadium is packed with news trucks and crowds gathered to witness Gabriel’s size.

On the first play, Gabriel blocks four defenders simultaneously, opening a hole for Chinua to run 55 yards untouched for a touchdown. Waushara wins 73-0. Gabriel finishes the game with 29 tackles, 17 for a loss, and 11 sacks, while Chinua rushes for 485 yards and eight touchdowns in the first half alone.

The team enters their sixth game against Eastlake, the defending state champions, undefeated and unscored upon. Chinua is out with a sprained ankle. Eastlake takes a 13-0 lead, but Waushara battles back. With 37 seconds remaining and trailing 20-14, Coach Beathard calls timeout. When they return to the field, Gabriel lines up at tailback, takes the handoff, powers through multiple defenders, and carries the free safety on his back 67 yards into the end zone. Waushara wins 21-20. Amid the celebration, Billy observes that Gabriel is probably the only player without family present.

Hannah Fisher describes the period from October through the spring of Gabriel’s football season and recruitment. She and Josiah face tension over Gabriel’s decision to play, with their Amish community showing disapproval through stares and whispers. Their farm becomes a destination for curious onlookers, fans, and television crews. Hannah’s father, Absalom, confronts trespassers, once smashing a car’s headlight with his cane before Josiah pays for the headlight.

Gabriel’s football commitments limit his farm work to mornings only. He shows Hannah a drawer overflowing with recruitment letters from universities. Hannah senses that Gabriel will eventually leave for the outside world.

College coaches begin visiting regularly, and Josiah eventually stops attending the meetings. Gabriel narrows his choice to Alabama, Georgia, and Wisconsin, then travels to Madison for the state championship game and accepts a scholarship to play for Wisconsin. He remains at home for eight more months before leaving for college. Though Josiah’s relationship with Gabriel improves during this time, Hannah lives with daily sorrow about his impending departure.

Trey reflects that Gabriel defied every coaching principle about hard work beating talent. Gabriel never lifted weights or ran for conditioning, yet he dominated opponents completely. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.9 seconds, had a 36-inch vertical jump, and could lift a 400-pound blocking sled.

Trey tried to prepare Gabriel and his grandparents for the inevitable media attention, but the frenzy exceeded all expectations. Gabriel received over 100 pieces of mail daily. The circus, the World Wrestling Federation, and dozens of basketball programs contacted them. A Chinese shoe company offered Gabriel an endorsement. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story, and ESPN covered every game. Journalists uncovered Trey’s troubled past, but Billy Walton defended him in a profanity-laden television interview that went viral, and the community stood by Trey.

The team advanced to the championship game against Eastlake at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison before over 50,000 people. When Eastlake used smaller, faster players to neutralize Gabriel’s blocking, Trey moved Gabriel into the backfield and ran wedge plays that Eastlake could not stop. Waushara won 61-13.

After the game, multiple Division I coaches offered Trey jobs if he brought Gabriel with him. Trey declined, content with his new life and his relationship with Merryn.

After Gabriel leaves for college, Lakota returns to quiet normalcy. Billy Walton redecorates his bar in University of Wisconsin Badger colors. Trey Beathard and Merryn Mouglalis marry on the high school football field.

Gabriel struggles with the overwhelming scale of college life, emailing Thomas frequently for support. On the football field, he quickly joins the starting lineup after dominating the first-team defense in practice. He cannot walk across campus without being followed by gawkers, and classroom desks cannot accommodate him, so he sits on the floor.

His roommate, Colt Bender, an extroverted offensive lineman from Nebraska, takes Gabriel to parties, where Gabriel meets Isabella. While dancing with Bella, he accidentally punches through ceiling tiles. They spend the rest of the night walking and talking by the lake, and Gabriel emails Thomas asking if what he feels for Isabella is love. Thomas reflects on his own marriage before offering cautious, supportive advice.

Thomas learns from television news that Gabriel has set university weightlifting records. In his first college game, Gabriel plays in the second half of a blowout victory, dominating an opposing player who calls him a “freak.” His only disappointment is missing the chance to see the opposing team’s mascot, a peregrine falcon, up close.

Billy starts Billy’s Badger Bus, charging fans $100 to ride to Wisconsin home games with unlimited beer and two rail drinks. All 40 seats sell out before each game.

In his sophomore season, Gabriel is a Heisman favorite. He has gained significant muscle mass and is utterly dominant. When Wisconsin plays defense, the band plays the theme from the movie Jaws.

