I've Always Done It This Way
September 6, 2017
Provo, Utah, United States
Brigham Young University
This place is enormous.
Truly, truly enormous.
As if to flaunt its reputation as the largest private university campus in the entire world, Brigham Young University—BYU for short—unveiled its grandeur before me in full measure.
"This is where our freshmen live."
"Looks like great facilities."
"All of it, by the grace of God. Our wonderful alumni never forget the school—they keep sending donations."
But it wasn't just a massive campus built on money.
There were other things that defined BYU.
The Mormon Church.
The Honor Code.
Chocolate milk.
And—
"Shall we head to the football field now?"
"I've been waiting all day for this."
"Haha. Follow me."
Football.
The woman walking ahead of us was named Lucy Hunt, BYU's public relations coordinator.
"Wow."
"Hmm?"
"This stuff is delicious."
"You finished it already?"
"I could put away a gallon of this, easy."
Coach Gavin Travis smacked his lips in regret, staring at the empty plastic bottle clenched in his hand. So I handed him the one I was holding.
He could ask for another one later.
"Some kid's probably going to commit to BYU just for this stuff."
"Is it really that good?"
"It's incredible. Creamy, but not heavy at all."
I had no idea when exactly my head coach had become a chocolate milk connoisseur, but apparently it was a truly remarkable beverage.
Anyway.
The reason Coach Travis and I were currently following BYU's PR coordinator around campus was simple: a few days earlier, they had sent a formal invitation requesting a visit.
The letter that arrived at our school was exceptionally courteous, they said.
Also deeply religious in tone.
Our principal, moved by its contents, accepted.
And so did I.
Not that I was moved or anything.
Hawaii, like BYU, was inseparable from the Mormon faith, so refusing such a polite request somehow felt wrong.
Then again, seriously.
This place was absurdly huge.
The total area alone was a whopping 560 acres—2.3 square kilometers.
And 311 buildings.
Could you believe it?
Three hundred and eleven buildings on a single college campus.
That was more than the houses in Kahuku and Paia combined.
For reference, Kahuku was only about six square kilometers in total, which meant one university campus covered more than a third of my entire hometown. I found myself thinking that somewhere on this campus, someone was definitely getting lost and praying about it.
"Have you ever been to our Hawaii campus?"
"No, regrettably not."
"It's a beautiful place as well. You must visit sometime."
"If I ever get the chance, I will."
Being polite was exhausting work.
For one thing, the clothes I'd worn here were tight.
In my scramble to find a dress shirt on short notice, I'd grabbed whatever fit roughly, and now the collar and forearms felt ready to burst at any moment.
That was why I couldn't make any big movements.
A button had already popped earlier, in fact.
I'd stitched it back on sloppily, but still.
"Oh, you can see the field there, right?"
"That's LaVell Edwards Stadium."
"Oh—! You know the name?"
"I did a little Googling."
"Good for you."
The home of the Cougars was named after the greatest football coach in BYU history.
A man called LaVell Edwards.
Not that you needed to know him.
But Steve Young was a different story.
The legendary quarterback who succeeded Joe Montana.
A lefty who completed the 49ers' golden era.
And a BYU product, right from this very place.
Beyond him, excellent quarterbacks like Jim McMahon and Marc Wilson also graduated from BYU and became NFL stars.
Screech.
Thud.
Having just realized that a car was necessary to properly tour a campus this size, we had gotten out at the parking lot and were walking toward the stadium.
"First, we'll meet with the head coach."
"Sounds good."
After following Lucy Hunt a while longer, we arrived at an office door.
Knock knock knock—
Lucy knocked, opened the door, and stepped inside first.
Coach Travis followed.
I hurried in after them.
Click.
Lucy, waiting by the door, closed it behind us, and the man seated at the desk rose to his feet.
A face and build far too familiar to me.
That's right.
A Polynesian.
"Welcome. Good to have you here."
The man who shook my hand after the coach's was BYU's head coach, Kalani Sitake.
A Tongan who had made it all the way to the NFL as a fullback for the Cincinnati Bengals—only to suffer a serious injury in his debut season and retire on the spot.
But what made him remarkable was that instead of crumbling, he'd gone straight into a coaching job at Eastern Arizona College as soon as he recovered from surgery.
