Nothing Beats Raising Your Own
As expected. Nothing in this world quite compares to the pleasure of raising your own.
17 21 17 10 — 65 Kahuku
00 00 00 00 — 00 Campbell
September 4, 2016
United States, Oahu, Hawaii
Honolulu, Kahuku CDP
Kahuku High School
This weekend, I didn't go to my grandmother's house.
US history was the reason.
Scritch, scritch—
I stood outside my cabin, brushing my teeth through bleary eyes. There was a water tap nearby—another thing Tamati had built for me.
“Ptoo.”
The bruise on my rib from Friday's practice had healed up nicely. There was still a bit of discoloration left, but it didn't hurt anymore. If anything, it was the forearm I'd scraped on the turf that stung. I should go in and put some ointment on it.
Bzzt—
It was a text from Marcus. I replied with a short my place.
Good grief. This kid has zero situational awareness.
Kini Luana was the girl whose number I'd procured for him at his own request. A fellow freshman, and she was in my afternoon classes. Honestly, she seemed more interested in me than in Marcus—but I valued my friendships above all else.
I rejected him just that simply, then tossed my phone onto the bed. I didn't plan on looking at it for at least an hour.
But then—
Bzzt—
“Ah, dammit.”
I should've put it on silent. No sooner had I sat down at my desk than I hauled myself back up. This time it was a message from a girl named Kylie. We'd exchanged numbers for a group project, but she kept pushing. Her latest was another invitation to go out for tea—one I'd already brushed off lightly.
But I'd made myself clear.
There would be no dating in my high school career. I had no intention of getting my nose caught on some baited hook.
I silenced the phone, and finally, at long last, sat down to study.
US history.
The high school AP US History course—better known as APUSH—had a notorious reputation, and for good reason: you had to memorize a thousand-page textbook crammed cover to cover with fine print. At first, the nightmares from my high school days in my past life had flashed before my eyes and blacked out my vision, but thankfully, a lot of the material overlapped. Only the names and labels were a bit of a slog, you could say. The broad strokes were almost identical to my previous world.
Beep beep—
Beep beep—
Huh. Already?
When the lunchtime alarm went off, I threw on whatever T-shirt was lying around and stepped out of the school grounds. There was a little hole-in-the-wall joint nearby that served decent food. I figured I'd grab a bite there.
“Moi!”
“Pastor.”
The moment I stepped outside, I ran into a familiar face—the pastor of the church across from the bus stop.
“It's Sunday, you know. You could've at least come to service.”
“I've got midterms. History.”
“Oh, my. That won't be easy.”
“No matter how much you memorize, it never ends.”
“Haha. I know that feeling all too well myself.”
While I was deep in conversation with the pastor, some aunties passing by drifted over.
“Moi, did you grow taller again?”
“I don't know. Have I?”
“I'm certain you have. We'll have to measure you sometime.”
“I'd like that.”
“Anyway, where are you off to?”
“To eat. I was thinking of grabbing takeout.”
“Hell no. Absolutely not.”
One of the aunties insisted she had loco moco she'd made that morning, and that I was to come eat at her house. I refused her flat out, over and over—
—and somehow, before I knew it, I was sitting at the woman's kitchen table.
For the record, this was the first time I'd ever met her.
“Well? Does it suit your taste?”
“It's delicious.”
“Eat as much as you like. I'm grilling shrimp right now, too.”
“You really don't have to go to all this trouble…”
“Nonsense. You remind me of my son.”
“Did your son move to the mainland?”
Ninety-nine percent of Hawaii's teenagers dream of leaving the islands and settling down on the mainland. Gorgeous natural scenery and wonderful, kindhearted neighbors—that alone isn't enough to suppress the hot blood of adolescence.
“CSU. He's a junior this year.”
“California State?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Wow. That's impressive.”
When lunch was over, I tried to repay her by at least doing the dishes, but the auntie stuffed my arms full of food and shooed me right out the door. So I thanked her once more.
“Oh, hush. Come by and visit sometime, you hear?”
“I will. Thank you so much.”
“Take care now.”
“I will. You have a good one.”
Full belly, full heart—good food and warm kindness will do that to you. A tune rose out of me without my even meaning to hum it.
By the way—wasn't that tomorrow?
Our Kahuku football team was now gearing up for Friday's away game against Radford. We'd train like always. We'd get yelled at like always. There'd be a case of the Monday blues, too.
But there was a very good reason I couldn't wait for tomorrow.
The others were surely feeling the same.
Bzzt—
Just as I thought.
Thinking of tomorrow, I broke into a wide smile.
