American Football: King of the Bay Area

”What are you looking at? Damned Asian, what’d you score? Don’t tell me it was only a ten!” Cam’s temper seemed to spiral out of control. As a hotshot who’d had a smooth, unstoppable ride for the past six months, he’d suddenly become a laughingstock in front of everyone. The gut-wrenching feeling easily shattered his composure.

Facing Cam, whose eyes were as red as a bull’s, Lu Ke remained unhurried. He turned to Marcus and asked with a straight face, ”Marcus, you sure your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you? Wasn’t Cam’s test score an eleven?”

Marcus was confused at first, but he caught the playful glint in Lu Ke’s eyes and decided to play along. ”I’m not so sure. Should I go take another look?”

”I think you must have seen wrong,” Lu Ke said, nodding seriously. He held up his first finger and continued with the utmost gravity, ”Otherwise, how could he make such a stupid mistake? First, I’m from UCLA.” UCLA was one of the ”Public Ivies,” and getting accepted wasn’t easy, even with an athletic scholarship. What’s more, Lu Ke had been admitted on his own academic merit, not an athletic scholarship.

Lu Ke then held up a second finger. ”Second, I’m Chinese. My SAT score was a perfect sixteen hundred, and my GPA is a 3.9.” A perfect score on the SATs and a near-perfect GPA from a top university—a 3.7 was already enough to apply to graduate programs at the top ten schools in the United States.

When Cam brought up Lu Ke’s Asian identity, there was an undercurrent of racial discrimination. The common stereotype of Asians—especially those of Chinese Descent—was that they were incredibly good at math and academics, but were just nerds who only knew how to study. This rigid stereotype had become its own form of prejudice.

And Lu Ke, in turn, used that identity to deliver a crushing intellectual blow. Among professional football players, just meeting the NCAA’s minimum academic standards was a struggle, let alone achieving excellent grades. If Cam had half a brain, he would have known that challenging Lu Ke on the Fonderick test was the stupidest possible move.

Then, Lu Ke suddenly lowered his fingers and shrugged. ”Look at me, why am I even bothering to show off? He probably doesn’t even understand what I’m saying.” His dismissive expression was like a right hook slamming into Cam’s cheek. Even the onlookers couldn’t help but let out a collective ”Oof!” of sympathetic pain.

Cam’s face turned a dark, ashen color. Even his dark skin couldn’t hide the lifeless rigidity that came over him. A tidal wave of fury seemed to wash over his features, making his complexion look even ghastlier than a vampire’s. His lips pressed into a thin, tight line as a fragmented sound squeezed through his gritted teeth. ”Damn...”

But before Cam could finish his curse, Marcus deliberately raised his voice. ”Bambi, what score did you get anyway?” Marcus was doing it on purpose. He winked at Lu Ke and continued sarcastically, ”You didn’t get just an eleven, did you? That would be absolutely hilarious.”

Marcus’s playful taunt made the other young men around them roar with laughter. Then, Logan’s exclamation cut through the noise. ”Jesus Christ! God Almighty! Yahweh, and Buddha, and Allah! Lu Ke! Mr. Lu Ke!” Logan’s voice was distorted, rising to a piercing shriek that made everyone’s skin crawl. Instantly, all eyes shot in his direction, their faces filled with confusion.

Lu Ke turned his head and saw Logan straightening up from behind him. Apparently, he had just bent over to peek at Lu Ke’s score sheet. Logan’s expression of utter disbelief and wild joy was plain to see, prompting a smile to spread across Lu Ke’s own face.

”Gentlemen! And... gentlemen! Let’s have a huge round of applause for the second player in NFL history to get a perfect score on the Fonderick test: Lu Ke!” Logan threw his hands in the air, cheering as if he’d just won a championship, turning to face everyone in the room.

But the next second, Logan realized that everyone around him was completely stunned. The room fell deathly silent. Every single person was frozen in place, looking utterly dumbfounded, as if they couldn’t even move their pinkies. They were all completely floored, their eyes wide with disbelief, as if time and space had ground to a halt.

Including Cam Newton.

Logan looked left and right, thinking they didn’t believe him. He bent down, snatched the score sheet from Lu Ke’s hand, and held it high. ”See for yourselves! Fifty points! A perfect score! Lu Ke! It’s this guy right here beside me, the quarterback from UCLA!”

”WHOOSH!” A collective gasp swept through the room. The next second, the place erupted in cheers. Everyone rushed forward, slapping and bumping Lu Ke’s shoulders. ”Bro, that’s insane!” ”Dude, how’d you do that?” ”Jesus Christ, are you Einstein? What the hell just happened?” ”I can’t believe it... I really can’t believe it...”

