"The Tuckers."
"It's true, that's another issue," Mitchell nodded, stroking his beard.
"An issue!?" Cam repeated, staring at him wide-eyed, scandalized.
Mitch immediately cleared his throat and raised a hand, correcting himself. "No, no. Not an issue in a bad way," he clarified. "An issue because it's an advantage for Andrew, and that would be a problem for us. It would mean one more point in favor of him choosing Missouri."
"But…" Haley said, "wasn't the analysis supposed to be about football, projection, and exposure?"
"Yes," Claire replied, "but this can count as an extra advantage. He'd have a supportive environment, he wouldn't be alone. He'd be playing in the SEC without being completely isolated."
"But that advantage exists here too," Phil chimed in. "He has us, doesn't he?"
"And much closer," Haley added, turning to Cam. "How far is your parents' house from the University of Missouri?"
"One hundred and forty miles," Cam answered without hesitation. "About two and a half hours by car."
He'd already thought about it. His parents lived on the family farm, somewhat isolated, not in the middle of nowhere, but not in the city where the university was either.
"Aha!" Gloria suddenly exclaimed. "Then it's not that big an advantage. It's not like he could see them every day."
"Well, but they could still go see him almost every Saturday," Mitch pointed out. "The trip is perfectly doable if they want to support him."
"And you're forgetting something," Cam said, in a strange tone, like a late warning.
"What?" several of them asked at once, looking at him.
"My siblings…"
The grimaces were immediate.
Cam had three siblings: two men and a woman. The oldest, Pam Tucker, still lived in the same county as the family farm. The other two lived in Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri.
"They don't live in Columbia," Cam clarified, "but they're close. About twenty-seven miles. Nothing."
Columbia is a city in Missouri, and that's where the university is located.
"That's true…" Haley said, twisting her mouth. "Plus, that bitch Sydney is going to the University of Missouri."
Cam immediately turned his head toward her. "She heard you, sweetheart," he said calmly. "She's my niece too."
Haley clapped a hand over her mouth, as if it had slipped out unintentionally.
Sydney was the oldest daughter of one of Cam's brothers. Andrew's cousin. She was practically the same age as Andrew and Haley.
Haley remembered her well. The last time she'd seen her was in December 2010, during the state championship final between Mater Dei and De La Salle at the Rose Bowl. The entire Tucker family had traveled from Missouri to watch the game.
That was when Haley learned that Sydney's top choice was the University of Missouri.
They had never gotten along, and the feeling was mutual.
Andrew, on the other hand, did. She was his cousin, and he got along well with the entire Tucker branch.
"Sorry, it slipped out," Haley said in an exaggeratedly innocent tone, looking at Cam. "But I'm your favorite niece, right?"
Cam looked at her for a few seconds. Then a genuine smile spread across his face. "Of course you are."
Haley laughed softly and hugged him.
"Hey," Alex protested, sounding offended.
"Sorry, sweetheart," Cam added with a laugh. "You're my favorite too."
"Yeah, sure," Alex muttered dismissively, shaking her head.
Jay snorted and crossed his arms. "They'd better not fill Andrew's head with promises on Saturday when he gets there," he said in a warning tone, looking especially at Mitchell.
He wasn't talking about the college people. He knew perfectly well they would do their job: measured speeches, calculated praise, VIP treatment, and carefully presented future plans. He was talking about the Tuckers.
Jay knew the Tucker family would be there to pick Andrew up at the airport, along with the university staff. And if the coaches were already going to try to convince him, the Tuckers would do the same in their own way, with family enthusiasm, pride, and that ease they had for selling Missouri as if it were the center of the world.
"Make sure that doesn't happen," Jay added, without raising his voice, but making it clear he was serious.
He said it because he wasn't going to be there.
Jay would have gone with Andrew, just as he had on the visits to UCLA and Georgia, but this time he couldn't. The visit to Missouri took up the entire weekend, and he had a romantic dinner with Gloria on Saturday at an upscale restaurant, for which he'd had to make a reservation two weeks in advance. And what bothered him most wasn't missing the trip, it was the timing.
It was right after that reservation was confirmed that Andrew decided to schedule his third official visit for that very weekend, and to Missouri.
Too much of a coincidence.
Was the kid trying to make sure he wouldn't go?
Jay had no proof. Just a lingering suspicion. Especially because he'd never gotten along with Merle Tucker, Cam's father. The few times they'd seen each other, it always ended in an argument. Without exception.
"I'll take care of it," Mitch said, nodding seriously.
"Excuse me?" Cam asked, slowly turning his head toward him. "'I'll take care of it'? Do you really think my family is going to use cheap tactics to get Andrew to choose Missouri?"
Before Mitchell could answer, Claire spoke up. "Please, Cam…"
"What?" he snapped, looking straight at her.