Ordinary willpower couldn't manage that.
As expected of us Polynesians.
Nobody on earth out-toughs us.
Me included.
"How was the campus?"
"Big."
"Haha. An honest answer. I like it."
"That's my best quality."
"Good. Very good. You've got confidence."
The reason BYU had sent that letter to our school was, naturally, to recruit me.
Of course—
I had no intention of playing here.
For religious reasons, an outright refusal would have been too clean a cut to make, so I'd come merely to go through the motions.
It was a practice run, too.
I'd be visiting plenty of other colleges down the line.
No harm in getting experience with this sort of thing early.
"Let's head out. I'll show you the facilities."
We filed back out with the others and made our way through the stadium's interior.
Definitely—
Being a D1 program showed. The facilities were spectacular.
They couldn't hold a candle to the Jets' home stadium I'd run in my past life, obviously, but it was clear that mountains of money had been poured into every corner of the complex.
A portion of the tithing collected annually from Mormons worldwide flowed into BYU, and that portion alone casually exceeded well over a billion dollars a year.
The campus, the stadium—
They were all proof of just how staggering that tithing was.
"This here is the gym."
"Whoa. Mind if we look around for a minute?"
"Haha. I figured as much. Take all the time you want."
The way a sparrow can't pass a mill by, I couldn't just walk past a gym either.
A few new machines had recently arrived at Kahuku, making our setup better than before, but this place was simply bigger, with far more to try.
The free-weight area was spacious and open. Nice.
Dumbbells in abundance, too.
Other colleges probably had similar setups, right?
Good.
Let this be my baseline.
Wherever I ended up going—
I wanted the facilities to beat this place.
Only after arbitrarily setting BYU as my measuring stick did I leave the gym without a shred of regret.
The next stop was the locker room.
Since the university was in the middle of the semester, I'd assumed it would be empty—but a young man in full athletic gear was waiting for us.
"Good to meet you. I'm Tanner Mangum."
Whoa.
Mangum?
Now that's a handsome name.
Sounds like a guy who's legally required to own a shotgun or a pistol.
Tanner Mangum was BYU's current team captain, and his position was, of course, quarterback.
A dyed-in-the-wool Mormon?
"Yep."
"So you've done your mission too?"
"After my freshman season. Filed for a grey shirt."
Every student admitted to BYU had to be Mormon.
Athletic recruits, however, weren't strictly required to be.
But Tanner Mangum's entire family were faithful members, so he'd taken a year off from college to serve his mission.
Maybe that was why Mormons were so rare in the NFL?
They were generally a year older than everyone else.
A junior who declared early for the draft was the same age as the seniors.
Meaning the seniors were effectively NFL rookies already.
Tanner Mangum, an upright man whose whole frame seemed stuffed to bursting with religious duty, beamed with pride as he showed me the facilities.
And at last, we stepped onto the field.
"What do you think? Beautiful, isn't it?"
"It is."
I'd already made up my mind while touring the interior, but the field itself was immaculately maintained.
The grass stretching out before us was truly, truly gorgeous.
Looking up at the sky above the steeply carved stands on both sides, at the wide-open scenery stretching in every direction, I almost felt as if this place alone existed in all the world.
The last football stadium left standing after the apocalypse.
The religious overtones only made the image more convincing.
It would surely be something special—
playing a game here.
But.
Some other place would be far more beautiful.
By the time we finished the facility tour and returned to the head coach's office, Kalani Sitake brought out the real business.
"So? What do you say about playing for our BYU?"
"I'll think about it."
"…"
I knew he wouldn't like that answer.
And sure enough, that was exactly the expression on Kalani Sitake's face right now.
But part of me was genuinely curious.
Had he really believed he could sway me?
With facilities like this?
Above all—this place was genuinely, irredeemably boring.
Utah as a state was so thoroughly dominated by the Mormon Church that every resident lived a deeply pious life.
The way they simultaneously insisted on traditional one-man-one-woman marriage was honestly hilarious, but if I had to spend years here, I'd sooner enroll at the University of Hawaii.
It seemed Sitake was trying to leverage our shared Mormon connection, but while I'd followed my family into the faith, it had never been a particularly important part of who I was.