September 5, 2016
United States, Oahu, Hawaii
Honolulu, Kahuku CDP
Kahuku High School
Football Field
What's the best part of playing football?
Winning, obviously.
But if you set that moment aside?
I can say it with certainty: it's right now.
And so—
“Number 01 makes his entrance—!!”
Royce Pao emerged in full kit, helmet to cleats, and we erupted in cheers, capturing the moment on our phones for posterity.
Today was the day.
The day the team's new uniforms were unveiled.
Under Armour, our uniform sponsor, had suddenly announced they'd be providing new helmets and uniforms along with the rest of the gear—sending the whole team into a frenzy.
The first was red, the color of Kahuku itself.
The second was white, for away games.
The third was black, also for away games.
And the last, the fourth…
“Damn—! That thing is straight-up ugly!”
“I'm not wearing that.”
“What color even is that?”
“Cobalt, maybe?”
“The hell's cobalt?”
“Cobalt, you animal. Cobalt blue.”
“Wow, look at Mr. Vocabulary over here.”
I had no idea what color it was supposed to be, but the fact that a shade of blue could be engineered to look that bad was honestly impressive in its own right.
Still, mercifully—
On the whole, the team seemed to like the new uniforms. I'd give them an eighty out of a hundred myself.
“Don't you wanna hurry up and get out there in one of these?”
“How about you worry about making starter first, my guy.”
“Screw you. I'll at least see the field as a backup!”
“And that's exactly why you never will.”
On that last point, I had to agree.
Simply seeing playing time—
That alone couldn't satisfy us. We were only high schoolers, after all.
Only by establishing yourself as an ironclad starter at the high school level did the door to the NCAA or NAIA crack open, and if you couldn't shake the backup label, even an NJCAA D1 slot was on shaky ground.
“Moi!”
“Yes sir—!”
“Come with me for a minute.”
“What's up?”
“No idea. Anyway, I'll be back.”
“You know the drill, right? If you screwed up, drop to your knees on the spot.”
“Hilarious. These knees are expensive.”
After flipping Marcus the middle finger, I walked off after the coach.
Our destination: the head coach's office.
There were quite a few people inside.
“Have a seat.”
“Oorah.”
I'd barely settled into the chair, still thoroughly bewildered, when the head coach—who had been studying me intently—began to speak.
“Just how, exactly, did you do it?”
“…What do you mean?”
“The Campbell game. Sekope's two touchdowns.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No. Not at all. And that's precisely what makes it one.”
?
At the coach's gesture, the lights in the room went out, and footage appeared on the screen.
Terrible quality. This was video the team had shot itself—but then, analysis had to be done somehow.
“Sekope has never moved like that before. Not once.”
That much was certainly true.
We didn't use our tight ends this way.
To Coach Gavin Travis, the tight end was a defensive asset that supplemented the offensive linemen. He added his strength to blocks to open running lanes for the backs, or served as bait himself, keeping linebackers from crashing into the pocket.
But yesterday, I had deployed Sekope aggressively.
The two touchdowns were the result.
“How was it even possible?”
“…”
Answering the coach wasn't difficult. There was just something I needed to confirm first. I wanted to understand the situation a little better.
“Did I, by any chance, damage the team's scheme?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“The team's offensive scheme stayed exactly the same?”
“Everyone ran what we practiced.”
“Except for Sekope.”
“That's right.”
That seemed to be enough.
I hadn't been called here to be scolded.
So I answered honestly.
“Because everyone already knows it.”
“What?”
“That when we run shotgun, the tight end never catches a pass. The cornerbacks and safeties cluster all over our wide receivers like leeches. So I aimed for the middle.”
When the perimeter defense thickens, the middle naturally thins out.
Eleven on eleven stand evenly across a football field, and when bodies pile toward one side, a void is guaranteed to open somewhere.
I had simply sent Sekope into that void.
That was why we'd practiced it.
The coach, who had been listening with a grave expression, leaned forward slightly and rested both arms on the desk. Then he spoke again.
“I've been coaching high school football for fifteen years now, and I've never seen a kid like you. You memorized the play book in a single week, and within two you were running it with more freedom than our senior quarterback.”
“…”
“And now you're telling me you went further—analyzed the team's tactical weaknesses on your own and found a way to patch them? This is insane. Moi, no fifteen-year-old on this earth can do what you do. Football is a hard sport. No high schooler alive can pull off what you're pulling off.”
Shall I be honest?
