A Locker Full of Broken Shoes
The KSHSAA playoff semifinals had come to an end.
The two teams headed to the championship: Wichita North and Blue Valley.
They had climbed their way up with scores of 37:29 and 43:10, respectively.
Wichita North clearly had the harder time of it, all things considered...
David Johnson, chief scout for the University of Alabama, had decided to stay at a hotel near Wichita until the final kicked off the following Saturday.
His junior scout, Russell, was out attending a meeting with Liam Hughes' parents.
In the meantime, David pulled out his laptop and opened it up.
Minutes later, as the video conference connected, Arthur Harrison, the athletic director at the University of Alabama, and Kalen DeBoer, head coach of the football team, appeared on his screen.
"David, I've read your report on the semifinal that just wrapped up. Even the highlight clips alone were impressive. What did you think in person?"
Perhaps it was because he'd seen countless prodigies over the years as routinely as he ate his meals, but the athletic director's question carried a ritual politeness devoid of any real excitement.
"Better than expected. After evaluating five games in person, I can confirm he's an outstanding prospect worthy of our Alabama."
"Hmm, that good, you say? Of course, I watched the same footage, but it's still just the high school level. That kind of performance, I believe, could be found in plenty of other players."
At Arthur's offhand remark, David nearly lost his composure for a moment.
'Found in plenty of other players?'
Apparently the man hadn't actually read the reports David had sent. Otherwise, how could anyone say such a thing?
And if that wasn't it, then the man was simply too well fed and too comfortable to care.
'Tsk.'
Alabama might be called the strongest football dynasty in the nation, but ever since the 2020 national championship and the 2021 runner-up finish, and especially after head coach Nick Saban's retirement last year, the program had been sliding downhill.
This season's record: nine wins, four losses.
A streak of double-digit victories every single season, sixteen years running, had finally shattered.
It was a lucky mercy that they'd at least won the Iron Bowl against Auburn, their greatest rival — otherwise the fallout would have been catastrophic.
And yet here was Athletic Director Arthur, still living in the past.
"Director, of course we have to account for the fact that this is high school competition. But video alone captures barely half of what Kim Jaehyuk truly is."
At the force of David's impassioned plea, Arthur finally showed a flicker of interest.
And Kalen DeBoer, who had been quietly watching the two of them go back and forth, seemed thoroughly entertained by the exchange.
"What I want to emphasize is that he's not a player who merely stacks up statistics. As you saw in today's semifinal, he creates momentum-shifting plays with his own hands at every critical juncture of a game."
Arthur was right about one thing — players who simply ran well were a dime a dozen.
Players who could do nothing but run.
But Jaehyuk was different.
The kid had a very real chance of becoming a franchise star.
"His judgment surpasses what opposing defenses expect, his movement is impossible to predict, and his clutch ability shows up at the decisive moment. Frankly, Director, those are qualities you won't easily find in any 'other player.'"
"Ahem."
Arthur cleared his throat, looking distinctly displeased. Even so, David pushed through and finished what he had to say.
"Furthermore, his impact on the team as a whole is enormous. It showed indirectly even in the Desttrroying channel interview — his teammates trust him absolutely and follow him without question. Over the past five games, I've seen with my own eyes how the mere fact of him standing on the field visibly transforms the team's morale and performance."
It was then that Kalen DeBoer, silent until now, finally opened his mouth.
His voice was calm, but there was a razor's edge hidden beneath it.
"I understand your assessment, David. His explosiveness and game instincts are certainly eye-catching. But whether he can fit into our system, and whether that small frame of his can survive among the physical monsters of the SEC — those are separate questions. You know as well as I do how fast and powerful the linebackers in our conference are."
An East Asian athlete. A body not yet fully developed. Durability still unproven.
There were, admittedly, no shortage of concerns.
But David considered all of it a non-issue.
"Of course physical development is essential, Coach. But that's precisely what our Alabama training program — the best in the league — exists to handle. I'd call it a solved problem."
"Fair point."
It was then that Arthur stepped in.
"The problem doesn't end there."
"What else is holding things up?"
"The condition. The condition is the problem."
The condition.
It was the guaranteed playing time Jaehyuk had demanded.
A brief silence fell over the call.
It was an unprecedented request — one far harder to accept than a simple demand for money would have been.
Any other university might have seriously weighed it. But this was Alabama Crimson Tide.
The gathering place for the nation's most monstrous five-star prospects.
Guaranteed playing time was not something this program could promise lightly.
"Hah. Even hearing it again, the sheer nerve of the kid. Demanding conditions like that from Alabama of all places."
DeBoer shook his head as well.
Then he let out a sigh and continued.
"This is a matter of principle. Every player who joins this team proves himself through competition. Granting special privileges to one player would poison the locker room."
"I understand completely. But Coach, he's no ordinary prospect. And while we hesitate, other schools certainly won't be sitting on their hands."
