Damn, This Place Is Really Nice

The past few weeks had been eventful, to put it mildly.

First of all, we beat Mililani at the very end.

Since I started playing football, it was the most dramatic win we'd ever had.

And the very next day, Sunday morning, Michigan actually brought Eminem along.

I'd heard the story beforehand, but seeing it with my own two eyes, even I couldn't believe it.

"If you come here, we'll become Smashigan."

At the sight of a man renaming Michigan into "Smashigan," Aunt Mel let out a gasp of admiration. "That's genius."

There was no stopping her. Truly.

She'd been an Eminem fan for years, and she completely lost her mind. I nearly died trying to keep her from making a scene. I begged her to at least preserve some dignity, but it was as if she couldn't hear a word I said.

Then around lunchtime that day, I boarded a plane. My destination was Tennessee.

The trip was to visit the Volunteers. Knowing they'd left a bad impression on me during their visit to Hawaii, Tennessee had clearly gone out of their way on many fronts, and Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt's attitude had changed considerably as well. He was far more polite. Far more specific. None of the empty sweet talk from before.

But.

I still hated the way he assembled his offense. To believe that pile-of-crap scheme was the pinnacle of football—Tennessee had gone completely beyond saving.

Then came Tuesday, and the Buckeyes came to Kahuku.

In other words—Urban Meyer.

The legendary coach who stood at the very top of NCAA D1 football told me how wonderful of a team OSU was.

I already knew that, obviously. That OSU was a great team, and a great university besides. Their offense was arguably the best in NCAA D1 and would remain so, which meant as a quarterback I'd get to experience an enormous variety of football there—that much was an objective fact.

But Ohio is, at its core, a cold place. During football season it's gray, snow, gray, snow, on repeat.

Above all else, though—I hate Urban Meyer.

Even more than Nick Saban.

Urban Meyer treats his football players like parts in a machine, components to be used up in service of his own success, a man who extends almost nothing in the way of basic human respect. And his obsession with Tim Tebow was beyond comprehension.

What exactly is so impressive about a half-baked quarterback who never once stood under center in his entire football career? He kept comparing me to Tim Tebow over and over again. The man who flamed out miserably in the NFL, did nothing but sell jerseys, and only belatedly tried his hand at baseball—that man was supposedly the same as me.

On the outside I was smiling pleasantly. On the inside, I was boiling.

And so the meeting with OSU ended, leaving me with only one fresh certainty: I would never, under any circumstances, go to Urban Meyer's team.

The road game at Campbell, played in the rain, was another complete circus.

A safety was scored ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the very first quarter, and the two teams' kickers combined for eleven missed kicks. In the end, I ground out the points myself, running hard. Not a single passing touchdown—188 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns, all on my legs.

After the game, I learned I'd become the first quarterback from Hawaii ever to rush for over 170 yards and score 3 touchdowns in a single game.

And then, once again, it was Sunday. I was in Alabama.

#. October 7, 2018

#-1. Auburn, Alabama, USA

#-2. Auburn University

Where USC had felt like a big city, Auburn was the exact opposite—a small-town campus. In fact, this place is literally nicknamed "Small City."

Of course, whether it's fair ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to call 1,841 acres "a small city" is up for debate. For reference, the campus is roughly three times the size of USC's. The nickname came from the overall atmosphere of the place rather than anything else.

Anyway, the South is absurdly huge.

Be that as it may, sometimes D1 coaches from down south will tell me, "Come to think of it, Hawaii's the South too."

Heavens, no. We are genuinely humble folk.

"When you come here, this is where you'd be living."

"Whoa. It's huge."

"How many bathrooms does one place need?"

"Four."

"Did you hear that, Moi? Four!"

"Please, Mel. Do you have to broadcast your island-ness like that?"

Today my parents had stayed behind, and Aunt Mel had come along instead. Grandpa and Grandma were with us too.

A woman named Abbie Wells, who introduced herself as the Deputy Athletics Director, was guiding us around. Our current location was an upscale apartment community called 160 Ross. The 160 units were split between four-bedroom, four-bath apartments and two-bedroom, two-bath apartments, and I'd been told I could have the largest one all to myself.

A place like this meant that if my family came from Hawaii, they wouldn't even need to book separate lodging.

That part, I liked very much.

When Abbie Wells led Grandma and Grandpa out to the terrace, Aunt Mel sidled up close and whispered to me.

"You know..."

"?"

"It's nothing but white folks here."

"I noticed."

"You going to be okay?"

"Eh. What's the worst that could happen?"

The average Black enrollment at a Southern university sits around 30 percent. Auburn, though, is barely 5 percent.

Likewise, even though Alabama is one of the poorest states in the country, 90 percent of Auburn's student body comes from middle-class or wealthier families.

A school like this—white, middle-class, Greek-life at its center—may look pleasant on the surface, but underneath it's quietly insular. And in environments like this, football typically becomes the outlet for the violence that has no choice but to stay hidden beneath the polished exterior. That's why, despite their recent poor record, the football team's popularity here is enormous.

The University of Alabama is much the same. There, the minority population is around 15 percent, and over 80 percent of students come from wealthy families.

