The Field and Everything Outside It Are Two Different Matters

#. January 17, 2022

#-1. Inglewood, California, United States

#-2. SoFi Stadium

When I stepped into SoFi Stadium alongside the agency people I'd met at the airport, a Rams staffer who introduced himself as Bruce Dawson handed us the lanyards to hang around our necks.

Wearing one of those ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠let you roam certain zones of the stadium and even watch the game from the VIP lounge.

That was how I got to stand on the sideline before kickoff, and how I ran into a senior I was genuinely happy to see.

"Kelly, this is your first time meeting him, right?"

"Yes. Though we've crossed paths a few times over the phone."

"You have no idea how much this one talks about you."

"I'd like to hope that wasn't all insults."

"As if."

"I heard you two met in college?"

"Whoa, hold on, hold on. Save that story for the VIP lounge later."

Matthew, who'd mentioned he had someone to introduce me to, turned his head and beckoned someone over.

Someone whose face I knew very well.

"You know Cooper, of course?"

"Of course."

"Wow. We've got a celebrity in our midst?"

"Haha. That's a bit embarrassing."

Cooper Kupp, the wide receiver who embodied the Rams, was having a season where he'd finally shattered his shell.

He led the NFL in receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns, and had naturally been named to the All-Pro First Team and the Pro Bowl as well. He was being touted as the leading candidate for the AP NFL Offensive Player of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Year, announced after the season ends.

After last year's inconsistency had people saying he was far from an elite receiver, he'd become the receiver who benefited most from Matthew joining the Rams this season.

"Yo! Well, if it isn't this guy!"

"I'll get out of your hair."

"Yes. It was nice meeting you."

At the sound of a huge voice nearby, Cooper Kupp exchanged his goodbye and slipped away.

Matthew turned, grinning broadly, to greet a small but powerfully built man walking toward us.

The current No. 01 star of the NFL.

Odell Beckham Jr.

Also known as OBJ.

From the 'Matrix Catch' of his rookie season to his flashy plays and celebrations—and the immature character piled on top of them—he simultaneously drove people to hate him and drove them crazy.

You could say he checked every box of what makes a superstar.

After all, a good-boy's popularity has its limits.

"Heard you're pretty good?"

"Only at the college level, sir."

"Oh? Sounds like you know a thing or two."

"How's your condition, OBJ?"

"Couldn't be better. After years of catching nothing but garbage from terrible quarterbacks, I finally met a real man! Matty-S!! Throws nothing but S-tier passes—just like his name, I swear!"

It was true that Matthew had become a different quarterback with the Rams.

After enduring the Lions' atrocious play-calling, meeting a head coach and coordinator who treated him like an actual human being finally let his true ability and talent show on the field.

He took heat from Rams fans for a slump late in the season, but that was the fault of an O-line that couldn't get its head on straight.

Anyway.

"When do you graduate?"

"I'm still a sophomore."

"Oh, so the draft's next year?"

"Yes, sir. That's the plan."

"See you soon, then. Stick with this body and your NFL career will start out on easy street. You know what I mean? Anyway, good meeting you."

"Yes, you too."

Just like the media said, OBJ had absolutely nothing fake about him—and it seemed that same personality earned him both misunderstandings and more hatred than he deserved.

Quite a few faces drifted through my mind.

All of them people from my past life, though.

"Moi!"

"?"

"Head up with Kelly."

"Yes, sir. I will."

I made my way to the VIP lounge with Kelly and Matthew's daughters.

Along the walk, Kelly asked me:

"No girlfriend?"

"My last relationship ended on a pretty bitter note."

"Oh, that's a shame."

"I'm fine."

"If you're fine, I was going to offer to set you up, you know."

"Haha. I'll graciously take the thought for what it's worth."

For the record, Matthew is the patriarch of a household blessed with daughters.

Four girls, and not a single son.

Sawyer, Chandler, Hunter, and Tyler.

Sawyer and Chandler are twins.

As the names suggest, Matthew had privately wanted a boy, but when the two children born two years apart also turned out to be girls, he accepted it as fate and gave up on growing the family.