"Then how about this? If he accepts one additional condition, I won't say another word about it."
DeBoer glanced at Arthur as if seeking his agreement, and Arthur nodded along, as if willing to at least hear it out.
"I hear that, thanks to you, he'll be participating in the camp held early next year? The one for the top high school prospects in the country?"
"That's correct."
"I'll go myself. And I'll see Kim Jaehyuk with my own eyes."
At DeBoer's words, Arthur and David both wore startled expressions.
"You're attending the camp in person, Coach?"
"I'll take a look at the other prospects while I'm at it. As you know, I only just took over this year and the atmosphere hasn't been great. A change of scenery and a chance to scout — nothing wrong with that."
DeBoer had arrived after the retirement of Nick Saban, a coach once hailed as the greatest of all time. The comparisons had been inevitable, and with them came a steady barrage of criticism.
David and Arthur knew this all too well, and could do nothing but nod in silence.
"Then I'll inform Jaehyuk in advance. But what if he refuses?"
"Then it's a shame. That's all."
Hah. We're done for.
David buried his face in his hands, exhausted.
It had only been a single meeting, but even from that he could tell what kind of personality Jaehyuk had. And the kid wasn't exactly desperate for Alabama in the first place.
And now they were dangling additional conditions on top of all that?
If Jaehyuk chose another school, David wouldn't be able to say a word in protest.
And the bar they've set is vague, too.
DeBoer planned to personally compare him against the other prospects at the camp before signing off with an okay...
No matter how he turned it over, the demand was excessive.
At first, David had thought Jaehyuk's demands were too greedy. Now the shoe was firmly on the other foot.
"If it's DeBoer's eye, we can trust it. Then let's settle it that way."
With Arthur's verdict, the meeting naturally came to a close.
After shutting his laptop, David held his face in his hands for a long moment, sighed, and rose from his seat.
Sitting still solved nothing.
Time to get moving.
**
A full week remained between the semifinal and the final.
And naturally, over the course of that week, the entire school transformed into a festival.
A state championship title.
An event thought to have absolutely nothing to do with Wichita North High School was now right on their doorstep.
Thanks to that, everyone from the faculty to the student body was fussing over the football team.
Their sky-piercing popularity was simply a bonus.
Screams and cheers erupted every time the players so much as walked down a hallway.
And among them, Jaehyuk's popularity stood in a league of its own — the nickname Redline had become an inseparable source of school pride.
The "Do You Know Redline?" Challenge had spread across the entire city of Wichita.
But quite apart from all of that —
The football players were still living through something that felt like a dream.
Perhaps because a team mired at the very bottom for years had suddenly shot straight up into the sky, they somehow felt less real about it than anyone else in the school.
"We made the championship final..."
"What's wrong with you? Why are you crying? Hahaha! Hey, Jones is crying, everyone!"
"Honestly, I still can't believe it. Us? In the championship final?"
It was the day after the semifinal ended.
Sanders had passed along a message: since they'd just played a game, they should take at least a day to rest.
Which meant today's practice was cancelled.
But resting didn't feel like resting, and the players eventually drifted into the locker room, where they now sat chattering away.
"Honestly, it's all thanks to Jaehyuk."
"That's true. That guy is insane."
"Man, I want to be a talent freak too. Please, grant me some talent, Lord Jaehyuk."
"Where exactly would talent be divided out to you from? Hahaha!"
"Hey, has anyone heard which college Jaehyuk's going to? James, you heard anything?"
After a long stretch of chatter about the opposing school and the final, the conversation drifted naturally to a new topic.
Because at the end of the day, the biggest talking point was, of course, Jaehyuk.
They had never seen a five-star recruit in person yet.
But they believed, without a shred of doubt, that if anyone could surpass even five stars, it was Jaehyuk.
The same guy who'd started out as some unremarkable Asian kid from the track team had, before anyone noticed, become the team's ace — and they'd fully come around to acknowledging it.
"I haven't heard anything either."
"Ugh, it's killing me. Last I looked, every major college scout in the region seemed to have already come through."
"They should change his nickname from Redline to Scout Collector. Hahaha."
In the middle of all the laughter and noise, it suddenly dawned on them — Jaehyuk wasn't here.
Most of the team was gathered, gabbing away, and yet the ace was nowhere to be seen.
Curious eyes soon turned toward Jaehyuk's locker.
"Wait — don't tell me he's in there doing some kind of secret drug routine?"
"Haha. Honestly, that would track."
"Should we open it? He's not here, after all."
Just as everyone's attention began pooling around the locker like they might pry it open on the spot, Liam spoke up quietly.
"Don't go getting yourselves chewed out by Jaehyuk for no reason."
"Come on, Liam! Aren't you curious? That last bit was a joke, obviously — but aren't you dying to know what's even inside Jaehyuk's locker?"