What mattered was family and football.
Exactly those two things. Nothing more.
In the strange tension that followed, I gave a few more careful answers to his questions, and once Kalani Sitake finally accepted that a signature wasn't happening today, he rose from his seat and extended his hand.
And with that, it was over.
My visit to BYU had come to an end.
"Let's meet again soon."
"Of course. If the chance arises."
Thud.
We climbed into a taxi the university had called for us and headed toward wherever the rest of our school people were.
When I asked the coach, it turned out to be a place called Utah's Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City.
High schoolers traveling all the way to the mainland… to see a zoo.
Seriously, there couldn't be a more tedious town than this.
But then—
I'd forgotten something.
"Damn—!! You're telling me that giant pile is elephant crap?!"
"Oh— giraffes! It's giraffes!!"
"Peacock, o peacock. Spread those wings for me—"
"Somebody take my picture!!"
"…"
Ah.
Crap.
The moment I saw my teammates losing their minds over zoo animals, I realized what we truly were: island hicks.
Anyway, setting that aside—
Kaonohi.
What the hell is that idiot doing?
"Staring contest with the gorilla."
"…Isn't that a chimpanzee?"
"Huh? What's the difference?"
"Haah—forget it. Never mind."
I smacked Marcus on the shoulder for not knowing the difference between a gorilla and a chimpanzee—and the instant I turned away, the scene unfolding before me robbed me of words.
"He's going—! He's finally going dooown!!"
"He's pissing with that whole thing!! Aaah!!"
"He's straight-up causing a flood!!"
What were we, cavemen?
Had they just discovered fire?
The Red Raiders football players, thoroughly hyped over an elephant urinating, finally went quiet—only after a zoo employee threatened to kick them out if they didn't settle down.
Don't get tangled up with those guys, damn it.
Don't.
My blood was boiling. Honestly.
Don't!
That was exactly the kind of moment I wanted to scream it.
September 8, 2017
Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Extended Stay America
The news that I had visited BYU spread across the entire mainland within hours.
National networks—ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox Sports—led their evening broadcasts with the fact that I had toured BYU's campus.
A simple campus visit, no contract signed, had beaten the latest headlines in the brewing US–China trade war.
Needless to say—
It pissed me off.
And I'd figured some school's patience would start running thin fast. Sure enough, UCLA had just become the third name on the list.
"Dear Moi, this coming December…"
"Damn—! Is this for real?"
Somewhere along the way, my email and phone had become half public property.
I was running several burner accounts, but even those got flagged and listed by some university's staff within days of being created.
Somehow they'd even gotten my phone number—I'd changed it before coming to the mainland, and UCLA still found a way to send me a wall of text.
To summarize:
Come to our campus in December.
Facilities are amazing.
L.A. weather? Unbeatable.
P.S. — Tons of pretty girls.
All of them will be yours.
That was more or less the gist of it.
I briefly wondered whether the P.S. had been strictly necessary, but considering how desperate they must have been getting, nothing they did surprised me anymore.
Above all—
Women were inseparable from NCAA D1 recruiting.
My past life had been notorious for exactly this kind of thing, and in this life too, UConn's basketball program had just been stripped of its eligibility after flying in professional escorts to "host" the team's promising recruits.
The arrangements mostly took place in a rundown motel on the edge of campus, guarded with security so airtight that Area 51 could take notes.
But the truth came out when one dissatisfied escort blew the whistle, and the NCAA's ugly underbelly was dragged into the light once again.
And of course, needless to say—
People lost interest immediately.
That wasn't what the public wanted to see.
Anyway.
UCLA tacking women onto the end of their pitch meant one thing: if I wanted it, they could arrange it.
Marcus, who had handed me the phone, asked:
"So you going to the Bruins?"
"Well, they're one of the candidates."
"For real?"
"Yup."
UCLA of the Pac-12 was one of those schools that genuinely fired up my competitive streak.
Their fanbase was colossal, and the fact that they'd never once dominated D1 appealed to me too.
"Are you insane? That's a plus?"
"If I go there and win a championship, the whole world flips upside down. Right?"
"Unbelievable. Fine. You're amazing."
"I know."
"Dammit! You always do this! I can never get even!"
"Heh heh heh."
