I Take Back What I Said About It Being Gum
June 20, 2021
Maui, Hawaii, USA
Paia
Restaurant Aloha
A few things blew up after my relationship with Hannah went public. The group Snapchat I shared with my friends was flooded with messages, and I got calls from Coach Travis and Coach Monken wanting to confirm whether the news was actually true. Honestly, the family had already gotten worried before anyone else — my aunt Mel had shown them Hannah's social media — so the whole thing was turning into a mildly exhausting ordeal for me.
Thankfully, Grandma had my back. She even had kind words to say to Hannah herself. Thanks to that, Hannah told me she wanted to take her time getting to know my family, and she switched her social media accounts to private so none of her more risqué photos would be visible anymore.
Of course, Google was still full of them. But what mattered was what she'd decided. The past was just the past.
"So did you? Come on, obviously you did."
"Fuck off. I don't want to talk about that stuff."
"Please. Just tell me if you did or not."
"You really think we just held hands and kissed?"
"Damn--!! With a girl that hot...."
"NOPE! Anything past that is crossing the line."
"Fine, fine. Damn!"
Kenny, who looked visibly green with envy, got told that he could go find a pretty girl of his own. The guy was plenty popular himself.
What a waste of breath, honestly. The one who already has everything always wants more.
Ah. Wait. Maybe that's not something I should be saying.
Anyway. Hannah had flown back to California with her friends yesterday, and this morning Kenny arrived in Hawaii for his vacation. With his brothers in tow.
Kenny was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and grew up in a football family. His oldest brother, Deon McIntosh, played running back at Notre Dame and Washington State, while his second-oldest, R.J. McIntosh, graduated from Miami and is in the NFL now. He got drafted by the Giants in the fifth round on day three of the draft, though sadly he's essentially a practice-squad guy. In college he even made second-team All-ACC and earned real recognition as an end, but at the NFL level he's short on both strength and tackling technique to play the position.
Ding-a-ling—
"Hey! We're over here!"
"…."
The restaurant door swung open and Kenny's brothers, who'd been taking a quick look at the beach, came strolling in. I got up from my seat and reached out a hand in greeting. A friend's brothers are my brothers too — there was no reason not to get close. And sure enough, we hit it off almost immediately.
"You're cooler than I expected."
"About what?"
"You, obviously. You're so famous I figured you'd be some stuck-up jerk. If you had been, I was going to have R.J. tackle you."
"You think I'd just take it lying down?"
"What? Haha! You're funny."
Looking at their neatly cleared plates, I offered to bring out more food.
"That not quite enough for you?"
"How'd you know?"
"I'm pretty observant. Give me a second — this one's on me. I'll bring back only the best of what we haven't eaten yet, so look forward to it."
"Damn — now that's what I like to hear."
I stepped into the kitchen and put the order in with Mom. We were just past the lunch rush, a slow stretch with no customers. If it had been busy, there'd have been no such service. Lucky them, really.
"Mom."
"What is it?"
"Do you still not like Hannah?"
"It's not that I don't like her — I'm worried about you. Football players face a lot of temptation. She might not be a good person, that's all."
I know, Mom. I understand that heart of yours.
But there's something you don't know, don't you? Sure, Hannah might not be a good person — but I've got her sitting in the palm of my hand. I'm fifty-nine years old. Older than you, as a matter of fact.
Obviously, I could not say any of that out loud. So I just gave her shoulders a good squeeze instead.
"I'll remember that. And I'll be careful."
"Good. We trust you."
"Yep. I just carry this out, right?"
"Mm. Want more rice?"
"I'll serve myself."
With a plate of kalua pork and laulau in hand, I headed back out to the table.
"Whoa. What's this?"
I gave R.J. a quick rundown of the food, then sat back down and watched them dig in with a warm little smile.
Tasty, aren't they, you guys? You'd better appreciate your luck. My mom's the best in all of Hawaii.
"This is great."
"Yeah. Really good."
"Glad to hear it."
Kenny was planning to stay about four days with his brothers before heading back to Georgia, and I'd volunteered to show them around in the meantime.