And yet, for all that, he's a genuine daughter-fool.

"I'll introduce you. This is..."

That, too, depends on personality, but a quarterback's wife often ends up playing the social butterfly among the wives' circle.

Kelly, a former UGA cheerleader, seemed to be exactly that type—and thanks to her, I could slide into the VIP crowd far more comfortably.

All the while, Kelly handled looking after her four daughters flawlessly, and watching Sawyer and Chandler behave with a maturity beyond their years made me think Matthew had married very, very well.

A good woman improves a man's life and helps ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him willingly provide for his family.

It may be a rather patriarchal and old-fashioned view, but I'm of the school that believes a man is beautiful and worthy of respect for being a man, and a woman for being a woman.

There are things men are good at.

And there are things men cannot do.

The reverse holds just as true.

In the end, when two completely different people meet and set off a chemical reaction, what matters is what they make of each other—and how they change one another.

In that sense, Kelly was a good wife, friend, and partner to Matthew, and I liked watching it.

"Can I call you Uncle?"

"Of course you can."

Hunter, supposedly the most prickly of the four daughters, walked up, said it shyly, handed me the jelly she treasured most, and scampered off.

I don't usually care much for jelly.

But this, I thought I'd enjoy eating.

"..."

Mmm. Yeah, as expected.

I was grateful for Hunter's thoughtfulness, but no matter how I thought about it, jelly was simply not to my taste.

Oh, and one more thing.

Before meeting Matthew, I'd run into someone else.

Kyler Murray.

The Cardinals' quarterback.

And at the same time, a Korean-American like me.

The difference being that Kyler Murray's quarterbacking is Korean only through his maternal grandmother, while mine is the opposite—a Samoan-American through my grandfather alone, and otherwise Korean through and through.

As I watched the Rams and Cardinals NFC playoff wild-card game from the SoFi Stadium VIP lounge, my face suddenly filled the jumbotron mid-preparation.

A cheer erupted from the stands, and the Rams organization put the words Welcome Moi up on the screen to welcome me.

Among the crowd noise, there was no "WE WANT MOI" mixed in.

Thank heavens for that.

#. January 22, 2022

#-1. Thousand Oaks, California, United States

#-2. Sunset Hills Country Club

Three years ago, when the entire nation was churning over the Dwayne Moi Stone recruitment, some people pointed to the Johnny Manziel case and argued, "You shouldn't make a high schooler that famous."

Johnny Manziel himself—quite possibly the greatest talent of all time, yet with a work ethic you couldn't find even if you scrubbed your eyes clean—delivered his own jab at the public, saying, "I had to shoulder too much, too young."

But the two differed in many ways—in their parents, in their upbringing—and most people were certain the same story would never repeat itself.

Whish!

Thwack!

"Nice shot!"

"That one was good, right?"

"Well, I'll be damned. That nearly rolled onto the green!"

"I hit it well, didn't I? Didn't I?"

"You certainly did."

Dwayne Moi Stone, who had landed in Los Angeles the previous Monday, had been run off his feet right up until yesterday.

California was overflowing with media and corporations hungry for a two-time Heisman Trophy winner—only the second in history to win it in consecutive years—and the Georgia quarterback worked the most lucrative of those schedules.

The meet-and-greets included famous businessmen and tycoons, along with celebrities like young, successful streamers, actors, singers, and models.

Then, come nightfall, he was invited to parties and attended social events—and every night, Dwayne Moi Stone left with a different woman on his arm.

On Tuesday, three adult film actresses.

Wednesday, a famous influencer.

Thursday, a well-known pair of high-society twins.

And yesterday, a Victoria's Secret model.

Come morning, the agency would meet each woman who had spent the night with Dwayne Moi Stone and run them through NDAs and the like—and every single one of them, without exception, said, "That was the most perfect night of my life," and swore nothing bad would come of it.

Naturally, they knew nothing, and preparations had been made regardless—but one thing was certain: he had been a perfect gentleman to every one of the women.

And today, Saturday.

Dwayne Moi Stone set out for a round of golf.

The inviter was Elon Musk.

"You know about this, right?"