Right now, I was exercising monumental restraint. Left to my own devices, I'd tear this team's tactics apart and rebuild them from top to bottom. But I knew I shouldn't, and the talent gap with other teams gave me one more reason to simply hold my tongue. The private training sessions with my teammates were nothing more than quietly mixing in a few new elements, within the boundaries of the team scheme.
In truth, inside my head—
There were ninety-nine ways to make this team better.
Maybe a hundred.
But—
I couldn't very well say that.
“I suppose I must be pretty amazing, then.”
“You are. Unrealistically so.”
“That was a compliment, right?”
The coach began staring at me dead-on.
I didn't look away either.
After some time passed, the coach let out a hollow laugh—and with it, the strange tension that had hung in the room dissolved entirely.
“Fine. You really are something else.”
“Haha. Thank you.”
“Now, about that.”
?
“That notebook you left behind. And the decoy written inside it.”
“Yes sir.”
“I'd like to hold a meeting on it tomorrow. Can you manage that?”
“Tomorrow? At what time?”
“Third period is humanities, isn't it?”
“Oorah.”
The humanities essay had just been submitted. The coach said he'd have a word with the teacher. I'd be skipping class, but apparently there'd be no penalty. If I remembered right, he'd mentioned before that the team watched a movie for a day after midterms—so tomorrow would probably be it.
In that case, there was no reason to refuse.
“Yes sir. I'll come right after second period ends.”
“Good. Then I'll see you tomorrow.”
I rose from my seat and shook the coach's hand.
Tomorrow, I had no fourth period either. In other words, I could carve out roughly two free hours—and in that much time, quite a lot could be accomplished.
Back in the locker room, Marcus came sidling up.
“So how much trouble are you in?”
“You really think I got chewed out?”
“Heh heh heh. Wanna go waste some time on the PlayStation after practice?”
“PlayStation?”
“Yeah. Sol-Jay's got one.”
“Nice. Can we go?”
Sol-Jay nodded, then insisted we stay through dinner so he could introduce us to his mom and little sister.
Oh yes.
Dinner bill: secured.
Today was a no-extra-training day thanks to field maintenance, so we could head straight over once the schedule wrapped up.
“By the way.”
“Hm?”
“Word around school is you're gay.”
Pfft—!
Seriously?
What fresh brand of nonsense was this now?
I looked up at Sol-Jay.
“I'm pretty sure that Stephanie girl started it, but some kids actually seem to believe it. Which, I mean—fair. You're that popular and you never, ever date anyone.”
“Damn, bro. That's just me not wanting to get my nose caught on a hook.”
“…Fair. Kahuku's standard is a little low, I'll give you that.”
“That's Hawaii for you.”
“Kukukuku. Don't worry, it'll die down fast.”
“Still, maybe I ought to go wag my tail around a little.”
That wretched girl.
No gratitude whatsoever.
Repaying kindness with spite?
It was such a petty, timid little revenge that I didn't even feel the need to get angry—but it was still shameless, that much was true.
Regardless—
I'd ignore it.
No sense getting tangled up over nothing.
“Let's go. It's almost time.”
“Yeah.”
With my friends, I headed out to the field for team practice.
Another grueling stretch of hours awaited us today.
But—
That's exactly what made it worth enduring.
The patience and discipline that are learned only through pain. Those are what guide us down the right path.
Damn right they are.
20_1
The Most Primitive Shotgun Formation
1. A six-man line of scrimmage
2. Halfbacks join in at the tackle positions
3. Superior numbers on the offensive line protect the quarterback
4. The quarterback looks to pass first
5. Runs it himself as the second option
6. Depending on the play, deploy Tight End 2, or two to three halfbacks
7. The above is, quite literally, the most basic and primitive standard
September 6, 2016
United States, Oahu, Hawaii
Honolulu, Kahuku CDP
Kahuku High School
Quarterback Room
The shotgun is the formation that forms the backbone of virtually every passing scheme in modern football.
Just as the name implies, the shotgun is a formation. On its own, it is not a tactic.
The way to tell them apart is the quarterback's position: line up five yards or more behind the line of scrimmage, and you're in shotgun.
“So—what's the advantage of the shotgun?”
“Easier pocket protection.”
“Correct. And what else?”
“The quarterback gains freedom.”
“Perfect.”
As I said, because the quarterback sets up deeper in shotgun, the offensive linemen gain far more room to maneuver. Executed flawlessly, it even produces that ideal, oval-shaped pocket. That guarantees the quarterback ample time to survey the field, letting him make his reads with that much more composure.
But—
It has distinct drawbacks as well.
The first is that it's easy to predict. Shotgun means pass, and the defense can prepare for exactly that.
