American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote-Chapter 55 - 50: Coach Miller’s Proposal

It was Saturday morning at Franklin K. Lane High School, on the border of Brooklyn and Queens.

It was a day off, and aside from a few Mexican janitors, the school building was empty.

Li Wei walked through the hallways. For the first time, he didn’t smell marijuana and cigarettes in the school.

When he arrived at the athletic field, he was surprised to find that it seemed to be just him and Coach Miller.

"You know the school has a rule against teachers and students being one-on-one, right?" Li Wei said jokingly as he set down his bag. "And I’m still a minor."

"Fuck, what are you talking about?" Coach Miller was squatting by the five-yard line, emptying a bag of footballs into a net. "The field is an open area. The school rule just says we can’t be in a private space."

After setting up a few more obstacles, he clapped his hands, stood up, and picked up a stopwatch and a clipboard from the nearby grass.

"The game is next week. I need to get a rough assessment of your abilities," he said, walking over. "Otherwise, I won’t know how to use you."

"First up, the 40-yard dash," he said, pointing to a line drawn on the field and putting a whistle in his mouth. "Start on my whistle. Run like you’re sucking on a woman’s tits—the faster, the better."

Li Wei shrugged, changed into a pair of cleats, and began the tests one by one.

He didn’t use his Frenzy skill, nor did he use his full strength. Even so, he still ran the 40-yard dash in 4.47 seconds.

"Hm, 4.47..." Coach Miller was reeling inside, but his face remained impassive. "Not bad..."

It was far more than "not bad." Even in the professional leagues, only top-tier running backs could break 4.4 seconds.

"Passing is next." He picked a football out of the net, threw it hard to Li Wei, and then pointed to a target over 40 yards away. "Let’s see your arm strength and accuracy."

In a football game, a Quarterback has to make a split-second decision after receiving the snap: run the ball himself or pass it to a teammate.

Therefore, in addition to decision-making and running speed, passing accuracy is also crucial.

Li Wei caught the football and tossed it lightly in his hands, feeling the friction of the rough leather against his palm.

His 1.9 Strength stat made the ball in his hands feel as light as a wad of cotton.

He didn’t know how to generate power like a conventional Quarterback by twisting his waist and hips. Or rather, he didn’t need to.

Li Wei simply raised his arm, his upper arm driving his wrist forward, leaving an afterimage in the air.

THUD!

The football didn’t trace a soft, rainbow-like arc through the air. Instead, it shot forward like a launched cruise missile, traveling in a nearly straight line before brutally smashing into the distant tire, slamming hard against its rubber sidewall.

The tire, which had been fastened with a thick iron chain, was sent swinging violently backward by the impact, even causing the entire goalpost to shake.

"Incredible power... terrible mechanics," Coach Miller muttered, swallowing hard. "...Holy fucking shit."

Over the next hour, in the standing long jump, vertical leap, 20-yard shuttle, and three-cone drill, Li Wei—while deliberately holding back—still effortlessly shattered Franklin High School’s records. In fact, on the hand-timed stopwatch, some of his scores even broke the national high school records.

"How was that?" Li Wei asked, walking over without even breathing heavily. "Anything else you want to test?"

His 1.9 Constitution had massively boosted his endurance, making it a stat on par with his Strength.

Based on Li Wei’s observations and calculations, a stat value of 2.5 was roughly the current human world record, and as far as he knew, no single person had ever reached that value in three different stats at once.

For example, someone might have 2.4 or 2.5 in Strength alone, but their body weight would be correspondingly much higher, and their Agility and Constitution would be very low.

Someone else might be able to run very fast, but their endurance and upper body strength would be far inferior to the first type.

Only Li Wei was a perfectly balanced fighter, developed in all areas of Strength, Agility, and Constitution. His power, Burst, and endurance were all top-tier.

’Good job, me.’ Li Wei glanced at his panel. ’All that point allocation was worth the effort.’

Coach Miller closed his clipboard. When he looked at Li Wei again, his tone had softened considerably:

"Damn it, you’re a fucking genius—I mean, you’re very talented," he said. "You don’t need to participate in regular physical conditioning anymore. Hmm... when you have free time, you could try taking up boxing to learn how boxers generate power. Your throwing motion is just plain ugly. Don’t just throw with your arm strength; you need to learn to generate force like this—"

As he spoke, he demonstrated the motion: pushing off the ground, rotating the hips, and transferring power from the core through the shoulder and into the arm for the throw.

Li Wei nodded silently in agreement.

"That’s all for now. Your numbers are already good enough to get into any D1 University," Coach Miller said. "But I want to ask you, which university do you want to go to? Ohio State? Or Michigan?"

These were all NCAA powerhouses, among the top-tier universities for football.

But Li Wei shook his head and said, "I want to go to an Ivy League school, like Yale or something. Harvard would be fine too."

The moment he said that, a vein bulged on Coach Miller’s forehead, and he nearly dropped another F-bomb.

"Why?" he asked. "Yale or Harvard... I don’t remember their football programs being that strong, are they? You’d get much better training at Ohio State or the University of Michigan."

For Li Wei, the reason for not wanting to go to these traditional athletic powerhouses was simple.

If he were just some ignorant kid from the sticks, or if he only planned to spend his whole life in the sports industry, then maybe Ohio State or the University of Michigan would be fine. Their alumni networks are extensive in the middle class and the sports world.

But if he wanted to make it in the United States and climb the ladder, the circles at Yale and Harvard were undoubtedly better. And in the eyes of most Americans, Yale held a slight edge in prestige over Harvard.

Why settle for a sports school when you could get into the Ivy League?

"I still want to go to Yale or Harvard," Li Wei said. "It’s my decision."

"Fine, have it your way," Coach Miller said after a moment’s thought. "But those Ivy League Universities don’t usually give out athletic scholarships. Have you earned enough for your college tuition?"

Li Wei didn’t mention his part-time job at a boutique or that he was applying for other scholarships, just vaguely said he was still a long way off.

The corners of Coach Miller’s mouth twitched into a smile, which he quickly covered with a pair of coughs.

"By the way, kid," he began, "you really haven’t taken anything? No steroid cycles?"

"Never. I’m all-natural," Li Wei said, holding his hands out. "At least a hundred people have already asked me that."

"That’s good," Coach Miller said. "So... you interested in earning some extra cash? You know, you’d be helping me out, and at the same time, you might just earn enough to cover all four years of your college tuition."

"What is it?"