Why do I bother keeping track of all this?

Because obviously I have to scrutinize everything, top to bottom. This is a place I'd be living for at least three years.

For someone like me—25% Samoan Polynesian, 75% Korean—racial and cultural diversity is an incredibly important consideration.

"Now, let me show you the Woltosz Football Performance Center."

"That's the training facility, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

The Woltosz is the name of Auburn's football training center, named after Walter Woltosz—an Auburn alumnus, successful entrepreneur, and film director. He's the founder of the company that developed ACES, the speech system famously used by Stephen Hawking, and he's donated enormous sums to Auburn every year.

That money built the football team's new training facility, and the school named it after him in gratitude.

A familiar story. An alumnus's love of football and display of wealth, and the school's repayment for it.

You'll see the stadium later too—so much has changed. They've invested heavily recently."

I know. Auburn had announced a $28 million plan, a massive project to overhaul the facilities top to bottom. The renovations were set to begin after this season ended and finish before next season kicked off—or so I'd heard.

"It's Sunday, so there'll hardly be anyone around."

"Works for me."

"Ha! After you, then."

Inside, the training facility showed its age in spots, but the upkeep was so meticulous that it felt clean and comfortable regardless. Judged on facilities alone, USC and Texas—which had recently spent ten million dollars on renovations—had been better.

But this place had its own charm. Weathered as it was, you could feel its history and its life in every corner.

"Oh—look, there's Morris. Morris!"

"Who's that?"

At Abbie's call, a man came over to us. Morris Henry, Auburn's strength and conditioning coach.

"I watched the video of you squatting."

"Haha. I hear that one a lot."

"So what's the story—still lifting the same weight?"

"I'm not raising it anymore."

"Meaning you could go higher if you wanted?"

"Maybe."

While I was touring the facility with Morris Henry, a man with a fully bald head approached us. Chip Lindsey—the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

If I came here, he'd be the person I'd see most often.

"America's biggest celebrity, in the flesh."

"Not quite yet."

I spent a while longer wandering the facility and meeting a few more people, and last of all came Head Coach Gus Malzahn.

Click.

"Honestly, this surprised me."

"In what way?"

"With you, I figured you'd care more about other places. You know... teams like Alabama."

It was true that I visited this many universities for a reason. But I didn't visit just anywhere—only places where I had at least some intention of enrolling.

Auburn was no exception. Sure, their roster was a notch below, and their recruiting was middling, but I wanted to play in the Iron Bowl at least once.

The Iron Bowl—the annual college football clash between Auburn and Alabama—is one of the hottest rivalry games in the nation. And beating Alabama in it?

Damn.

There'd be no fuller feeling on earth.

But that wasn't what I'd come here to talk about. I needed to know for certain whether Auburn was a university worth attending.

"I'd like to hear your philosophy, Coach."

"...In what respect?"

"Your vision, things like that. When you visited Hawaii, you told me what you could give me—scholarships, housing, that sort of thing. I took note of all that, and now I'm curious about something else. If I came here, what kind of team would you build, Coach?"

Every university I currently wasn't considering shared one trait: their head coach had little time left on his contract, or was about to be fired. With a team in that situation, no matter how good the conversation was today, there was no telling what things would look like in 2020, when I'd actually enroll. College was far too important a decision for me to bet my future on uncertainty—and thinking beyond enrollment too, I absolutely had to know whether a coach was capable of building a team for the long haul.

Tennessee's Jeremy Pruitt had been eliminated outright for failing to inspire confidence not only in how he assembled his offense, but in this exact area too. Georgia Tech, Temple, and Washington State, who'd all come to my house as well, had talked nothing but castles in the air, so I couldn't trust them either.

"Well, first we'd have to overhaul the entire recruiting plan."

"That's the first step?"

"It is."

Hmm.

Sorry, but my answer is no.

Certainly, plenty of universities want to build a team around me, and to some degree that's what I'm hoping for too. But the composition of the roster isn't what matters most, in my view.

What matters is what kind of coach you become.

Combining everything I'd thought while walking the campus, Auburn had just been crossed off my list entirely.

A shame, really.

The dorms were absolutely spectacular.

#. October 13, 2018

#-1. Athens, Georgia, USA

#-2. University of Georgia

#-3. Sanford Stadium

#-4. Locker Room

Against Farrington yesterday, I'd only played through the third quarter—Coach had been considerate enough to factor in today's schedule.

On Saturday, I flew to Georgia with my parents, and having just wrapped up a campus tour, we now walked into the football team's locker room.

The moment I saw it, my jaw dropped.

"Wow—"

Back when the University of Georgia had spent over four years courting Trevor Lawrence, they'd heard from his parents: "The locker room seems awfully dated."

Terrified of losing Trevor over that very thing, Georgia had begun building a new locker room at a cost of $63 million. Two years to raise the money. One year of construction prep. One more year of construction. They completed the new locker room to coincide precisely with Trevor Lawrence's college debut—and the star of the show went off to Clemson instead.

Why do Georgia people hate Trevor? Right here is your answer.

Anyway.