After appeasing Marcus's fake sulk, I laid out my honest reasons for finding UCLA tempting.
First: Los Angeles itself. The weather, the environment—everything was perfect.
And it was a town starved for football.
L.A. had the Lakers and the Dodgers as proud franchises in basketball and baseball, but its two football teams, the Rams and the Chargers, weren't exactly Super Bowl royalty.
The Rams had at least lifted the Lombardi in 1999, while the Los Angeles Chargers had never won a Super Bowl in their entire history.
That bleak football history extended to the NCAA as well—the last time a national champion came out of California was 1954.
So think about it.
If I led UCLA to a national title?
California would lose its collective mind.
The Pac-12 wasn't exactly the most attractive division, and the SEC's allure tugged at me hard, but just imagining it set my adrenaline rushing.
Call it why UCLA was on the shortlist.
"I say this every time, but you're a total stone-cold rock."
"My name's Stone. It's only natural."
My family probably wouldn't love hearing that the eldest son of the Stone family had literally "stoned" his way through school, but I thoroughly enjoyed it myself.
"By the way."
"Yeah?"
"UCLA's the third, you said?"
"Yep. Michigan and Baylor."
"Did they message you too?"
"Mom. I screenshotted them—wanna see?"
"Oh— sure. I'm curious."
"Got nothing better to do anyway."
Michigan of the Big Ten and Baylor of the Big 12 had both extended their invitations too.
But Michigan's winters were endless and brutal—hard pass—and Baylor's recruiting had slipped so badly lately that I doubted the school even had the will to win anymore.
Not a single 5-Star prospect this year.
Only four 4-Stars, if that.
Besides, the Big 12 was the weakest conference in the country, so I could guarantee without hesitation that I'd never end up at Baylor.
If it came to that, I'd sooner go to BYU.
No wait—
Maybe not that either?
"Moi."
"What?"
"This is me being serious, okay?"
"Ah—I'm cringing already. What nonsense now?"
"No, really. Serious."
I didn't believe a word of "serious."
But fine, I'd hear him out.
Marcus scratched his head lightly and said:
"Let me carry your bag someday."
"What??"
"Or drive you around. Something like that."
"Screw off. Why would you even say that?"
"I'm telling you, I'm serious?"
Marcus apparently wanted to be something like my manager once I made the NFL. I told him to quit the theatrics and go back to his room, and booted him out with a kick.
Even as he was being thrown out, Marcus wouldn't stop:
"Oh! Then should I learn to cook?"
"With those filthy hands? Screw off!"
"I'll wash them properly!"
And on and on with the nonsense.
Marcus was a genuinely good friend.
And he could make it as a football player too.
He had real talent.
What he didn't know was that his habit of tearing himself down was suffocating that talent—and my friend never once believed he could become an NFL player.
Did that frustrate me?
Obviously.
Even when I was coaching in my past life, this was the part that aggravated me most.
Watching someone waste their own potential and their own time like that.
Would he ever realize it, I wondered—
that some things in this world cannot be taken back?
Happiness that can't be undone.
Encounters that can't be undone.
Time that can't be undone.
Youth tells everyone the lie that opportunity is endless—but the opportunities granted to any one person are neither infinite nor fair.
So we have to make the most of the time we're given.
Not in the place where you're happiest—
in the place where you can become happiest.
Since starting my second life—
I've always done exactly that.
Slide.
9:10 in the evening, and my friends had all gone back to their rooms.
I pulled out a chair, sat down, and opened the Play Book.
My roommate was reading a comic book.
Peace, at long last.
As I studied the Play Book, I thought about tomorrow's game.
Thankfully, we were still hungry.
Tomorrow, we wanted to prove to the world—
that the island warriors of Hawaii had D1 talent.
And I—
I intended to help my brothers do exactly that.
My success would be the team's success.
And at the same time—
it would be my friends' success.
That weight is a quarterback's to carry by definition, and it was never light. But I'd made my peace with it from the very beginning, which was why I could act and think as I always did.
"Chandler Wing. Alpha 30."
Committing tomorrow's offensive play calls to memory, I lifted my head and slowly closed my eyes.
Inside my mind—
the field, and my teammates running across it, were already drawn in perfect clarity.