The White Shadow Episode Rating Graph

The second season begins with Jackson, wanting to make some extra money, gets unknowingly involved with sports bookies. Things get especially difficult when they start offering him big money to shave points at Carver's games.

Salami sprains a knee during a pickup basketball game, and his doctor prescribes amphetamines, which he unwittingly shares with the team.

The basketball team is on a winning streak and proceeds to showboat and run up the score on their latest opponent, prompting a tongue-lashing from Reeves. With their newfound success gone to their head, the team gets cocky with the workers at a local car wash and challenges them to a pickup game at the Carver gym. The boys are unaware that the car wash workers are really members of the Harlem Globetrotters doing a benefit and Reeves has arranged for them to show the team they're really not as good as they think.

A rival coach from a predominantly white high school in the area tries to convince Reese to transfer.

Coach Reeves substitute-teaches a P.E. class, loses his temper, and hits a student, Lucius Robinson, who refuses to participate. Reeves feels guilty about the incident, learns of Lucius' troubles, and offers to help him in any way. Reeves then quickly learns that some students can't be helped when Lucius tries to rape Mrs. Buchanan.

When the team goes to Las Vegas to play in a tournament, they secretly take a pool of money collected from the students so they can gamble and return home with a fortune.

Coach Reeves begins teaching a class on sex education, but comes under fire when he makes joking comments that Albert Hodges, a new black student who is very racially sensitive, interprets as insulting to blacks. Hodges then tries to rally the black players on the team against Reeves.

The team's excitement over being invited to compete in a basketball tournament is overshadowed when the plane they're on develops mechanical trouble.

Stone saves an elderly woman's life by rescuing her from a burning car, and the experience goes to his head after he appears on the TV news and sensationalizes the story.

Coolidge starts having problems stemming from his abnormal height and size, such as normal clothes not fitting. He gets self-conscious and defensive until Coach Reeves, who has dealt with the same problems, takes him under his wing and tries to let him know he's not alone. NBA Hall-of-Famer Bill Russell guest stars.

Coach Reeves threatens to kick Falahey off the team when he suspects that he is missing practices and faking injuries. However, the coach himself looks like a hypocrite when he is summoned for jury duty and he tries to lie his way out of it.

A female teacher with a past history of mental illness and nervous breakdowns is tormented by a psychotic student.

Coach Reeves heals his strained relationship with his dying father, breaks things off once and for all with Paula, and returns to Carver for the new school year, where some new players have joined the team: Wardell Stone, Mitchell, Rutherford, Paddy Falahey, and Eddie Franklin

Salami faces possible jail time after breaking an opposing team's player's jaw during an on court brawl.

Ken Reeves, a forward with the Chicago Bulls, is forced to retire after suffering a serious knee injury. His old friend and high school teammate, Jim Willis, who is principal of Carver High near L.A., drops by to offer him a job as basketball coach. Reeves is reluctant, but agrees. Among the challenges he faces with the school and the team include a female vice principal who doesn't like him and a player, James Hayward, who has a lot of potential, but also is fatherless and may have to drop out of school to go to work and take care of his mom and little brother.

Reeves deals with a new player, Raymond Collins, who was forced to transfer from his old school because of rumors about his being gay.