Claire didn't back down.
"It's obvious they're going to try to sell Missouri as the best place in the world," Claire said calmly. "They're going to talk about its advantages, about how nice it would be to have him close, and about how proud they'd be. But they're not going to give him an objective analysis like the one we're trying to do, setting emotions aside."
Cam opened his mouth to argue, but Claire continued, not giving him any room.
"They want him there, in their state, with his last name on the jersey, and to be able to go watch him play every Saturday. And obviously they're not going to mention the downsides. They're not going to talk about how hard the SEC is for a program like Missouri, or about the time a project like that takes. To them, it'll be the best option, the perfect opportunity, the new face of the SEC."
"And what about you?" Cam shot back, frowning. "Aren't you doing the same thing? Aren't you looking for every advantage UCLA has to show him so he'll choose them?"
"No," Claire replied without hesitation. "I show him the pros, the cons, and the risks. I don't tell him it's the best option, but yes, I want him to choose them, just like you do."
"The difference is that I'm not promising him anything," Claire added. "I'm not going to sell UCLA as some magical solution. We've already talked about the instability of the staff, about how hard it would be to rebuild that program. I'll tell him all of that."
Cam made a face, uncomfortable. "But you're still pushing," he insisted.
"I'm being honest," Claire corrected him. "I'm not hiding the ugly parts to make it sound better. I want him to decide knowing exactly what he's getting into."
A brief silence followed.
"And if he still chooses Missouri," Claire concluded, "let it be because he truly believes it's the best place to achieve his goals. Not because someone painted him a perfect fairy tale."
Cam sighed. For a second, he seemed to give in, convinced by Claire's logic. Then he frowned, as if something still didn't quite add up.
"Wait a minute," Cam said. "We're assuming my entire family is going to be completely subjective. And we still don't know how they're going to act."
Jay clicked his tongue impatiently. "Don't be naive, Cameron."
Cam turned his head toward him.
"Every time we get together with the Tuckers," Jay continued, "the same thing happens. Like at the state final, remember? Merle wouldn't stop saying that Andrew should have played football in Missouri, that that was real football, that in California it's all just a show."
"Do you really think that now, with an official visit on the table, he's not going to try to push him toward choosing Missouri to play college football?" Jay added.
And even though he didn't say it out loud, Jay had a suspicion that had been circling in his head for a while: the choice of Missouri as one of the official visits didn't feel entirely like a 100% Andrew decision.
Jay wondered whether there hadn't been one too many conversations, a comment repeated with enough insistence, or simply the weight of spending more time with the Pritchett-Dunphys than with the Tuckers. Maybe someone had gotten into his head. Maybe Andrew, on his own, had decided to give them a chance.
What kept Jay from fully accepting that option was knowing that Andrew took his football future far too seriously to let himself be carried along without thinking. He wasn't impulsive, nor naïve in that sense.
Still, the doubt never fully went away.
Mitch nodded seriously. "That's true. It's not an assumption, Cam. It's a fact."
Cam lowered his gaze for a moment. He wasn't comfortable with the idea, but he couldn't deny it either. The Tucker family was going to push, from affection, pride, and that unshakable conviction that Missouri was the right place.
"Well, well… but that's not necessarily a bad thing," Gloria chimed in when she saw Cam's expression. "It's what any family that loves one of their own would do. Not out of malice. In Colombia, we'd do the same!" she added, spreading her arms. "And that wouldn't make us bad people!"
Cam looked at her gratefully.
And she was right. The fact that the Tuckers were more passionate, that they weren't entirely objective, or that they didn't see the full picture of what truly suited Andrew, didn't mean they were acting manipulatively or with ulterior motives.
It was pride in their roots, genuine love for Andrew, and the logical desire to have him close now that the possibility existed. After all, for years they had followed his high school career from a screen, except for a few special games they traveled to see in person.
"Yes… that's true," Claire agreed, her tone softer. "No one is saying they're acting in bad faith."
At that moment, Alex stood up abruptly. "Alright, let's not lose focus," she said.
She grabbed a marker and walked over to the whiteboard.
"We're mixing emotions with analysis," she continued. "Let's get back to order."
Phil raised his hand, as if he were in a classroom.
"Yes, Dad?" Alex asked without looking at him, uncapping the marker.
"If we're saying it's an advantage that the Tuckers are close in Missouri," he said, "then it should also be an advantage that we're here for UCLA, right?"
Alex looked at him and replied, "On paper, yes. It's the same."
"But in practice, it's different," she added. "At UCLA, Andrew doesn't change his environment. This is the status quo. Everything stays the same. It's harder to perceive it as an advantage because he's already here."
As Alex spoke, she wrote down the advantages they had discussed earlier and the disadvantages the Tigers had. "In Missouri, on the other hand, the change is huge: a new state and a new conference. Like a new life. So having family nearby works as a real plus. A buffer."
