Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for the affections of Mary Abbott, a professor's daughter.

Evelyn breaks her engagement to Tom because she finds Marion Thorne hidden in his apartments when she and her mother visit him. Tom cannot explain without involving Evelyn's brother, who has become entangled with Marion. From this false start a chain of disasters grow until Tom, after rowing his crew to victory, is denounced on the float as the betrayer of Marion by her infuriated brother, but there is still a spark of manhood left in young Ames, and he clears up the misunderstandings.—Moving Picture World synopsis