One More Goal
It was unprecedented, and so nobody quite knew what standard to judge it by.
But for the moment, everyone's hearts were aligned.
That's a monster catch.
There was clearly a gap between him and the professional level, but in the very first football game of his life, Dwayne Moi Stone had proven that he was simply built outside the division's specifications.
Fifteen pass attempts.
Eleven completions.
An average of 16.7 yards gained per completion.
Three of those eleven completions connected for touchdowns, and there wasn't a single sack or interception.
On top of that, he'd run for 38 yards himself — and when he wedged himself between the opposing guard and tackle and overpowered them both, the people in the stands let out a collective gasp.
Perfect, by debut-game standards.
The stat sheet Dwayne Moi Stone posted after playing through the third quarter of his debut was perfection itself.
00 03 03 07 – 13 : Leilehua
14 14 14 07 – 49 : Kahuku
The people who had made their way down from the stands as the game wound down converged all at once on Kahuku High School's head coach.
Then they scrambled to press their business cards into his hands, one after another.
Their purpose: recruiting.
To bring a particular player to a particular university, you couldn't just win over the player and his family — you had to make a good impression on his high school coach as well.
Gavin Travis stood surrounded by the crowd.
And he was savoring every second of it.
"This is USC."
"At Washington, Moi would become a star."
"Michigan is the perfect fit for Moi."
"Our Stanford is the optimal choice."
"The whole state of Louisiana is going to go crazy for that kid."
"Clemson."
As a diverse array of courtship — tailored to each school's prestige and each scout's personality — played out, the Fox Sports cameras that had hit the jackpot eased their way toward Dwayne Moi Stone.
Reporter Shannon Spake stepped up beside Moi, microphone in hand.
Before the official interview began, Shannon tossed out a question.
"This was really your first-ever football game?"
"Yes, sir. First game of my life."
"Wow. Do you see what's happening over there right now?"
"Of course. I'd expect nothing less."
"Wow. That's some confidence. I like it."
"Well, I am the quarterback."
Fox had originally planned to broadcast only Kahuku's home games, but they couldn't resist the lure of Dwayne Moi Stone's debut — an audacious move that led them to schedule two games back to back.
That was why, for the first time in American sports history, a high school football team's games were confirmed for consecutive broadcasts on Fox Sports.
Of course, internally, the voices of concern had been loud.
On paper, it was a losing proposition.
Few corporations were willing to sponsor a national broadcast of a high school football game, so Fox Sports had attached a condition.
Tiered sponsorship fees based on viewership.
In other words, an incentive-based proposal.
And the result was a runaway hit.
Peak viewership: 12.3%.
Average viewership: 8.5%.
At those numbers, recouping costs wasn't even the question — a major commercial windfall was already guaranteed.
Dwayne Moi Stone was the goose that laid golden eggs.
The media's attention was only going to climb from here.
It's about to get very noisy.
Alabama's Nick Saban put his sunglasses back on, curled one corner of his mouth, and slipped out of the stadium.
Alabama had not approached Gavin Travis.
There simply hadn't seemed to be any reason to do it today.
Instead — unlike everyone else — Nick Saban planned to stay in Hawaii for another two days or so.
Once outside, he climbed into his rental car.
Destination: Honolulu International Airport.
From there, Saban intended to board a plane and head for Paia, on the island of Oahu.
Brrring—
Hm?
On the road to the airport, Saban's phone rang.
The message was from Bill Battle, the athletic director of the Alabama football program.
It was thanks to Bill Battle that Nick Saban could leave the team and pursue outside business as freely as he did.
Saban pulled the car over to the side of the road.
Then he flipped on the hazard lights.
Click. Flash.
Click. Flash.
After a moment's thought, he typed out his honest impression in reply.
Dwayne Moi Stone's debut had been electric.
The football world was in an uproar right now.
And not just any uproar.
An unprecedented one.