This is seriously incredible. The finest locker room I've ever laid eyes on.

"The locker room alone is 54,000 square feet."

"That's bigger than my grandma's yard and my grandpa's yard put together."

"Ha! We built it at twice the size of the old one."

"Wow— it's so open in here."

The color that symbolizes Georgia is black, accented with red and white. Beneath the enormous G-shaped light fixtures on the ceiling, row after row of sleek, atmospheric lockers caught my eye.

With white backlighting like that, the uniforms looked like Iron Man suits.

"Attack the Day. Composure."

"Georgia's mantra, I take it."

"Whoa. You're the first recruit to call it a mantra."

"Really? What do the others say?"

"Catchphrase."

"Haha. They need to hit the books."

Attack the Day. Composure.

Both were pieces of Kirby Smart's philosophy: stay positive by refusing to let any single day overwhelm you, and through it all, keep maintaining the calm, composed state in which you govern yourself.

"Don't you feel like a Bulldog already?"

"We'll see."

After looking around the locker room a bit more with my parents, we set off to meet Kirby Smart. Along the way we passed a medical suite with X-ray facilities that seemed better than any hospital back in Hawaii.

Then we walked to the head coach's office. The door was wide open.

"Thank you for making the long trip."

"Not at all. The facilities were impressive."

"They ought to be a place where the very best can perform."

As my father shook hands with him, Kirby Smart glanced at me and gave me a quick wink.

The conversation between my parents and Kirby Smart flowed much as it usually did, and when the time came for us to speak alone, I asked him the same question I'd posed at every university I'd visited.

"What kind of team will you build?"

Kirby Smart answered like this:

"I don't believe anything needs to be built from scratch. Now, if you came, we'd of course readjust the quarterback plan across the board—but that doesn't mean building a new team. That's not what you're after either. Am I wrong?"

"Some coaches seem to misunderstand it that way."

"Hmm. Here's how I see it."

Continuous growth and development. Excellent coaches. Consistency. Empowerment.

Having distilled his team philosophy into those four pillars, Kirby Smart said that Georgia was already operating at the highest level, and that all that remained was to maximize the gains that would come from my joining.

"I like the running game too, you know."

"Yes. I'm aware."

"I think it's fantastic when a quarterback runs three or four times a game to pick up twenty yards or so—mostly in the red zone. Beyond that, I like making use of the receivers. That's exactly why Jake starts over Justin."

The coaches who had scouted me thoroughly—and properly—knew that I don't care for the college style of running game. Not that it mattered with Kirby Smart; he'd preferred the passing game from the start, which was part of why I'd liked him from the beginning.

"But if there's something you learn here, it won't be about how to play quarterback. It'll be something else."

"Like what?"

"Leadership. The happiness that family, friends, and good food bring into your life. And football will give you the means to fill your life with the things that make you happy. There's no doubt you're a tremendous prospect, but once you're in college, there will be times you make mistakes. And when that happens, I have a duty to help you learn from those mistakes and keep growing and improving."

As I listened, I focused on his words—while a single thought kept circling in my head.

What reason is there not to play at Georgia?

Were there any drawbacks at all? The weather? Georgia itself is a warm state. And Athens? It's a Top 10 best place to live in America. For housing, they'd offered to renovate the best room in Vandiver Hall for my use. The team's strength? Solidly Top 10, and a roster capable of challenging for a National Championship. Tight end usage. The O-line. The defense.

True to its status as the strongest program among all the universities I'd visited so far, no particular flaw presented itself.

Damn.

This place is really, really good.

I'd wondered before, but as of this moment, this was the best of them all.

But still.

"You still need more time to think?"

"Yes. There are a few more places I'd like to see."

"I see. Where does Georgia rank in your heart right now?"

"First, as of now."

"Good to hear."

Georgia. Alabama. LSU. USC—that was the current order.

Michigan State. Ole Miss. Florida. Texas A&M—these four I still needed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠visit. And I planned to stop by Notre Dame at least once, since they'd originally been my top priority.

"One more thing, though..."

"?"

"We've been locking up defenders early. There'll be plenty of boys looking to line up against you rather than with you."

"Haha. Coach Nick Saban said the same thing."

"Of course he did. Of course he did."

Kirby Smart mentioned that his recruiting plans had collided with Alabama's all year long, but said that when it came to securing the very best defenders, Georgia had come out on top. And he said he was looking after the wide receiver situation on my behalf, and that he'd have good news for me soon.

"Call me anytime."

"I will. Get home safe, now."

"Yes, sir."

At this point, Georgia probably wouldn't bother sending anyone out to Hawaii anymore. Instead they'd have me visit a few more times like this—and next time, I'd likely be coming alone.

"A fine university, that."

"Yes. I think so too."

My parents seemed taken with the Georgia campus as well. Still, Dad couldn't quite let go of USC (CA). He wants to see me play in the Raiders' home stadium, after all.

But.

"Moi?"

"Yes?"

"What matters most is still what you want."

"Thank you."

Riding in the taxi the University of Georgia had called for us toward Atlanta, I turned my attention to the last remaining challenge: the OIA Open Division championship game.