Two Games, That's All I Ask
Weekend morning.
Ordinarily he would have been sleeping in, savoring a lazy stretch of downtime at home—but there was no time for that today.
"I can't believe Alabama actually reached out."
Even as he changed his clothes, Tyrone couldn't shake the feeling that he was living inside a dream.
It had been barely four months since he took over at Wichita North High School. For a scout from Alabama to take an interest in a player he'd discovered in that span of time was nothing short of astonishing.
And it was the very school I'd dreamed of attending, too.
Tyrone had been an NFL bench player. Fewer than ten games across his entire pro career—hardly a standout. That was exactly why he'd ended up choosing Kansas State University. A decent school in its own right, but compared to the football powerhouses known as "Blue Bloods," it fell painfully short.
And Alabama sat at the very summit of those Blue Bloods.
The dream school of every high school football player in the country. Rumor had it the program wouldn't even glance at anyone below 5-Star Recruit status.
"Heh heh heh. Well, to be fair, Jaehyuk's the kid who demolished a 4-star recruit by an overwhelming margin."
"Dad, where are you going?"
As he smirked and readied himself to head out, Tyrone's ten-year-old son appeared, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Scooping the boy up in his arms, Tyrone answered in a voice brimming with excitement.
"Alabama sent us a guest today, so I have to go in to work. You know Alabama, right, buddy?"
"Whoa! Alabama!"
"They've come to see the Redline you watched at the stadium, son."
Tyrone's son nodded, eyes sparkling, then gave his father's back a hearty pat-pat with his palm.
"Good luck! You have to send the Redline to Alabama!"
"Ha ha. Right. Dad will go make a good case for him."
Since yesterday's game, the phone calls had come pouring in from every direction. Senior and junior colleagues who hadn't bothered keeping in touch, and college contacts already saved in his phone. Somehow, even complete strangers from places he had no connection to had managed to track him down.
Well, anyone who watched a performance like that and still couldn't recognize talent would have to be an idiot.
Of course, Jaehyuk tended to shine only in live competition. There was some worry he might post unremarkable numbers at tryouts or the Combine down the line. But surely he wouldn't deliberately sandbag his ability on a stage that important? No matter how much of a game-day-only competitor he was, even Jaehyuk wouldn't do something that foolish in front of college officials or at the NFL Scouting Combine.
"Have a good day! Get the Redline's autograph too!"
"Will do. I'm off."
David had hopped on the earliest dawn flight the day before, routing through Dallas, and arrived in Wichita after five grueling hours. After catching a few hours of sleep in whatever hotel happened to be closest, he reached the school grounds that quiet weekend morning—and there, Alabama's chief scout finally met Sanders.
"Well, I'll be! Never imagined I'd see you running a high school program, Mr. Sanders!"
"Been a while, David."
The two went way back—acquainted long before David had ever become a scout for Alabama.
"A sports reporter for some little newspaper back in the day, and now the chief scout for Alabama. You never know which way the world will turn."
"Ha ha. Stay in an industry long enough, I suppose, and days like this come around. Speaking of which, Mr. Sanders—how on earth did you come to take charge of a high school team?"
"Me? Didn't give it much thought at first, honestly..."
After a brief pause, Sanders suddenly looked off at something in the distance and let out a quiet chuckle.
"Some brat set a fire in my chest, that's how."
"Hello there!"
A group was just approaching where Sanders was looking—Tyrone, along with Jaehyuk's family. People who'd arrived considerably earlier than he'd expected, though he'd been hoping to ask a few questions about Jaehyuk himself.
First things first—he scanned Jaehyuk from head to toe.
Athletic clothes, hair a mess. A tired expression, as if he'd only just rolled out of bed.
Even younger than I imagined!
In the footage he'd replayed hundreds of times on the flight over, the kid had been wearing a helmet, the footage was grainy, and the camera angle was distant—his face had been impossible to make out. David had reviewed recordings of the earlier games as well, but none of them caught the boy's face. This was the first time he was seeing it.
"Welcome, David! This here is Jaehyuk—or rather, Redline21—and these are his family members."
"It's an honor. I'm David Johnson, chief scout for the University of Alabama. My sincere apologies for dropping in unannounced on a weekend like this."
"Oh, no, not at all! Ahem."