The undefeated Badgers face one-loss Ohio State on a perfect October day. Wisconsin leads 20-3 at halftime. The game grows physical in the third quarter, and Wisconsin extends its lead to 27-6. Early in the fourth quarter, the Ohio State quarterback fakes left. Gabriel pivots to follow, his right leg planted. Three Ohio State linemen drive into Gabriel’s right knee simultaneously. Gabriel collapses, his knee brace shattered, his lower leg bent at an unnatural angle. Colt Bender kneels beside him, holding his hand while Gabriel cries. Officials evacuate the stadium so that a helicopter can land and transport Gabriel to University Hospital. Wisconsin wins 27-20, but no one celebrates.

At a televised news conference the next day, the lead surgeon explains that Gabriel suffered catastrophic injuries. Emergency surgery saved Gabriel’s life, but irreversible tissue death prevented limb reconstruction, and his right leg was amputated above the knee.

Hannah’s faith is shaken by news of Gabriel’s amputation. She finds no comfort in scripture and digs furiously in the garden until late at night, her prayers dissolving into blasphemy. Josiah finds her outside at 11 pm and leads her inside to a prepared bath. Unable to sleep, Hannah retrieves her mother’s hidden book of Emily Dickinson poems from the cedar trunk and reads by candlelight. She finds solace in the poems her mother annotated and falls asleep in her chair.

Josiah wakes her in the morning with the news that Gabriel is coming home. A social worker visits to prepare them, explaining modern prosthetics and their capabilities. Josiah builds a wheelchair ramp and converts part of the living room into Gabriel’s bedroom.

Gabriel arrives in early December, physically larger and bearded, with elaborate tattoos covering both arms—a team tradition, he explains. He struggles with the lack of electricity and internet, which he needs to charge his phone and prosthetic leg batteries. He mentions his girlfriend, Isabella, and his 7 million Twitter followers.

Gabriel receives many visitors, including Thomas Kennedy, Coach Beathard, Billy Walton, college teammates, and Isabella. Hannah soon realizes Gabriel is growing restless and unhappy with the limitations of Amish life. Understanding that the outside world has changed him and that he needs things they cannot provide, she asks Josiah to call Thomas and request that he take Gabriel in.

Josiah and Hannah take Gabriel to live with Thomas. Thomas trades his truck for a larger one modified to fit Gabriel, now measured at eight feet, seven inches tall. A physical therapist visits regularly, and Gabriel receives frequent visitors, including college friends, Isabella, and locals. Hannah visits often, playing cards with Gabriel and updating him on farm news.

Gabriel asks Thomas about his mother, Rachel, and his unknown father. He reveals that his grandfather Absalom had called him “abhorrent in [God’s] sight” (182). In mid-January, Thomas takes Gabriel to Madison to be fitted for a temporary prosthetic leg. By late March, Gabriel walks a mile daily without assistance, and in April, Thomas officially hires him as his veterinary assistant. They work together delivering foals and goat kids.

After receiving his permanent prosthesis in June, the community throws Gabriel a party at Billy Walton’s bar. Soon after, Thomas notices Gabriel becoming restless and withdrawn. Gabriel confesses that he feels like a failure whose gifts are being wasted. Thomas suggests returning to college, but Gabriel refuses if he cannot play football.

Gabriel begins receiving secretive phone calls and eventually reveals that he has been offered a contract to become a professional wrestler. Edward Wainright, CEO of a Hong Kong-based company, is offering him $100,000 to train for six months in London. Gabriel tells Thomas he wants to accept.

Gabriel prepares to leave for London to become a professional wrestler. Hannah spends as much time with him as possible. When Gabriel tries to show her wrestling videos, she refuses to watch, explaining she does not want to share in that part of his life.

Hannah is devastated, having hoped Gabriel would return to the Amish community after his injury. Gabriel explains his desire to see the world. Hannah reflects on her mother’s saying that you “cannot put a pumpkin back into its seed” (190), meaning that certain things cannot be undone. She worries worldly pursuits will pull him too far from God.

In Gabriel’s final week at home, Hannah embroiders a dish towel with a passage from Rules of a Godly Life, a book passed down from her grandmother, decorating it with images of animals, pumpkins, and their buggy. She gives it to him as a farewell gift, instructing him to open it on the airplane. She does not believe this small token will protect Gabriel from the temptations of the outside world, but she hopes it will remind him of the goodness in his heart and of God’s protective grace.