American Football: King of the Bay Area

After the school paper published the story, it failed to make much of a splash, just as Emily had expected. The reasons were simple. First, most of the Chinese students didn’t watch football. Forget football; they barely participated in any school-organized activities, so there was naturally little interest.

Second, Lu Ke was just a backup. There were nearly thirty players on the bench, a crowded and dizzying sight. People only focused on the starters—the players who could bring them victory—not on a player of Chinese descent joining the reserves. To put it bluntly, the backup roster changed every week, and nobody cared.

For Lu Ke’s friends, this was a pivotal moment in his life. But for everyone else, it was just an inconsequential change on the team’s bench. Never mind Lu Ke; even players like John and Derek failed to generate any buzz.

More importantly, three days after the article was published—the day before the new season officially began—an earth-shattering event struck the Brown Bear Team. The team’s star starting quarterback, Kevin Clifton, was under police investigation for domestic violence.

Even in the professional leagues, a player suspected of a criminal offense would inevitably be in the spotlight. If necessary, the league would even impose additional suspensions as punishment. This was even truer for the NCAA. At its core, the NCAA isn’t a professional league—a fact made obvious by its emphasis on academics—so it places an even greater importance on a student’s moral character. A school could very well suspend a player for an entire season over civil offenses like theft or drunk driving.

This time, Kevin Clifton was suspected of repeatedly assaulting his girlfriend and faced potential criminal charges. After gathering evidence and questioning him, the police officially filed a case.

After discussions and deliberations, UCLA announced that it was temporarily suspending Clifton and requiring him to cooperate with the police investigation.

The news was a devastating blow.

Over the past five years, the Brown Bear Team had struggled to regain its competitive edge. Just when they had finally found a winning formula last year, with Kevin Clifton as the core of their success, disaster struck. Before the new season had even begun, they had lost their star player. The entire team was suddenly leaderless, leaving the fans completely dumbfounded.

What was worse, they had already lost their second-string quarterback, and now their starter was gone too. This forced head coach Rick to reluctantly announce that Kevin Price would take over as the team’s starting quarterback.

”A fourth-year player with only seventeen career pass attempts and zero touchdowns.” This was the resume of the Brown Bear Team’s new starting quarterback. It was so unbelievable it felt surreal, so absurd that one could only laugh. The season hadn’t even begun, and it already felt like they were being forced to surrender.

With the fans plunged into despair, who would notice a story in the school paper? He was just a backup player. Even being of Chinese descent didn’t give him any real news value. A bucket of cold water had been thrown on Jay’s article before it could even start to simmer, extinguishing any potential spark.

And that was the entire story of the first time Lu Ke’s name appeared in a publication.

In reality, after Kevin Clifton’s suspension, Darius Bell became the second-string quarterback, and Lu Ke, in turn, was promoted to third-string. But this piece of news garnered even less attention. Without Clifton, it felt like the end of the world. Neither Price nor Bell could be the Brown Bear Team’s savior, so what hope was there for Lu Ke?

But to Lu Ke, the newspaper story vanishing without a trace was no big deal at all. It had taken him two years to go from an amateur to a practice player for the university team. It had taken him one year to go from an unknown practice player to a backup on the Brown Bear Team. And it had taken him only three days to go from a low-level backup to the third-string quarterback.

This was already an incredible leap forward. He was ambitious, but not greedy. He had to be satisfied with his current situation. At the very least, he could finally begin systematic quarterback training and, with the system’s guidance, steadily build his foundation, creating his own miracle one step at a time.

’A meteoric rise is exciting, but steadily honing my skills will give me a more solid footing.’ It was precisely because Lu Ke knew how poor his abilities truly were that he felt an urgent need to train. ’Otherwise, even if a real opportunity to play arises, I won’t be able to win once I’m on the field, let alone complete the system’s mission.’

「The 2010 NCAA football season officially kicked off.」

On Saturday, September 11, UCLA hosted a fellow prestigious university, Stanford University, at their home stadium. The two teams were archenemies, in a rivalry some even called the ”National Derby!”

For the past two years, Stanford University had been on a roll, sweeping aside all competition. Their quarterback, Andrew Luck, who was just starting his junior year, was an absolute star. He had taken over as the starting quarterback his freshman year, been named the Pac-12 Conference Offensive Player of the Year for two consecutive years, and was virtually unrivaled within the conference. This year, Andrew was also considered a top contender for the All-American First Team and the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy—the highest honor a college football player could receive.