Kim Kyungtae coughed nervously into his fist, while Park Heewon kept fussing with the wrinkles in her clothes. Eunbi and Minhyuk, by contrast, stared at David with wide, curiosity-filled eyes.
And only Jaehyuk stood there, looking utterly indifferent, gazing blankly ahead.
"So you're Redline 21. Pleasure to meet you. And thank you sincerely for making time on a Saturday."
"Kim Jaehyuk."
The two men shook hands. Even through the handshake, David never stopped observing him.
As expected, he's small. But he's a running back—so long as his performance holds up, it won't be much of a problem.
Had he only shown out in that one recent game, David would have agonized considerably over his physical measurables. But after studying the full regular season on the plane, he'd concluded it wasn't a pressing concern. If Jaehyuk followed Alabama's curriculum—every ounce of it dedicated to football—then most of those physical limitations would be resolved.
Truly baffling. Why has a player like this gone unnoticed?
From the looks of it, no other Blue Blood had come knocking yet. This was a super-elite prospect just waiting to be claimed.
"Shall we continue this conversation inside?"
On the way to the school's administrative office, David couldn't help noticing the facilities. They were in worse shape than he'd anticipated. To the eyes of Alabama's chief scout, it beggared belief that anyone could train here at all. It seemed equally miraculous that a super-elite prospect like Jaehyuk had come out of a place like this.
There were a few other standouts besides the Redline, though.
Liam and James, was it? Honestly, if Jaehyuk hadn't been there, either of them would have turned plenty of heads on their own. Though in James's case, he'd logged only a single appearance in the previous game—he'd simply made it spectacular. David chalked it up to the Barry Sanders effect, then settled into a chair in the office they'd finally reached.
All the while, Jaehyuk had followed along in complete silence. A quiet little Asian kid, huh, David mused, pulling a tablet out of his bag.
"First, I should apologize once more for showing up so suddenly. But after watching you play yesterday, I simply couldn't sit still. Jaehyuk, I've come in person because I want to have a serious conversation about your future. Our Alabama program..."
Swiping through the tablet, David gave a brief but impressive rundown of Alabama's storied football history and tradition, its cutting-edge training facilities, its elite coaching staff, and its record of producing NFL legends.
His family listened with shining eyes, drinking in every word of the man's proud presentation. Jaehyuk himself, however, just watched on with a blank expression.
"We've been searching for a player with your kind of special talent. And I'm confident our program can add a whole new dimension of dynamism to a player like you."
"Hmm."
His appetite was definitely whetted. For Jaehyuk, who'd so far received only the most rudimentary training, the talk of scientific conditioning methods and state-of-the-art facilities did make his ears perk up a little.
But the thing that actually mattered was something else entirely.
"So—if I go to Alabama, when can I start playing?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
David was momentarily dumbstruck. High schoolers who received an offer from Alabama typically welled up with gratitude—or at the very least, excitement. Yet this Asian boy was calmly, coolly pressing him about playing time.
While his family and the coaches were still reeling, David cleared his throat and spoke.
"Ahem. Jaehyuk, Alabama is where the best players in the country gather. Competition for starting spots is fierce, naturally."
"I'm well aware."
"...We rate your talent extremely highly. The coaching staff will spare no support to help you adapt to the team and showcase your ability as quickly as possible. That said, your final playing time will depend on what you prove during training camp and the scrimmages."
David took it for the grumbling of a boy who hadn't yet learned how the world worked. And then came Jaehyuk's next words.
"Dave, was it? I have no intention of making things hard for you, either. So how about this?"
"...?"
"The KSHSAA regular season isn't over yet. The state championship hasn't happened either."
"That's right."
"We'll win it."
At Jaehyuk's declaration, the air in the room seemed to freeze over. No—it only felt that way.
This feeling...
David had met and dealt with countless people over the years, among them top-tier players who were currently tearing it up in the NFL. And there was one thing they'd all had in common.
Fwoosh.
A flicker of something maddened and blazing danced in Jaehyuk's oddly gleaming eyes.
Yes. That madness.
A burning flame kindled by nothing but faith in oneself.
"I'm not asking for the moon. If we win the state championship this week, all I want is a guaranteed appearance in exactly two college games—the season opener and the one after it. That's it."
"..."
Fourteen years of scouting experience behind him, and not once had a high schooler ever put terms like these on the table.