"?"

"That kid's slept with nearly a hundred women so far. Every last one of them a beauty, too."

"Haha. You envious?"

"Aren't you?"

"Hmm. I'm a one-woman man, myself."

Watched from up close, the man called Dwayne Moi Stone sat a shade off from the model-student image the world knew.

He wasn't the type to drown in booze or touch drugs the way Johnny Manziel had—but he was, without question, a lover of women.

Even so, that was hardly rare.

It was something the NCAA had seen time and again.

Wilt Chamberlain, who claimed to have slept with twenty thousand women over his lifetime, had already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠topped five hundred partners between middle school and college.

Yet Chamberlain's real personality was famously gentle—the type who willingly opened his own wallet whenever a teammate hit hard times.

"We hit the lottery with this one."

"Mahomes. Moi. It's a jackpot, plain and simple."

"Let's go. Gotta earn my keep as your caddy."

"That's what agents are for, right?"

Shouldering a bag packed full of the top-shelf clubs Elon Musk had gifted him, the two men walked the grounds of Sunset Hills—known as the most secure country club in America.

And as the round wound down, Elon Musk pulled out his phone and showed Dwayne Moi Stone the Tesla Model S cars that had arrived—one parked outside his dormitory, and one delivered to Hawaii.

The CEO of Tesla called it a simple gift.

"You're the best, so you should drive the best car."

"Whoa. Can I really accept this?"

"Of course! Please, take them!"

"Thank you so much. I'll take good care of them."

"Maybe snap a certification shot later, why don't you."

"Haha. I just might."

Two cars worth at least $120,000 each, received as gifts.

The life of a young man not yet twenty was pure spectacle.

#. January 23, 2022

#-1. Kansas City, Missouri, United States

#-2. Arrowhead Stadium

The time I spent in L.A. had been a pleasure.

I met plenty of people from all sorts of fields, but what stayed with me most was the time spent with Mr. Leigh Steinberg and his family, talking about life and the members of ours.

I'd boarded a plane the night before and arrived in Kansas City—Wade Buck, who had accompanied me to New York, had come along this time too.

"Do you happen to know what the Chiefs and the Spurs have in common?"

"The Spurs? The NBA team?"

"That's the one."

Naturally.

Fans who don't care for football often say the Chiefs are just like the San Antonio Spurs—which, to be fair, they say out of ignorance. The San Antonio Spurs are the NBA's Kansas City Chiefs.

Part of it is that they've been a consistent NFL powerhouse since the 1990s, but the Chiefs are also the franchise that has recruited foreign players the most aggressively.

Jan Stenerud, the first placekicker ever inducted into the Hall of Fame, was Norwegian, and running back Christian Okoye was nicknamed the Nigerian Nightmare.

Beyond that, they've brought in players of Canadian and Liberian nationality without prejudice—all thanks to a philosophy of "if you're good at football, nothing else matters."

And interestingly enough, Gregg Popovich, the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, holds the exact same belief about basketball.

The thinking goes: what matters is being good at the sport—skin color and nationality can go to the dogs.

I believe that cuts straight to the essence of things.

People are so often dazzled by what they see that they miss what's important.

By the way.

"You can still smell it all the way out here."

"Haha. Hungry?"

"Maybe a little?"

"Let's eat upstairs later."

"Yes, sir."

On home game days for the Kansas City Chiefs, a sight unfolds that's common in high school and college football but rare in the pros.

A BBQ party around the stadium—the Chiefs organization goes all out for it, installing small generators outdoors so tailgaters can party and watch TV besides.

The Chiefs are also famous for the small courtesies they show their fans, which is why they have so many diehards and such fiercely loyal ones.

Today, true to form, all manner of meats and sausages danced on the grills outside, and unless I was imagining it, the smell seemed to carry all the way to us.

While I waited on the sideline, a woman approached, and I knew at once that this was Mahomes's wife.

"Hello there."

"Oh, it's my husband's favorite."

"Haha. Does Pat say that?"

"He texts you more than he texts Kelce... so yes. I don't need to be told to figure that much out."

"I hope you win today."