A clamor of excited shouts filled the air. Before Lu Ke could even react, he was engulfed in a whirlwind of attention, thrust into the spotlight before he was even ready.

JJ Watt pushed open the door to the testing room, his own score sheet still in hand, only to be met with what looked like a full-blown party. He blinked, completely baffled, with no idea what was going on.

He glanced around and saw a player standing off to his right, frozen like a statue. It was the only person in the entire room who wasn’t jumping, shouting, or screaming—and it was a familiar face, Cam Newton. As the newest Heisman Trophy winner, Watt of course recognized him. He gave Cam a friendly bump with his shoulder. ”Hey man, what’s going on in here?”

Cam snapped his head up, glaring at Watt with a sharp, terrifying gaze, as if looking at his mortal enemy.

”Fifty points! Haha! That’s more than double twenty-one!” Marcus came over, crowing triumphantly and spinning in circles in front of Cam. ”Huh, wait, what am I, stupid? You can’t even compare them like that. One is just a passing grade, the other is a perfect score. That’s a world of difference. A twenty-one... that’s more suited for a running back. Yep, born to be a running back!”

With that, Marcus ignored Cam and skipped away.

The next second, Watt noticed a murderous glint in Cam’s dark eyes, as if he were about to tear everyone in front of him to shreds. A confused Watt frowned. ”Dude, what’s with that look? If you’re not feeling well, go see a doctor.” It was a simple statement with no real bite to it, but it clearly conveyed Watt’s disapproval.

Cam puffed out his chest and clenched his fists, only to realize that Watt was even more powerfully built. They were the same height, but at 289 pounds, Watt was a full size bigger than Cam. His mountain of muscle effortlessly dwarfed Cam’s intimidating posture.

Cam gritted his teeth, overwhelmed with shame and helplessness. He viciously slammed his fist into the wall, kicked a nearby metal rack, and stormed away. ’I have to get out of here,’ he thought. ’Out of this humiliating, wretched room, or I don’t know what I’ll do.’

From across the room, Cam glanced over and saw Lu Ke at the center of the crowd, like the moon surrounded by stars. He wore a pleasant, friendly smile, easily high-fiving every player who came to celebrate with him. The atmosphere was electric. A surge of blind rage shot up from Cam’s gut. A hint of deep loathing surfaced in his eyes. An intractable hatred was forged at that very moment.

Only then did he finally turn and stalk away.

Watt frowned as he watched Cam’s departing back, still confused. He walked over to Lu Ke and offered a friendly warning. ”Hey man, you got some kind of beef with Cam Newton? He didn’t look too good. You should probably watch your back. At the Rookie Training Camp, some guys with low moral character will pull all kinds of dirty tricks.”

Lu Ke glanced around but couldn’t see Cam anymore. He looked back at Watt with a smile. ”Thanks for the heads-up. It’s hard to guard against villains, though I don’t really get why a Heisman Trophy winner has it in for me. I just hope it’s not about race.” His witty, humorous tone made Watt chuckle.

On the football field, you’re either an ally or an enemy. Clearly, Cam was the latter.

”So, what are you guys celebrating?” Watt finally asked, glancing around again. Even in the brief moment they had been talking, more people were still coming over to high-five Lu Ke, making Watt even more curious.

Lu Ke shrugged and said nonchalantly, ”I just got a perfect score on the Fonderick test.”

Watt’s eyebrows shot up. He then slapped Lu Ke hard on the shoulder. The force from his massive, fan-like hand was immense, making Lu Ke grimace. ”Whoa, so you’re the legendary genius! You sure you shouldn’t be checking out Harvard?”

”If this draft thing doesn’t work out, I’ll definitely look into it,” Lu Ke replied with a straight face, which made Watt roar with laughter again.

In just half a day, word had spread through the entire Rookie Training Camp: for the second time in history, a player had aced the Fonderick test—and he was a quarterback. Team managers, scouts, and reporters were all in a frenzy, scrambling to find out more.

In this completely unexpected fashion, the name ”Lu Ke” was on everyone’s radar at the Rookie Training Camp for the first time. Combined with his identity as a Chinese-American quarterback, the rumors began to spread:

The main reason for UCLA’s second victory over the University of Southern California in a decade. The pivotal player who brought the Rose Bowl back to UCLA after a twenty-five-year drought. The quarterback who had been on the scout team right up until his first official start. The player who had only participated in two college games...

All these details painted the picture of a miraculous, almost mythical story. Whether people liked it or not, whether they approved or not, one thing was undeniable: this Chinese-American quarterback with no profile, no record, and no history was rapidly becoming the hottest topic of conversation.