"If that makes you nervous, add a performance clause. If my showing in the opener is terrible, cancel the second appearance too—I'll defer to the school's judgment without a word of complaint."
"H-ha ha ha..."
Listening to Jaehyuk lay it all out, David finally burst out laughing.
Then, a brief silence. David needed time to think, too.
Audacious kid.
The terms were one thing, but...
David liked this young man's swagger. As Alabama's chief scout, he almost never moved personally—usually the lower-level scouts handled that. That alone made this an exceptional situation, and whether or not this kid grasped that, no one had ever had the gall to play hardball with Alabama quite like this.
He wants two guaranteed games because of that, I'd wager.
Proof. And confidence.
Yes—the Redline was confident he could prove himself. In just two games, no less.
Still, David refused to judge rashly. Setting aside Jaehyuk's self-assurance, college football—and the Southeastern Conference above all—was a stage you dismissed at your peril.
Last year, Major League Baseball averaged roughly 30,000 fans per game. The NBA sat around 20,000. But college football—and the SEC, home to Alabama—drew an average of 100,000 spectators every single game.
Attendance alone couldn't measure a sport's popularity or supremacy, but it spoke volumes about how enormous—and how elite—college football truly was.
"I don't normally say things like this from my side of the table, but... could you give me a little time?"
"Of course. Though other schools might come to see me in the meantime."
"I understand that well enough. Actually, there's something else—I'm too curious to let it go."
"Curious about what?"
When Jaehyuk asked, puzzled, David answered with a voice that sounded ten years younger.
"Your games. I want to see them live."
The atmosphere he'd felt only through a screen. It was nothing more than video, and yet the eruption of cheers and heat had made him wonder—was this really a high school league?
Packed stadiums were common in college football. In fact, they were so common that David had long since stopped feeling anything about them.
But this many fans. This much heat. Generated at a high school?
I want to see it with my own two eyes.
A hunch that this kid wasn't merely good on paper. Yes—Redline 21 had the makings of a franchise star, the kind who set every heart in the stadium alight. And to gauge that potential, David wanted to watch with his own eyes before rushing into any commitment. It was, in truth, a man who trusted data above all else returning, for one moment, to the beginner's heart of his first scouting years.
"Ha ha ha! Yes, yes. Watching for yourself before you judge—not a bad instinct at all. That's exactly how I fell for this kid."
Sanders roared with laughter. Come to think of it, he'd said earlier that someone had set a fire in his chest when he took the high school job.
"Heh heh. Jaehyuk, it seems you have a gift for setting people's hearts on fire."
"I just play football well. That's all."
Even his closing line—perfect.
In his mind, Jaehyuk was already crossing the field as a member of the Alabama Crimson Tide.
After David left, the weekend rolled over into another weekday.
Our team's record now stood at 6-0. Blue Valley, sitting at a nearly identical mark, had stumbled into a loss nobody saw coming and dropped to 5-1. The result: we held onto first place by an overwhelming margin.
Thanks to that, the whole school was buzzing these days. Every single day felt like a festival.
"Jaehyuk! Jaehyuk!"
Then came afternoon practice, right after classes. James came barreling over, out of breath, and immediately started making a scene.
"What? Calm down and spit it out."
"Me! Me! I got a scout offer! From a college! They said an offer came in!"
Oh. So someone finally paid a visit to this dim-witted bear of a man.
I nodded and gave him a halfhearted congratulations.
"Good for you. You'll be starting every game from now on, so plenty more offers will roll in."
"Huh? But I already agreed to sign with one."
"...What?"
I was in the middle of grabbing my shoes from the locker, and I felt all the words drain out of my brain as I turned around. James flinched and started fidgeting. The guy had a mountain for a body and the attention span of a squirrel. Unbelievable.
"You agreed?"
"N-no, I haven't signed anything yet. It was more of a, uh, verbal agreement...?"
"You absolute idiot. Did you tell the coaches?"
"Huh? O-oh, not yet. I came to tell you first, actually. It's all thanks to you, you know."
Well—of course he was over the moon. This was a kid who'd spent every game of his career on the bench, never once given the chance to step onto the field. He'd probably never even dreamed of playing college football.
And astonishingly, this guy was a grade above me. Graduation was right around the corner for him.
But still...
Nope. Can't take it anymore.
Get over here and let me hit you, you blockhead.