By the way.
"When are you going back to Georgia?"
"Once break's over."
"Yeah?"
For the record, most college football players stay on campus even during breaks. Instead of going home to rest, they clock into the training facility every day and keep building their bodies. If you've got a girlfriend, you might take a week or ten days off to travel, but the rest of the time you can assume ninety percent of their break is spent on campus.
Being away from campus for over a month the way I have been is a rare thing, so it was about time to start planning my return. I hadn't skipped a single day of training since coming to Hawaii, but it still couldn't match what I'd get done at the facility.
"What time's your flight back?"
"Want to fly out together? Hang on."
Having to say goodbye to Kala again was a genuinely painful thought, but the time had come to get back to my real job. I'd rested and recharged more than enough.
"8:50 in the morning."
"Delta?"
"Yeah."
"Got it."
All right. Tickets booked. Time to say goodbye to Hawaii — with a promise that I'd be back next year. Vacation, officially over.
June 27, 2021
Athens, Georgia, USA
University of Georgia
Vandiver Hall
There's a five-hour time difference between Hawaii and Georgia, so I was feeling a little worn out. The current time was 6:50 in the morning — which, if I were still in Hawaii, would be 1:50 the previous night.
"Yaaawn—"
The yawns kept escaping no matter what I did, and my eyes refused to stop watering. There it went again.
"Yaaawn— God, I'm dying."
June in Georgia swings between a low of 64 and a high of 86 degrees — perfectly mild weather. Team workout gear and flip-flops. A bag slung over my back. That was my entire commute outfit.
Beep-
Since Toyota had gifted me a Land Cruiser, I'd returned the car I'd been given back at enrollment. It's a big, hulking thing — which is exactly why I like it. Reminds me of someone I know.
Thud.
I tossed my bag carelessly into the passenger seat, climbed into the driver's side, fired up the engine, and headed for Butts-Mehre. The summer-break campus was as quiet as it had been the day I first arrived. Not a single car passing by, barely a handful of people on foot.
A few minutes later I pulled up at Butts-Mehre, parked, and walked toward the building.
Beep.
Pushing through the double doors, I was greeted by a familiar smell. Ahh — welcome back. Missed you. I paused for a moment to smile to myself, readjusted my backpack, and kept walking.
Then, a little deeper inside—
"…."
That's the one. That's exactly it.
Music drifted out, music that swept away fatigue like it had never existed. I nodded along and headed toward the person waiting to greet me: Eugene Miller, the team's assistant nutritionist. Over the summer, we players reported our training schedules to the school, the school compiled them and passed them along to the nutrition staff — and as a result, there was always food and supplements laid out before and after workouts. Mostly vitamins and the like.
"Hm? What's this?"
"Something good for fatigue. Still jet-lagged, aren't you?"
"Yes. It's killing me. Five whole hours. Can you believe it?"
"Haha. Must've been nice, though."
"Oh, it was. It's Hawaii, after all."
"I'm so jealous of you—"
After downing every supplement in one go and thanking Eugene, I headed further in. And an even bigger wave of energy hit me. This was probably the busiest place on the whole summer campus. Or maybe the baseball team? Wait — baseball counts as a sport? Kidding, kidding. Anyway.
The guys who'd started their days long before me were already spread across the facility, each spending his time in his own way. Gym. Pool. Spa. Only after I'd made the rounds, checked faces, and exchanged greetings did I finally go change.
"You've been here all of what, twenty minutes?"
"Something like that?"
"Damn, you and your ways. You could've changed first and then gone around seeing the guys, you know?"
I know. I just couldn't help it. I'd missed them too much.
Kelee Ringo shook his head and wandered off. Morning workouts starting at 7:25 ran for over two hours, and by the time we all headed to the dining hall for breakfast together, it felt as if no time had passed at all — as if there'd never been a gap.
Ah — so this is what coming home feels like too. Somewhere along the way, this place had become my home as well.
