Slugfest

As the events of Slugfest challenge the characters’ expectations, the children find new ways to understand themselves and the world. From the beginning of the novel, Cleo has mixed feelings about Yash. While she appreciates his athletic talent, she is also annoyed at the privilege that those talents have afforded him. She’s shocked that he has to attend summer school to make up gym because she “always thought Yash was an overprivileged jock who has the whole school eating out of his hand” (15-16). As the summer progresses and Cleo sees Yash’s patience in training the slugs for the tournament, she realizes that Yash is more than a cocky, overprivileged jock who uses his status to get what he wants. He works hard and wants to earn his place, values that Cleo shares as an athlete. In setting aside her preconceived image of Yash as a stereotypical privileged jock, Cleo allows herself to see who he really is.

Just as Cleo learns to see beyond stereotypes in her friendship with Yash, Yash learns to set aside his own preconceived notions in interacting with the other “slugs” of summer school gym. When Yash learns that he’ll be attending a class labeled “Slugfest” for the perceived un-athleticism of its students, he immediately assumes that his class will be full of brainy people with no athletic aptitude whatsoever. This conclusion is based on years of hearing stories about Slugfest, as well as his own bitterness at being forced to retake gym when he’s the best athlete in his school. Thus, Yash is shocked to find that most of the slugs have some skill that, even if not strictly athletic, can be useful on the field or court. This understanding starts to unravel Yash’s bias, a process accelerated by Kaden. Though Kaden is the most athletically challenged kid in Slugfest, this does not mean he has no value to sports. With Kaden’s help, Yash learns new ways to think about football, including how to compensate for wind resistance when throwing the ball. The slugs’ unique talents erode Yash’s bias because he is confronted with information that proves his bias false. Once he understands how his own preconceived notions have hindered him, Yash figures out how he can use his opponents’ preconceived notions against them. When the slugs enter a football tournament, Yash leverages his classmates’ unique skills to defeat teams that expect to face no serious threat from these supposedly unathletic children. 

As a unit, the slugs show how varying beliefs and opinions can come together and form new expectations to replace outdated ones. In the early chapters, the slugs view one another as a bunch of individual kids who have been thrown together against their wills. This attitude starts to change as Mrs. Finnerty brings them together. While the kids disagree with her kid-games method, they can’t deny that the activities foster a sense of community, as seen by how the kids volunteer to spend time together to help Yash train. Through both Slugfest itself and Yash’s sessions, the kids start to see how their unique skillsets combine to create something new, particularly after they decide to play in the football tournament. Having something to work toward brings a sense of teamwork to the practices. Instead of individuals using their talents when it best suits each of them, the kids combine their speed, throwing skills, and motivational rallying toward a united front. With Mrs. Finnerty as a coach, the kids become a team, which changes what they expect from one another. Instead of individual moments, they expect group support. This change allows them to make it to the final round of the football tournament and reveals the power of changing expectations on a larger scale.