Small, obscure St. Anthony's College, a Catholic university, is in financial straits and about to be closed. To save it, and himself from forced retirement, elderly rector Father Burke (Charles Coburn) hires a down-and-out former big-time football coach, Steve Williams (John Wayne), in hopes of building a lucrative sports program. First turning down the job, Williams later accepts it when he learns that his former wife, Anne (Marie Windsor), now remarried, complained to Social Services that he is an unfit father and plans to sue for custody of his 11-year-old daughter, Carole (Sherry Jackson). Anne’s actual aim is not to get Carole, in whom she has no interest, but rather to pressure Steve into having an affair with her.