July 8, 2021
Athens, Georgia, USA
University of Georgia
Sanford Stadium
A fair amount of time had passed since I got back to campus, and I'd spent it all living the same day on repeat. Clock in at Butts-Mehre by 7 a.m., finish workouts and eat a second breakfast around 10, go through recovery until noon, pack up lunch and head back to the dorm to eat around 2. After that, my free time was usually spent with friends — and sometimes, like today, I came back to the facility in the afternoon.
Today I'd come to the stadium for some extra drills. My partner: Jordan Addison. We were going to work on routes.
"So, here's what I drew up."
"Let's see it."
Before we got into any real throwing, I looked over the route map Jordan handed me. He'd run eight routes last year and had ambitiously expanded to eleven this time around — and every one of his old routes that fell short had been torn up and rebuilt from scratch.
"Not bad. Mind if I keep this?"
"Go for it."
"Hold on."
I pulled a pen and notebook out of my bag, laid the notebook flat as a writing surface, and popped the cap of the pen with my teeth.
"Let's start with Route 1. How many yards?"
"Seven to twelve. What do you think?"
"Eight to fourteen. Can you do it?"
"I can."
People who don't know football have no idea just how fine-grained a wide receiver's routes really are. From the moment the play begins, the exact yardage of every single step is mapped out in advance — and the quarterback has to memorize the route map of every wide receiver on the field. That's why, come the offseason, quarterbacks need to practice new routes with their receivers. Unless, of course, you're too lazy, too antisocial, or too arrogant for your own good, and end up touching a route for the first time at summer camp in August.
"Ready — hut."
Jordan ran Route 1 exactly as drawn, and I watched him and delivered the pass.
"Feeling it yet?"
"Not yet. Run it a little deeper this time."
First run, eight yards. Next, ten. After that, twelve. Then back down to eleven. Only after running the same route over and over — changing nothing but the distance, throwing to it again and again — could we find the version that suited us.
"Ten to twelve feels right for this one."
"That's my read too."
"Let's call it 61."
"Got it."
Jordan wears number 15. Add those digits together and you get six. And since this is Route 1, it becomes 61. This was one of the codes I'd use when calling an audible — the kind of thing that all had to be committed to memory too.
"What's next?"
We kept drilling routes from there, and somewhere around the halfway point the sun had already started to sink. Time to wrap it up.
"Let's finish the rest tomorrow."
"Sounds good."
"Grab dinner together?"
"Where to?"
"The dining hall's fine, but I'm craving Chick-fil-A."
"Then let's go, right now."
Heh heh. That's more like it.
I had to do this with more guys than just Jordan, too — AD, JB, KJ, and the rest. The point being: when a hardworking, ambitious receiver comes up to you and asks, "Could you help me run some routes?" you don't tell him no. You gladly dive in with him. It's not an obligation, but it's the right thing to do. A good reputation built in college doesn't just help in the draft — it follows you into the NFL and beyond. And given that being trusted above all else is the defining trait of a quarterback, if you want teammates willing to sacrifice for you, you can never turn them away when they need you.
The body gets tired, it gets sore — but if the price of gaining friends and family is only that much, I'd gladly pay it a hundred times over. A thousand, even.
"Hey, by the way."
"Hm?"
"That pass earlier was killer."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It felt faster somehow."
Man — I did do some long-distance throwing in Hawaii."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. With my dad."
Jordan's compliment put me in a great mood. And when I'm in a good mood, I should give him even more to work with.
"About that route map from earlier."
"Yeah?"
"What if we add one quick out?"
"A quick out? I'm your X receiver, remember?"
"Look at that confidence. Somebody's already writing you in as an X receiver, huh? Camp hasn't even started yet."
"No G on the roster, so I've gotta be it."
"Fuck. Fine — let's try it in front of the end zone."
"So you want me working the back end too, huh?"
"It's a double option."
"Hmm — not bad."
Once you reach the college football level, a team isn't something the head coach and his staff simply build — it's something everyone builds together. The coaches respect the players, and the players respect the coaches' domain. Only after a process like today's gets repeated over and over, and only after all the trial and error that comes with it, are we finally ready to play our games, grind through the season, and go take our wins.
