I Hate Football Players 3 | 18+

Chapter 45: Logan

"LT! Good luck!" "LT, you're the man!" and most commonly, "Go Dawgs!" were continuously thrown at me from what felt like nearly every person who crossed my path Monday morning after our first game's win. I hadn't been completely anonymous since I'd gotten here, but after Coach Peterson's indirect announcement that I was the starter, Ellie was right about things changing in the sense that a lot more attention was on me.

The attention never bothered me since I was used to it since high school. The only issues I'd ever had were when people confused knowing of me with actually knowing the real me, or worse thought they knew exactly who I was but had no clue. So while I was used to the distanced interest, it reminded me that Ellie was the only one here who truly knew me. When I was at UCD, I'd still had Brody and Mom on the weekends, plus the Prakashes across the hall, and the reminder sobered a slight sense of loneliness in me.

After I walked Ellie to her first class, I briefly checked my email app, which included a few interview requests. The sense that eyes were on me stayed with me since I'd left the apartment with Ellie and continued as I walked across the quad, past the enormous Drumheller Fountain, and over the pedestrian bridge over Pacific street to Foege Building.

Starting to get a better sense of direction around here, at least.

Even students in my Bioengineering class looked at me curiously. The stares like I was in the wrong classroom had died down by the end of last week and now were replaced by wider-eye looks that lingered longer. These stares happened in every class I sat through, plus the hallway walks in between.

Santanu was the only classmate that actually asked me about the extra attention. Once he sat next to me before Monday's Biotransport class, he cleared his throat. "So... You're the football player?"

"I'm one of them," I clarified with a low chuckle and plopped down in the cramped desk next to his in the last row. "There's a lot of guys on the team."

"Explains... this." He lifted one hand up, then dragged it from my head level down to my feet.

"My bigger size?" I arched an eyebrow at him. "Or my awesome personality?"

"Something like that," he replied quietly before his eyes flooded with curiosity. "How did you get into Bioengineering then?"

"Always liked math and science," I offered with a casual shrug of my shoulders. "I was a Bio and Chem double major at my previous school. Dr. Chen is my adviser here and figured this would be a good fit."

What I hadn't shared was that, even just a few classes into the quarter, I already really enjoyed the three Bioengineering classes I was enrolled in. They were tougher than regular Bio or Chem and I'd skipped having any labs this quarter because of football, so my future postseason quarters already promised to be more challenging. While I wasn't sure what direction football had for me in the future, this was more than a successful career-based major.

College-level math and science classes were by far harder and required a lot more self-study than the regurgitated lectures I got in my high school classes, even the AP ones. Ellie's dedication put my academic work ethic to shame but, given I played football, I was still proud of my 3.5 GPA.

Well, the three-five GPA before I transferred.

This morning, I'd gotten an email from Dr. Chen, who was also the Bioengineering Department's chair, that all of my UCD credits had been approved and applied towards my major. Halfway through the quarter, we needed to revisit my class schedule for the winter. For some reason, while he saw them, none of my actual grades transferred, just the credits. Based on that, my GPA would be recalculated from just my UW classes.