In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. In spite of everything --- including the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment of the late 1930s --- by their third year, they'd be declared the greatest swimmers in the world, but they'd also face their greatest obstacle: the dawning of a world war and the cancellation of the Games. Still, in 1948, they'd have one last chance for Olympic glory.