"We will. He's good in the big ones."

"Yeah—he's famous for exactly that."

At the time of his debut, Mahomes was evaluated as a gunslinger—someone who fired powerful passes from inside the pocket.

But now he had become a complete weapon: slipping tackles at will, scrambling, diving into any gap that opened to run it himself, and even pulling off lunatic plays like throwing left-handed or underhand.

In truth, watching a Chiefs game, it often doesn't even look like they're playing particularly well—yet they keep finding ways to win.

Having an excellent defense is a major reason for those endings, but the real source of Kansas City's strength is that Patrick Mahomes goes absolutely berserk the closer things get to the clutch.

Certainly, head coach Andy Reid's play-calling and his game-management deserve high praise too—but for a coach to fully exercise his abilities, he must have an outstanding quarterback. Without fail.

While I was shooting the breeze with Brittany, Mahomes appeared from off to one side—"What do you think you're doing with my wife?"—and threw the joke at me.

I turned to Mahomes with a bright smile.

Brittany was there first, so I waited my turn.

Afterward, Mahomes and I embraced warmly, laughing, like family reunited after far too long.

"Sounded like you were busy in L.A.?"

"Yeah—a little, I guess."

"That life suits you. Not like mine."

"I'm not a party animal either, you know."

"Oh, really? I had no idea?"

Fearing how dull Mahomes's teasing would get if he ran out of fun poked at me, I'd come prepared with something of my own.

I dug into my pocket and pulled something out.

"Pffft! What is this!"

"What does it look like? Ketchup."

"Pfff—wait, for ME?"

"Yes! I made the label myself, you know."

"Oh?"

Patrick Mahomes has loved ketchup to an addiction-level degree since childhood—he puts it on steak.

When this fact came to light, all of America recoiled in horror, but it has since become a kind of meme, and now pairing ketchup with food it doesn't belong on is called "pulling a Mahomes."

So I had picked out a suitable ketchup bottle at an L.A. supermarket, carefully peeled off the original sticker, and drawn the replacement myself on paper.

"Chief's Wine Ketchup?"

"Yes, sir. Keep it as a lucky charm."

"I just might. Whoa—this is seriously cool. Thank you. I've gotta take it into the locker room later and show the guys."

"It took me two whole hours, so you'd better treasure it."

"Haha. I promise. Anyway—thank you. Really."

"Win it, okay?"

I like Mahomes.

He has just the right amount of arrogance to match his talent, and yet he never slacks on the work.

He's also the man I must inevitably get past to become the greatest quarterback of all—but I don't see any reason rivals need to be on bad terms.

Getting along doesn't get in the way of motivation.

The field and everything outside it are two different matters.

After parting ways with Mahomes, I sat down in the VIP lounge with Wade Buck, ordered some food, and waited for the game to begin.

True to a football stadium in Missouri, the menu was nothing but aggressively American fare—salty, greasy, and terrible for you, which was exactly what made it so delicious.

We were right in the middle of devouring it all when someone came looking for our table, and I recognized him in a single glance.

Brad Pitt.

Oh, my goodness.

If I'd had an aunt, she might have fainted on the spot.

"You're a truly great quarterback."

"Thank you. And I've seen almost all of your films."

"Really?"

"Yes. Wow. If I had an aunt, she would've fainted just now. If it's not too much, could we take a photo together?"

"Of course."

Brad Pitt is a Missouri native and has long been famous as a Chiefs fan—spotted at Arrowhead on more than one occasion.

Didn't expect today to be one of them.

"Someday you'll be an enemy of the Chiefs, but not yet—so I'll cheer for you anyway."

"Same here. It was an honor to meet you."

"Haha. Enjoy the football."

After the superstar of Hollywood departed.

An absolutely wonderful scent lingered in his wake.

I should have asked which cologne he wore.

"Want me to go ask for you?"

"No, I'm fine. I'll look it up later."

"Haha. Want me to grab us some drinks?"

"Yes. I'll take a Diet Coke."

"You got it. One sec."

Even here in Kansas City, my second stop on this trip away from Athens, I was having a pretty magnificent time.