#. August 15, 2016
#-1. United States, Oahu, Hawaii
#-2. Honolulu, Kahuku CDP
#-3. Kahuku High School
"Morning~"
"Morning~"
All weekend long, I'd been getting lectures from Grandma about Gwangbokjeol — Korean Liberation Day.
And I'd eaten Korean food again, too.
The gimbap and bulgogi suited my palate just fine.
So did the beef soup.
Which is how.
I gained another kilogram.
Unbelievable.
Click.
Whoosh—
"What the— what is this?"
When Marcus and I walked to the lockers and swung the door open, something came pouring out in an avalanche.
One look and anyone could tell it was a pile of letters.
Marcus made a scene beside me.
"Day-umm!! What in the world is all this?!!"
What does it look like, dummy?
Love letters.
Whoa — hold on, though.
That's the first love letter of my entire 56 years on this earth.
Received at school, no less.
"Stop just staring at them and help me pick these up."
"Aw man, why do I gotta do this junk?"
"Pick. Them. Up."
"A proud Lombard does NOT do this kind of thing."
"You're hilarious."
For the record, Marcus's ancestors were Italian.
Quite a few of the Italians who flowed into America in the old days made their way to Hawaii, and he inherited that blood.
Anyway.
Among the ancestors on that side of Marcus's family, there was plenty of Black and Samoan mixed in.
And his father was basically Black.
Which probably explained why his speech drifted so close to slang.
Sometimes it felt like I had a Black friend at my side.
"That's cold, man. Life is so unfair."
"Good of you to finally notice."
"Yo. Bro."
"Nope. Not doing it."
"Dawg… you didn't even hear what I was gonna say?"
Obviously.
He was going to ask me to introduce him to one of them, wasn't he?
"How the hell did you know?!"
Please, Marcus. Even a ten-year-old could read your mind.
I didn't say that out loud, of course.
It would've hurt his feelings.
For now, I stuffed all the letters into my bag.
"Day-umm! This is gonna spread like wildfire—"
"Probably."
"Which means it'll get back to Stephanie, and…."
"Ah… damn. Didn't think of that."
Last Friday too, Stephanie had pulled out all the stops trying to sink her hooks into me.
To the point that a stranger might have gotten the wrong idea.
Even the Fox reporter had asked me about it.
And naturally, I'd recoiled in disgust and said absolutely not.
One small mercy: this kind of situation was apparently common enough at high schools that no real drama was likely to come of it.
A gold-digging cheerleader obsessed with the quarterback.
That was how the reporter seemed to read it.
Which, in fairness, was exactly what it was.
"Damn, my man."
For some reason, Marcus kept referring to me like I was one of the brothers.
I, of course, never returned the favor.
"But come on, a girl like Stephanie? That's honey right there."
Let me say one thing here.
Back in March, there had definitely been a pretty girl around.
But not now.
Most of them had probably been seniors.
It's a slightly awkward thing to admit, but the wives I'd married in my past life had all been beauties.
Well — I was a successful NFL head coach, after all.
A movie actress.
A TV drama actress.
A model.
The last one had been a former pageant queen.
Seen through those eyes, I regret to report that the girls of Kahuku High School simply didn't register.
Not that I was disappointed about it or anything.
Quite the opposite — it suited me fine.
It meant I could focus entirely on football.
Dating could wait until I made it to the mainland.
To Marcus, Stephanie might have been a beauty.
To me, she was below average.
And that was before even touching her personality.
"Anyway. I'm not interested."
"Aiming for bigger fish, huh?"
"Something like that."
After a full day of Monday classes, I'd made one observation: even at school, there had been people who doubted me.
But that doubt had been stripped away with the first game, and now it wasn't just the girls — even the boys had started watching me with eyes full of admiration.
Today, I stood at the very top of the food chain that existed in the freshman world.
It didn't feel bad at all.
No — maybe.
Maybe it felt pretty great?
"You really have become Moi, huh."
"You're hilarious."
The name my father gave me.
And my middle name among them — Moi —
"What? You literally became a king."
