"EH!? Really?"
"Anyway, make sure you attend the lessons, it will only be beneficial in the long run. Also I'd recommend telling the coach this when you see him next, it might lessen your punishment." Ken said with a small chuckle.
"Okay…"
In typical Steve fashion, he soon got over his blues and was busy with the next topic on his mind; the post season. "How far do you think we'll get?" He asked seriously.
"We're going all the way." Ken responded without hesitation. Leo's stats were burned into his mind, if he wanted to improve significantly, the only way was to complete the mission tasks.
If they could win the College World Series, this would put him in a great position to power up. Of course he still had a full season next year to do so, but they would be missing a few key players.
Ayden, Kaden, DJ, Bryton and Levi had already graduated or declared for the draft at the start of the month. Over half their starting team would no longer be here next season, meaning this would be their best shot to win it all.
"Hell yeah man! See? I knew you'd have my back." Steve exclaimed with glee.
Ken remembered something and looked around briefly, "Where is Tara? I need to speak with her at some point."
"She's at her parents for the summer break, just give her a call though if it's important."
Ken thought for a while before nodding. It was currently the end of May, the NIL deal would come into effect on the 1st July, or at least this was the case in his previous life. There was a good chance that it could be sooner since the NCAA had lost a lot of trust recently with his own scandal and the resignation of their president Luke Emmert.
"I'll call her now."
Ken didn't hide the conversation, even putting it on speaker phone for Steve to hear the responses. After all, he would also be affected by the NIL deal.
After having the situation explained to her, Tara was silent for a while.
"I had heard some things about this deal, but I never thought it would actually go through." She said eventually.
"I can guarantee that it will pass. The NCAA will appeal it, but the court will rule against them. This means that we'll be able to accept endorsements while in college, this is a good thing, but it also means your work load will increase." Ken explained.
Ken was worried because Tara was still a college student at the moment. She had already left the cheer team in order to free up more time to manage Ken and Steve's social media accounts.
"Of course I'd be willing to pay you a percentage of the endorsement deals since its technically not within your wheelhouse." Ken added.
"Can you give me some time to think about it?" Tara asked.
"Yeah no problem."
"Hey can I talk to her?" Steve asked.
"Okay I'll get back to you, bye." She said hurriedly.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
A stunned silence spread out in the room and Ken slowly placed his phone back in his pocket. "Maybe she just has a lot to think about…" He said, feeling a little awkward.
"Y—Yeah, you're right."
Ken got off the bed and stretched, wincing a little from the bruise on his ribs, "Well, I don't know about you, but I could do with a workout."
Steve thought for a moment before dropping back down onto the floor, "I might just stay here for a bit. Have fun."
Ken raised his eyebrow, "Alright, I'll just workout with Brian. I'm sure he won't have much to say about you slacking off in the dorm."
At this, Steve sat straight up, a scowl forming on his face. "Damn it. That kid won't ever let me hear the end of it if I skip training…"
With a groan, he got up to his feet and marched off to get ready, grumbling to himself. Ken found this rather amusing, but kept his comments to himself.
The rest of the week went by rather quick. With the time difference between the US and Japan, Ken and Ai's conversations were a little sporadic, but since there were no classes, he was basically free whenever he wasn't at practice.
With the post season about to start, many people in the media and on youtube were placing their predictions for who would come out on top. Columbia was of course not even labeled as contenders.
While players like Steve, Ken, DJ and Brian ultimately received positive feedback, as a team, they were completely discounted. It was hard to overturn their previous history of never making it past the regionals.
This was why the school had never made it into the top 25 in the national rankings.
However, both the coaching staff and the players thought nothing of this. Just because they hadn't achieved it in previous seasons, didn't mean that they couldn't this year with their star-studded line up.
In fact, there was a fierce determination as the team traveled to Blacksburg Virginia to begin the post season. There was nothing more motivating than being called an underdog.
The Blacksburg Regionals would host 4 teams at their home ground of English Field at Atlantic Union Bank Park, located on Virginia Tech's campus.
Wright State, Gonzaga, Virginia Tech and Columbia would be facing off in a double-elimination style bracket. This meant that as long as a team only lost once before the finals, they would have another shot at advancing to the super regionals.
But if things went well, any team could advance if they won 3 games in a row.
The Bobcats first game was against Wright State and would take place at 9am on the field. Thankfully, the Columbia staff had organized the team to arrive the night before in order to make sure they were fully rested before the game.
As the bus arrived at the stadium the sun shone down onto the well maintained field.
The regionals for the College World Series was about to kick off.