"And Missouri would be the only SEC college where Andrew would have family nearby," Manny added. "If he decides to play in the SEC, it's the only place where that factor exists."
Alex nodded without stopping her writing. "So," she continued, "with everything we've taken into account, I think Andrew's estimated likelihood of choosing would be the following."
She took the marker and, on one side of the board, wrote in clear letters:
UCLA: 65%
Missouri: 35%
Everyone stared at the percentages for a second. Then, one by one, they nodded. The consensus was clear.
Andrew wasn't stupid. He could see that Missouri had a very steep road ahead if it wanted to achieve team titles.
It was a project that wouldn't even join the SEC until the following year, conceived more as a long-term plan than something meant to pay off in three or four years. Starting out as a mid-tier SEC program from day one implied a constant grind, with a very real risk of early burnout.
"That's great! Go UCLA, baby!" Phil celebrated, pleased that, for once, the analysis worked in his favor.
"For now," Alex clarified calmly. "That percentage can change. It all depends on how Saturday's visit goes."
Jay nodded slowly. "If Missouri shows a truly ambitious plan, that percentage could go up. But if what they offer is something more conservative, more long-term, it could drop even further."
"Exactly," Alex confirmed, capping the marker.
"It's good news that UCLA isn't completely sidelined, but it's still behind," Claire said, sighing as she leaned back against the couch. Her gaze drifted to another section of the whiteboard, one with percentages she didn't like at all.
UCLA Bruins versus Georgia Bulldogs.
Georgia had been Andrew's second official visit.
And the numbers that had come out of that analysis, done days earlier, were still bleak for those who wanted Andrew to stay in the Pac-12.
Georgia: 75%
UCLA: 25%
When Andrew chose to visit Georgia, the family had gone through the same process: breaking down the program, listing pros and cons, comparing them to UCLA's, and finally estimating the decision Andrew would make based solely on his football future. The result had been clear, uncomfortable, and hard to argue with.
Objectively, the Bulldogs were the more solid option.
They had debated the reasons to exhaustion:
1. The SEC: the best conference in the country, the gold standard of college football.
2. No active dynasty, which was key for Andrew. He wouldn't be inheriting a finished product. Georgia's last national championship had been in 1980.
3. A structure ready from day one: consistent top-5 recruiting, elite offensive and defensive lines, a well-established staff. Winning the SEC East, and even the conference, was realistic with that roster and Andrew's level. A path to the BCS National Championship Game was also very possible.
4. Even the worst-case scenario was good: even if Andrew didn't adapt as well as expected, he'd still be playing in the SEC, facing the best defenses in the country, with optimal development toward the NFL.
The only clear downside of Georgia was isolation.
Andrew would be thousands of miles away from his entire family, in a completely new environment, without a close support network, without the day-to-day reassurance he'd always had. It wasn't an emotional argument, nor a decisive one, and no one wanted to steer the discussion in that direction, but it was still a real disadvantage.
Moving that far away meant more than just football: adapting to a different place, a new culture, and a routine without immediate support. Even for someone mentally strong, that process could weigh heavily.
But even factoring that in, Georgia would still probably come out on top with 70% or 65%.
There was also a parallel that was impossible to ignore.
Georgia and Mater Dei shared a surprisingly similar history: two sleeping giants, elite programs that continued to compete at the highest level but had gone years without winning major titles. Both needed exactly the same thing: a truly difference-making player capable of pushing them into a golden era.
Andrew had already walked that path with the Monarchs. And with Georgia, it could be even more epic, after all, they hadn't won a national title in over twenty years.
In the end, Georgia's floor was extremely high.
UCLA, on the other hand, offered an enormous reward, but with real risk. A coaching staff on the brink, too much dependence on Andrew from day one, and a project that could either take off spectacularly or collapse disastrously, costing Andrew valuable years on his path to professionalism.
UCLA was a gamble, epic potential, and volatility.
"Let's not get discouraged," Phil suddenly said, breaking the mood with an exaggerated clap. "There are still two official visits left."
"True," Manny nodded, looking up after a moment. "We need two Pac-12 options that can truly compete with Georgia. Ones that can take away more percentage than UCLA can."
Mitch stood up from the couch without a word. He walked over to the whiteboard, picked up the marker, and turned back to the others.
"If we're talking about Pac-12 programs that today can stand up to Georgia without any inferiority complex," he said, "there are two names."
He wrote the first one in big letters:
Oregon Ducks
And just below it:
Stanford Cardinal
"They're the only two that, in terms of structure, identity, and recent results, can offer Andrew something comparable on the football side. They're not empty gambles, nor outright dynasties yet. They're established programs that need to take the next step," Mitch said, setting the marker aside.
"What do you think?"
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