For a football player, the offseason isn't a switch you flip off the way athletes in other sports do — it's time spent preparing behind the curtain. This year mine started a little late, so I've been throwing myself into it that much harder.
"YO! WASSUP!"
"Ah — there they are."
"Goddammit. It's about to get loud in here."
That evening, as darkness settled in, we gathered under the glow of the Chick-fil-A sign, had a great time together, and knocked out yet another Thursday. Cute bunch of dorks, honestly.
July 19, 2021
Athens, Georgia, USA
University of Georgia
Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall
Today, with exactly two weeks left until summer camp, the first de facto official practice of the year began. Under NCAA rules, the head coach and his staff aren't allowed to directly run our training yet — but to make sure we arrive at camp with at least the minimum conditioning in place, they hand us a schedule. The Off-Season Program. OSP, for short.
"This is a piece of cake."
The OSP I was reading spelled everything out in remarkable detail, starting with how to split up my weight training. It was a different animal from the summer workouts I'd been doing so far — arguably a quarterback-tailored program through and through. By the time everyone had finished reading their OSP and settling into place, we had naturally split off by position and begun the training each of us needed.
Position-specific training for a quarterback comes down to one thing: throwing the football. It's about intensively developing the muscles that send a ball — one most ordinary people can barely even grip properly — flying downfield. Think of it as weight training blended with just the right dose of Pilates. And above all, the most critical piece is balance: the ability to deliver an accurate pass even when your platform breaks down.
"Push through! More!"
"You got it!"
The weights were dialed down a bit, sure — but this side of the room was every bit as brutal. Football demands aggression and intensity from its players, so we're always yelling our lungs out during training. Your everyday attitude carries straight onto the field. That's not a slogan; it's genuinely true.
We built our posture. Trained our cores. Strengthened our shoulders. There was none of the usual 600-pound squat work or dozens of reps at 225 on the bench, but the sweat was pouring off me all the same. Before anyone noticed, every one of us had shed his shirt.
"Let's Go—!!"
Groans and snarling voices rose from every corner of the room. The music, drowned out beneath it all, was barely audible anymore.
I take back what I said about it being a piece of cake.
4:50 PM
House of Payne
The afternoon of OSP's first day. I came to the House of Payne for extra work. I'd originally planned to train outside — but it was raining. Spend the whole day inside a training facility and you don't even know what the weather's doing.
"Moi."
"?"
"Mind if I join you?"
"Sure. Fine by me."
The guy who came up to me was Van. Brock Vandagriff, this year's freshman QB. Lately the kid glues himself to my side every time we train and refuses to let go — he's out to learn everything, top to bottom. It's kind of adorable, so I've been letting him stick around.
"We'll start with shuffles."
"How many?"
"One, two, three. One, two, three. You know what I mean?"
"Yes."
"Let's Go."
Footwork is another thing that matters enormously for a quarterback. Fail at it and your pocket gets weak. Remember Kyle Trask down at Florida? The guy barely moves inside the pocket. That might fly in the NCAA, but if you bring the same game to the NFL, everything you did in college turns into scrap paper. Across every position in football, the most freakish athletes are all on defense — and the ones who survive in the NFL are, quite literally, the most physically gifted human beings on the planet. The single biggest gap between college and the pros lies in the quality of those defenders; if you can't move nimbly in the pocket, you will never start a game.
So that's why we train footwork too. The key rule: never take your hand off the ball.
"Shuffle, shuffle. Flip. Release."
"…."
"Now to the left. Shuffle. Shuffle. Flip. Release."
"…."
As we trained together, I pointed out Van's weak spots whenever they showed themselves. Van took every correction at face value and immediately worked to fix it. Being a 5-Star QB, he picked things up fast — but understanding a drill and executing it in live action are two different things, so only time would tell how far it carried him.
"Next. Flat escape."
"Okay."
"I'll break in from this side first. You sprint to that side."
"Got it."
Aside from seeing Hannah on weekends, my days lately were nothing but training.