"Honestly, I'd bet there's nothing in there but equipment. But still — it's interesting, isn't it? What our ace keeps locked away in there."
Under the continued badgering, even Liam found himself quietly curious. Finally, unable to hold back any longer, James sprang to his feet and marched straight for Jaehyuk's locker.
"You're seriously going to open it?"
Tony asked from behind with a nervous voice, but James only flashed a wide grin.
"Presenting — the secrets of Jaehyuk!"
"Puhaha, James, you actually want Jaehyuk to beat you up, don't you?"
Amid the roar of his teammates' laughter —
James really did swing Jaehyuk's locker wide open.
And then —
Rumblerrumble-crash.
Something came pouring out in an avalanche.
The players flinched back, stunned and scrambling.
"Wh-what the—?"
"What just fell out?"
"...Shoes?"
What had spilled from the locker was shoes.
So many shoes. What kind of person stocked this many? But looking closer, every single one of them was destroyed.
Shredded.
Broken.
Torn apart.
And frankly, filthy beyond words.
"So... what now..."
And even inside the still-open locker, more shoes were stacked into a mountain — a tower of worn-out ruins.
Everyone understood at once.
Every one of these was a pair Jaehyuk had run to death himself.
"..."
"..."
Not a single one of them could open his mouth.
What could these shoes possibly mean?
"Wh-when did Jaehyuk start playing football again?"
"He's barely past three months now, right? Almost four."
"So he destroyed every single one of these shoes in four months?"
And the lockers here were by no means small.
Each player had his own locker, nearly 180 centimeters tall.
Filling even that vast space to bursting, Jaehyuk's ruined shoes said nothing out loud — but they proved, more loudly than any words ever could, just how brutal the grind behind his rise had been.
"He wasn't just a talent freak."
"Oh, man..."
"Damn..."
Speechless, everyone simply stared at Jaehyuk's locker.
Talent alone could never explain it.
The overwhelming sight made every ounce of his accomplishment hit home, all at once.
Creeeak—!
Then Liam snapped out of it and flung open his own locker.
"Liam?"
"Coach told us to rest. But I'm going to run some drills on my own."
"Huh...?"
And then, one by one, the players began to vaguely understand why Jaehyuk was missing from this room.
"Wait — is Jaehyuk training right now too?"
"Look at how many shoes there are! This guy hasn't taken a single day off — not ONE!"
"Damn it! I'm getting my gear. I'm going out there too!"
"This was never the time to sit around whining about lacking talent. If even this monster of a guy trains like that, then what have I been doing..."
At first, the players had simply frozen, overwhelmed.
But before long, their fighting spirit began to blaze.
'The final. We are NOT losing it!'
If a monster like Jaehyuk was working this hard —
There was no way they could lose the championship.
The truth was, every one of them had carried a quiet corner of anxiety about Blue Valley.
The one and only team in Kansas with not one but two five-star recruits on its roster. Their record might trail Wichita North's undefeated 10-0, but their talent was undeniable.
Anything could happen on the field. That was why everyone had been on edge —
"Huh? Hey, you guys! What is this? What do you think you're doing?!"
Jason, who had been organizing equipment, suddenly spotted the players flooding onto the field and shouted in sheer bewilderment.
"Coach told us to rest today!"
"Wahahaha! My body was itching. Couldn't help myself!"
James bellowed back with easy good humor.
And behind him, every last player came streaming out and started warming up.
"Unbelievable!"
Jason stared at them in exasperation for a moment, then set down the equipment he'd been sorting and shook his head.
"Fine. Blue Valley's offense leans hard on their elite receivers in the passing game, and on defense, their nose tackle in the middle is a five-star recruit."
After laying out the briefing, Jason rolled up his sleeves.
"Let's run opponent-specific training. Right now."
"Whoa! That's our Coach Jason! I knew you'd help us!"
"By the way, where's Jaehyuk? I don't see him anywhere?"
"Beats me. Probably off training alone somewhere."
And just as they'd guessed —
Jaehyuk lay sprawled across the floor of the indoor training facility, gasping for breath.
Beside him, Sanders watched with a faint smirk.
'A dog of a worker, through and through.'
From everything he'd observed so far —
these kinds of relentless grinders always found a way to claw their way to the top, no matter what.
But this kid?
He had already shown flawless talent on the field. So much so that there was hardly anything left to teach him.
Talent like that, and a workhorse temperament on top of it? How was anyone supposed not to expect great things from an athlete like this?
"Hey, you. Up. Now. The guy who can run a whole game without a single break somehow only ever collapses during training."
"Mmmgh."
Wearing the expression of a man about to die, Jaehyuk nonetheless rose to his feet without a single word of complaint.
Watching him, Sanders laughed.
"Swing those arms all the way back this time! Again — go!"