"I have not."
means king in the native Hawaiian language.
But I still refused to accept it.
This was just high school, after all.
My eyes were still fixed
"Still a long way to go."
"A long way?"
"Yeah."
up there, at that far-off summit.
#. August 16, 2016
#-1. United States, Oahu, Hawaii
#-2. Honolulu, Kahuku CDP
#-3. Kahuku High School
#-4. Football Field
It wasn't just my classmates whose attitudes had shifted since the weekend.
My teammates on the football team had changed their behavior too.
First of all.
"…Hey."
"…"
Sioele, the eldest of the three Huamatu brothers, and Atamu, the youngest, chose to simply ignore me.
They didn't pick fights the way they used to.
Which naturally left the defensive side of the team in an awkward spot, since I had to walk a delicate tightrope between myself and Sioele.
Loto, the middle brother and the offensive line's center, by contrast, had started treating me normally, like everyone else.
For that, Sioele branded him a traitor.
Loto didn't seem to care.
So their brotherly bond wasn't as airtight as I'd imagined, apparently.
"Yo, Moi. Wassup, dawg?"
"Sup yourself, man."
After returning Marcus's greeting, I shoved my bag into my locker and started pulling out my practice gear.
Meanwhile, Marcus kept chatting beside me.
"Coach has gotten crazy busy, huh?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I'm telling you, that man is loving every second of it."
A high school coach with a phenom every university in America drools over commands enormous attention.
And I was a little more special than that.
I'd been getting noticed since I was barely eight years old.
Granted, back then it was as a track-and-field prospect.
Anyway.
On the eve of high school, nearly two hundred football programs had attempted to recruit me, and Gavin Travis had ultimately emerged the winner.
In truth, I had done the choosing — but outsiders didn't know that much.
They just figured the coach had done well for himself.
The media, which at first only cared about which high school I'd attend, now hounded Coach Travis with questions about the recruiting war behind my commitment ever since last week's game.
Interviews were going to keep pouring in from everywhere for a while.
It would all feel like a brand-new world to him.
And in my past life, I'd met a few amateur coaches who fed off young, raw talent to hide their own incompetence.
Coach Travis was absolutely not one of those.
He was capable and dedicated in his own right.
If he hadn't been, I would never have chosen this place.
It was true that Kahuku was one of the most famous and most competitive programs in Hawaii, but there had been other schools on my shortlist across Honolulu County.
In fact, Saint Louis School is our biggest rival in the division this year.
And had I gone there instead, I would have made sure Kahuku never got to look Saint Louis in the eye again for the rest of its existence.
But I hadn't liked their coach.
"Moi! Moi!"
"What?"
Practice was finally over.
Once I'd finished tidying up, Marcus sidled up next to me.
"Hey, so there's this upperclassman named Litia, and—"
"Not interested."
"Dude! She's the hottest sophomore there is!"
"Not interested. I'm going to the library."
Seriously.
How does he find a new meet-up opportunity every single day?
Is the boy obsessed or what?
"You heartless son of a— forget it!"
When someone's that shameless about it, there's no point in even responding.
Anyway, I waved him off and left.
First, I needed to stop by the house.
My books were there.
From the moment I got near the house, I could hear the distant sound of hammering.
Tamati was up to something again, apparently.
Ever since he'd brought me pecan pie the day we first met, Tamati had been building things around the house and its grounds every time I was away.
Even now, he was sawing through chunks of wood.
"Hello, Tamati."
"Oh— there he is. School done for the day, is it?"
"Yes, sir."
He didn't even ask what I was up to, so I just headed inside, changed my T-shirt, and gathered the books I needed to study.
"Off to the library again today?"
"Yep. Feels like I'm a little short on history."
"I've watched plenty of athletic prodigies in my time, but I've never once seen a boy like you. If they were all even half like you, the world would've been a fine place."
"Haha. Well, it'd certainly be an improvement."
"Ain't that the truth. Anyway, off you go, and mind yourself."
