of a student from another high school? This is the case with the protagonist, Jimmy. A private school tries to recruit him but treat him like crap. Soon, Jimmy decides to go to their rival school (Punahou), further fueling the animosity of the school he spurned. Jimmy's statement that the school who tried to recruit him (San Pedro) infuriates San Pedro football players prompts them to take action against Jimmy. These San Pedro athletes also hate Jimmy's ability to interact with pretty girls, believing that he shouldn't have the ability to do so. When they learn Jimmy is in a relationship with a girl who spurned him, they plot to ruin that relationship, succeeding. Jimmy threatens to expose San Pedro's recruitment of him (which would ruin San Pedro's reputation as they keep stating they don't recruit) but runs into blackmail from San Pedro kids. Soon, they find that Jimmy is in a relationship with another attractive lady and ruin that relationship as well. The beef cools after that since one San Pedro student almost tells the school that they've been harassing Jimmy's female friends. But when Jimmy taunts them in a basketball game he's part of, it sparks the battle. Further fueling the battle is Jimmy's role in ruining the plans of the San Pedro boys to stalk girls at a party. When Jimmy keeps them from stalking girls and threatening to report them, the beef intensifies. Yet, these are the kind of people who would blackmail Jimmy to hide that information. Would there be any motive for the San Pedro kids to keep battling Jimmy? And what are ways that the feud could keep going? What would inspire them to keep Jimmy at Punahou instead of getting him expelled? Remember, they hate Jimmy and they hate that Punahou was able to accept him and have him play for them. If they hate Punahou so much, they'd try and kick him out. Would making their attempts to kick Jimmy out of Punahou backfire be a good idea to keep the story going? If you need me to be more coherent, just ask.
Learning a secret of one of the more popular kids in the school he was looking at, and they feel threatened by it, even if the MC has no intention of saying a word. Would be easy to toss in a reference to that person whose secret it is, during the game, to spark the rivalry. The secret could be anything from finding out the other kid is gay (with friends who would spurn him if they knew) to having an abusive parent, or a drug problem... there are lots of things that could be secretive. The thing is, in this situation, the other kid would have to have enough "pull" with his group that they would not question why he wants to bother the MC. They would just go along with it because other kid said to. I lean toward the head popular kid, because this would go with the herd mentality in high school.
I love your suggestion. The secret would be their recruitment of kids from other schools. But he can't totally prove it until he shows them documents that incriminate them. This prompts the San Pedro kids to try to blackmail him. Unfortunately, the San Pedro kids fail, which is the comedic point of the story. When they fail, they blame their failures on Jimmy. Like my suggestion?
