Bobby Langley's high school basketball scoring record has stood for more than 50 years. Ruby's Son tells how it came to be: trying to escape alcoholism, tuberculosis and the overcrowded shotgun shack where he lived, Bobby Langley spent hours and years of his childhood practicing basketball in the gym of an exclusive private school thanks to a kind coach. His childhood and high school years were years of shame and fear about the conditions his family lived in, and his mother's background as the daughter of illiterate tenant farmers who happened to be first cousins. Kind and caring people help Bobby and his family along the way, and he overcomes the stigma to enter the business world at first based on his reputation as a high school basketball hot shot.