"Oorah."
Somewhere along the way, the habit had taken root.
These days, "Oorah" popped out of my mouth at the drop of a hat.
Over the weekend I'd blurted it out without thinking and had to scramble to walk it back.
Grandma had asked me, "Planning to join the Marines too?"
Hardly.
I respected soldiers more than anyone else on earth, but every person has a profession that fits them.
"Moi. H-hi?"
"Hey. Reading again today?"
"Y-yeah."
The school library had a student librarian named Lua Niu.
A girl in her sophomore year.
I knew Lua had a crush on me, and I kept just enough distance to maintain a friendly relationship.
By my standards, anyway.
"How was… your day?"
"Same as always. Class. Practice. And then here."
"You really are different from everyone else, you know."
"Haha. You think so?"
"Yeah. You're so mature, and… kind of cool."
"And you're diligent and cool yourself, Lua."
"?!"
With a bright smile and a wink, I took a seat by the sunny window and got ready to study.
And as I did, Lua's words from a moment ago played back in my head.
Mature.
Well, of course.
Ever since I'd left my family's embrace and struck out on my own early, the experiences of my past life had definitely been rubbing off on me.
That said, whenever I ran into Aunt Mel, I'd still without fail dance some ridiculous dance to a song on cue — but that was a tradition between the two of us, and it had nothing to do with maturity.
Maybe starting football had something to do with it?
…Who knows.
"Whew— all right, then. Where were we?"
I spread open the history book and got to work.
Frankly, high school material was a cakewalk.
Believe it or not, in my past life I'd earned a full four-year scholarship to college. And that had absolutely nothing to do with athletics.
At Columbia.
I was the best student there.
I don't remember exactly why anymore, but back then I studied harder than anyone, driven by a crushing sense of responsibility.
After graduation, I worked for the New York Jets organization, picked up two more degrees, and earned enough recognition that corporations came headhunting me.
But the history of this life was nothing like the history of my last one, which is why I found myself studying like this, constantly.
The fun of it was a bonus.
Figures I knew inside and out, entirely different people.
And completely different stories.
It was like reading a fascinating alternate-history novel, so I was digging deep into the history curriculum.
Maybe I'd major in history in college.
Earning a degree couldn't hurt, could it?
Hmm — that actually sounds pretty good.
Just like that, I had one more goal in life.
#. August 17, 2016
#-1. United States, Maui, Hawaii
#-2. Paia
#-3. Restaurant Aloha
For several months now, Restaurant Aloha had been feeling the absence of Dwayne Moi Stone.
Ring-a-ling—
A longtime regular came in through the door and settled into what had practically become his reserved seat, while the waitress who approached stood there ready to take his order with a somehow listless expression.
"Loco moco. Extra fried bacon."
"Coming right up~"
Watching the normally cheerful waitress sigh over and over, it was the customer who ended up worrying about the staff instead.
Jessica Stone observed all this from the kitchen.
She decided enough was enough.
After the morning rush and before the lunch prep began, Jessica Stone gathered every last employee together.
Then she announced:
"This Friday, we're all going to go watch Moi."
"Really?!"
"You mean it, Jessica?"
At how instantly their faces lit up at the prospect of seeing her son, Jessica Stone shook her head in exasperation.
But she was smiling too.
"Yes. I mean it. We're closing the shop, and we're going to go see Moi."
Life bloomed back into the faces of the cheering staff, and Jessica Stone turned toward the one rejoicing the loudest of them all — Iwai.
"That said, Iwai."
"Yes, boss?"
"Do your job properly. Understood?"
"Sir, yes, sir!"
Thinking that there might be many more days of closing the shop in her future, Jessica Stone sent a message to her husband.
Sunday — the day of Kahuku's home opener.
The Stone family would be coming to Oahu.
And.
"To go see that fake Samoan."
so would the Huamatus.
The people of that complicated, story-laden clan were due to come face to face with him at Kahuku High School this coming Friday.