The second is snap distance. The center's snapping ability has to be exceptional.
Thankfully, that problem was a non-issue.
Loto's snap was NCAA-caliber. Every single time, he delivered the ball precisely the way I wanted it.
Anyway—
The last one. The third.
One more weakness remained.
“It's vulnerable to surprise attacks.”
“But you…”
“Yes. I exploited that exact weakness.”
When the snap is taken from the shotgun, the quarterback is usually left alone in the pocket. No running back beside him—because the halfback and fullback have committed to the line of scrimmage. So if an opposing linebacker or safety carves out a lane and comes crashing in, the quarterback can absorb a vicious tackle and get sacked.
But that, in turn, meant—
“It opens up space for the tight end to release forward.”
“…You practiced that with Sekope?”
“To be precise—just two movements.”
Loose Socks: feign commitment to the scrimmage block, pivot in a half-circle, and sprint straight upfield.
Switch Jam: take one hit, shed the defender with a shove, then advance five yards into the middle and turn to face the quarterback.
No need to study anything elaborate.
Those two were more than enough.
Because—
“I'm the one running them anyway.”
“Well, that's…”
“Fitting for a quarterback, you mean? Yes. I'm aware.”
A quarterback must also know how to view his teammates as components.
That is absolutely not a license to treat them that way.
To find a crack inside the two intricately interlocking tactics—offense and defense—churning across the field and drive toward the end zone, a meticulous blueprint had to be running through your head at all times. Imagination is a quarterback's essential virtue.
I'd hammered that point home every single time, too.
And right now—
“When we line up at the scrimmage, I watch the defenders' positions and their eyes. Some kids give it away way too easily. That happened in the Campbell game too. One linebacker had his gaze locked on me and nothing else, so I called Switch Jam.”
“Holy…”
“That's just…”
“One hell of an audible.”
“Thank you.”
Beyond reviewing tactics, today's meeting served one more purpose: it convinced the coaching staff that I could, in fact, run an audible.
In an atmosphere that was anything but casual, I kept laying out my ideas. After all, the decoy scheme—the very reason I'd been summoned today—had required my explanation in the first place.
And I also shared my thoughts on the option.
On fielding two or more of a running back, fullback, or halfback.
Two makes it a double.
Three makes it a triple.
No football coach on this planet would commit the lunacy of putting four or more running backs on the field, which makes the triple option the most extreme rushing scheme I know.
The triple is brutal.
But the double? We could run that just fine.
“Good. Let's stop here for today.”
“Thank you for your time, sir.”
Integrating a new scheme would take at least two weeks—and only because it ran in a similar vein to our existing offense was it that quick. After hearing that the coaches would discuss it further among themselves, I headed outside for lunch and made for the cafeteria.
“Moi!”
“Heading to eat?”
“Yeah. Let's go together.”
“Sounds good.”
Lately, Kaonohi had brightened up considerably. I was quietly pleased about that. For someone so quick and fast, he packed a decent amount of strength, which is why I'd judged Safety—the last line of defense—a good fit for him, and lately his training results were showing. Just yesterday, the defensive ends coach had complimented him.
Watching that, I felt a deep, swelling satisfaction.
Truly—
Nothing in this world beats raising your own.
Every single time, it was exceptional.
The moment Moi left the room, the Kahuku High School football coaches began clicking their tongues.
“We knew he was special, but this is beyond that.”
“I'll dare say it—this is professional level.”
“The brain, the vision, the judgment. Goddamn. The kid's the real deal.”
“Gavin. Moi is right.”
“…”
Gavin Travis, like countless high school head coaches before him, had sacrificed a great deal of himself for the sake of his players' level. Devising and deploying ingenious, intricate schemes as a head coach was an enormous thrill—and a proof of one's own ability—but high schoolers were simply too young to keep up with them.
Other positions could be taught. The quarterback, though, could not be made through instruction alone. Saying he was simply born for it doesn't even begin to cover it.
The chosen one?
Perhaps that expression fit best of all.
“Whew—I was planning to make my run at the title around next year.”
Dwayne Moi: a freshman of unprecedented, once-in-a-lifetime caliber. Regardless, he would spend four years at this school. Even writing off his freshman season as an adjustment period, the roster could be built into a genuine title contender across the three years that followed.
And yet—
It seemed that timeline could be moved up.
Moi had made them dream of it just now.
“Let's roll the dice, then. Things are about to get a whole lot busier.”
The talent of Dwayne Moi Stone grew more astonishing the deeper you looked.
Kahuku High School would now—
Set its sights on the very top of the state tournament.