In contrast to Stanford University, UCLA’s record in recent years had been abysmal. Despite this, the ”National Derby” was as heated as ever, and the Brown Bear Team’s supporters were desperate for the team to pull off a surprise upset.

But reality was cruel.

In Kevin Price’s first career start for the team, he played as if he were sleepwalking through the entire game. Not only did he fail to score a single touchdown, but his completion percentage was under forty percent, and he even threw two interceptions. The team ultimately suffered a humiliating 35-0 blowout, forced to watch their rivals swagger off the field victorious.

The season had just begun, and alarm bells were already ringing.

For Lu Ke, however, it was the first time in his life he had watched a game from the sidelines. The feeling of the crowd’s roar, the electrifying atmosphere, the thrill that made his blood boil and his skin burn—it was all seared into his mind, becoming a powerful motivation to train even harder. He yearned for the day he could stand on that field, spread his arms wide, and truly feel the heat and madness of being at the center of the world.

He was certain that day was not far off.

In the days that followed, Lu Ke devoted himself completely to training. Even Kevin Price stopped bothering him. Price’s problems were on the field now; the pressure he faced wasn’t from Darius or Lu Ke, but from their opponents. He wasn’t just fighting to keep his starting job, but to save his entire career. He had to give it every last ounce of his strength.

After returning from training camp, Lu Ke completed another daily training mission and earned a base point. But he soon discovered that the daily training missions had finally changed.

The number of daily training exercises increased by five, bringing the total to twenty-five.

This included a large amount of strength training, like bench presses and squats. It was clear the system thought Lu Ke urgently needed to improve his ability to handle physical contact. Even if he wasn’t a bulldozer like a defensive lineman, he at least couldn’t be so easy to knock down.

It also included extensive technical drills for things like passing and footwork. Honing a quarterback’s technique is a long and arduous process with no room for slacking. On top of the fundamental drills, however, the system now added skill-based exercises like five-yard passes, fifteen-yard passes, and throwing to a specific spot. This meant Lu Ke was gradually starting to train like a professional.

The number of consecutive days required to complete the training tasks also doubled to fourteen.

This meant the required period of consistency was longer, the difficulty had increased, and the chances of earning base points had decreased. Any slip-up on any given day within those fourteen days—even the slightest mistake—could reset the mission, forcing him to start all over again.

Now Lu Ke finally understood why some of the six people before him—and perhaps other system hosts even before that—had failed. Years and years of training, without allowing for a single mistake or a moment of laziness. Taking just one break could mean starting over from scratch. Even though Lu Ke was confident, he was starting to feel the pressure as the system revealed its subsequent tasks, one by one—

Because having the mission reset and starting over was something Lu Ke simply could not afford right now.

He was already in his fourth year. The Rookie Training Camp in March 2011 and the Draft at the end of April were his last chances. If he missed this window, he would become an undrafted free agent. The difficulty of standing out from the massive pool of players to make it into a professional league and become a pro wouldn’t just double; it would increase tenfold, even a hundredfold.

’I need to prove myself in games, but even more, I need to build up my actual skills. Every single day is crucial!’

From the second week of September to the first week of December—for sixteen straight weeks—Lu Ke didn’t miss a single day of training. He strictly adhered to every requirement for every exercise in the system. If he couldn’t finish something during the team’s regular practice, he would stay afterward for extra work until it was done.

William and Logan became Lu Ke’s best training partners. In fact, it wasn’t just them; Derek and Wade would occasionally join in, making the tedious training sessions much more fun. Because of Lu Ke’s persistence and all-out effort, they even came up with a nickname for him: ”Bloody Bambi.”

The nickname came from a practice session where Lu Ke bumped his nose and got a nosebleed. He didn’t notice it right away and kept training, getting blood everywhere—on his jersey, his pants, his palms, his cheeks, his shoes. He looked like he had just walked out of a slaughter.

Thus, the moniker ”Bloody Bambi” spread like wildfire. Even the established starters on the first-string roster started calling him that jokingly.

The sixteen weeks of grueling training yielded immense rewards for Lu Ke. His fundamentals were finally corrected—including his passing motion, his drop-back footwork, and his stance before the snap. As long as he persisted, these techniques would become second nature, ingrained in him for his entire professional career—assuming he had one.

On top of that, Lu Ke had earned a total of eight base points over the sixteen weeks. Combined with the one he had received at the end of training camp, he now possessed nine base points. It sounded like heavy artillery.