Their teacher gives them a speech telling them to man up because he had to while a soldier in Vietnam. As school finishes up, Mitch asks his teacher, on behalf of his friends Carl, Tommy and Hirschfelder, if he'll let them go early to avoid the seniors gunning for them.
Mitch is directly named by Benny and his friends tell him to take off in a different direction to take the heat off themselves. Right before they left, Jodi, older sister to Mitch, had asked the guys to go easy on Mitch, which Benny immediately dismisses. If they run, then it's open season all summer. If the kids voluntarily give themselves up right after school, they'll only be paddled a single time. Benny announces to the students in the junior high over his CB radio that they'll be gunning for all the new freshmen. Also joining them is O'Bannion, a senior who flunked out and is returning. Pink, Don, Benny and Melvin all pile into Benny's pickup and drive to the junior high. Pink is also harassed by his coach because he hangs out with friends who belong to the school's stoner crowd. Though his teammates have signed with the intention of ignoring the new pledge anyway, Pink refuses, believing it to be another oppressive form of control. Don also hands Pink a slip of paper from their coach that every player is now required to sign: the document declares that no team player will do any drugs or drink alcohol. A longstanding tradition has the newly-minted seniors chasing and torturing the new freshmen boys with paddles they've made themselves in wood shop. Arriving for the last day he meets with his friend Don who reminds him they have to take a brief trip over to the junior high school to torment the 8th graders who will move up to their freshman year. Randall is a sort of bridge between the cool kids like his teammates and their girlfriends and the more average students whom he also hangs out with.
Randall "Pink" Floyd is a quarterback for the school football team. Though the story doesn't have a central plot, it follows one day in the lives of several students and the trials and tribulation they go through making the transition from one grade to the next. The junior class is looking forward to the summer season and also eager to become senior students in the Fall.
It's May 28, 1976, the last day of the academic year at Lee High School.