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43 pages 1 hour read

Mike Lupica

Travel Team

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004

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Symbols & Motifs

Basketball

Almost every character gets involved with basketball in one way or another. Throughout the novel, Danny learns about the value of players, teamwork, and how to coach because of the competition between teams. More than anything, basketball is a way for Danny to escape the world, focusing on improving his skills. At one point, Tess comments that “[t]his is your own little basketball world back here, and nobody can screw things up” (240). Several times throughout the novel, Danny goes to practice alone in his driveway to think through problems. In fact, in the beginning of the novel, when Danny receives the news that he didn’t make the travel team, he goes out and practices until dark in the square of the driveway where he feels like he can escape the world. Later, the night before the game against the Vikings, Danny goes out there after talking to his dad as a way of coping with the nerves that accompany the eve of a big game. 

The Virtual World

Many of the kids’ plans are initially hatched online. It is a nod the way that technology also often provides a way of communicating. Furthermore, it is through instant messaging that readers really get to know Tess and Danny’s dynamic. Tess first appears in person when her friend makes fun of him for not making the travel team. However, we soon learn that they are close friends, with Tess often flirting with Danny, pushing him to think more about girls by calling him “cute.” When he imagines a “Computer God” who was “monitoring all the computer monitors, checking out all conversations like this,” he is sure that this entity would know “that Tess Hewitt always managed to get the word love into the conversation with Danny Walker” (58). His relationship with Tess is very important to Danny, and as the boys gets more and more used to Colby being on the team, Tess’s relationship with Danny becomes more real, moving away from the internet and into real life when she becomes the team manager. 

Height

Basketball is a sport associated with height, and people often underestimate Danny’s skills because of his size. He begins the novel at 55 inches tall, and when he grows an inch the night that he becomes the Warriors’ coach, Lupica leads us as readers to believe that Danny will continue to grow throughout rest the of the novel. However, it is more about his emotional growth than physical. Danny immediately notices those who are taller than him, culminating in his remark that Mr. Ross is the biggest person in town and his rejection of Ross’s offer to join the Vikings. The comparison between short and tall matters much more to Danny at the start of the novel, but by its end, he realizes it is the size of his character that is most important. 

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