The story of the game has been told enough times by now that it's almost a tall tale. In some versions, Kayvon is six foot two inches; in others, he's already his full height. Some people have him taking out as many as seven opposing players. Kayvon remembers the game being stopped entirely.
The coach relented and Kayvon scored a touchdown on his very first carry. Suddenly, he was a fullback and a middle linebacker. By seventh grade, he'd sprouted into a defensive end. Today, he weighs 225 pounds, with a wisp of a mustache and a jawline that looks like it was etched out of limestone.It's the sort of package that has made him a household name in high-school-recruiting circles ever since the summer after his freshman year, when the initial rankings for the class of 2019 were released and 247Sports tabbed him as the No. 1 recruit overall—a position he has yet to relinquish 14 months later. All told, of the industry's four major ranking sites, none currently have him listed lower than fifth overall nationwide in his class.Greg Biggins, an analyst for CBS Sports and Scout.com who has covered West Coast recruiting for more than 20 years, could name only a handful of other pass rushers with Kayvon's combination of physical ability and proven production—and perhaps none of them had put these assets together as early in their high-school careers."In three, four years he's going to have just the ideal defensive-end, long, athletic, coming-off-the-edge, Jevon Kearse–like frame," Biggins says. "The ability to be strong at the point [of attack], to be able to have the athleticism to run down plays from behind, the motor. He doesn't take plays off. He rises to the occasion when they play really good teams.""In three, four years he's going to have just the ideal defensive end, long, athletic, coming off the edge, Jevon Kearse–like frame."
But if Kayvon's body had lost a step, his mind seemed to compensate for it, and his ability to anticipate his opponent's next move shone through. That's the best explanation for what happened late in the third quarter, when, with Dorsey up 25-3 and San Pedro about to punt, Kayvon lined up on the outside, rocked back and forth like a six-foot-four mechanical metronome keeping time, and burst through to block the attempt. It also explains how he did the very same thing on a field-goal try one quarter later.The postgame reaction to all of this was relatively muted, even after it was revealed that Kayvon had been playing with a knee injury. He had only managed half a sack—a pittance given that he took down the quarterback 16 times that season. But that's life as the most coveted football prospect in America. A forced fumble, a blocked kick, and a blocked punt, all on a bad knee, still amount to something of an off night."My childhood has been compact. That's part of being recruited. You can't be a kid."
By the time he graduates, Kayvon Thibodeaux will have spent three-fourths of high school as arguably the most scrutinized, most sought-after prospect in the country. This means three years of beseeching by eager college coaches, three years of being side-eyed by other prospects jostling for similar attention, three years of fan bases across the country prodding him to attend their favorite school.
So when Kayvon Thibodeaux, the athletic and academic dynamo, decided to enroll at Dorsey, he was met with skepticism."'Dorsey? I went to Dorsey. You think you're going to Dorsey?'" he recalls being asked."Yeah, that's what I want to do," he'd reply.His reasons were mostly pragmatic and entirely personal. It was close to home, for one thing, and he would not want for playing time on the varsity team. It also boasted a law magnet program, with its opportunities for him to conduct mock trials and serve on a jury in teen court cases.Kayvon debuted on Dorsey's varsity squad that November during first-round playoff game against Carson Senior High. He promptly registered a sack. "That was throwing him in the fire," says Ivan Stevenson, the Dorsey defensive backs coach. "[We told him,] 'Go be athletic.'"By mid-summer, the first crush of scholarship offers arrived. Then came the 247Sports ranking. In fewer than nine months, he had rocketed from an unknown jayvee player to the top recruit in his class.Because of Kayvon, college coaches once again had a reason to show up at Dorsey. "A lot of kids benefit from his success," Hayes said this spring, before Kayvon transferred. "When a school comes up here, they'll look at him and go, 'Yeah, yeah, but who is the guy on the other side of him? Who is the D-tackle? Who's that safety right there running to the ball? They'll have a chance to come up here and see certain athletes that they probably didn't come up here for.… It opens up doors for everybody." He speaks from experience: while he was a student at Dorsey, Hayes became a highly touted prospect in part by blocking for Stafon Johnson, the Dons' star running back at the time.For decades, Dorsey High School had been the bellwether of public high school football in Los Angeles. Only two high schools in America have produced more NFL players.
"You take football out of the picture, do these predominantly rich schools want these kids in the inner city? Let's be honest. If football wasn't in the picture, would Oaks be interested in the kid? No."
For his part, Kayvon is mindful of the sacrifices he's made to get here. He says that he originally did not want to leave Dorsey and the camaraderie he built. Nor is he under any illusion that a depleted Oaks Christian makes for a better on-field situation than the program he helped breathe new life into. "If I was going for football, I would have stayed at Dorsey," he says. "I love everybody, of course. That's my team.""But at the end of the day," he adds, "it wasn't tough for Kevin Durant to leave the Thunder… It's what's best."Not everyone understood."Some people were mad," he says. "Some people were sad.… People look at me like I did something wrong." That, he says, forced him to learn a second lesson: "When you get emotions into it, that's when stuff doesn't go right."Though he may no longer go to school in South Los Angeles, his loyalty to the neighborhood hasn't changed. He still wants to be a lawyer, and still wants give back to South Los Angeles. As inspiration for how he can help his community from the outside, he cites the example of Nipsey Hussle, a popular LA rapper from nearby Crenshaw whose numerous charitable ventures include helping fund the reopening, this summer, of World on Wheels, a legendary Mid-City roller rink that functioned as a safe space for young people throughout the area."He made it and he's still bringing money back to his community," Kayvon says. "I can help them once I set myself up.… [The plan] tweaked a little bit but the overall message didn't."A few minutes after Kayvon and I speak, he's in the Mustang, motoring toward Interstate 110. The only thing on the day's docket is an off-season workout, one that might actually take less time to complete than the commute to and from his new reality. At that point, he hasn't spent much time on the Oaks Christian campus—just a few weeks last spring, as well as summer school—and he hasn't had "the full effect" yet.But there are aspects that will always seem alien to him. The school parking lot is dotted with luxury cars—BMWs, Lexuses, Mercedes Benzes, and even a Maserati. "The engine sounds like an animal," he says. "Out there, it's spoon-fed.… We don't have the same problems." He recalls overhearing a conversation in the school hallway between two girls, with one being irate at how someone looked at her. "That's what you're mad about? Your whole day is messed up because of that?" he says in his father's house, which sits only a couple zip codes from Westlake Village but at times feels like an entirely different universe.For better or worse, Oaks Christian is just the latest pit stop for Kayvon Thibodeaux, one that brings fresh challenges. He'll learn a new defense, and he'll add snaps on offense at tight end to his job description. As a rising junior, he'll have more contact with college coaches. He's preparing to parse their intentions."People constantly feeding you bad cars, like car salesmen," he says. "They're all selling you a dream, selling you what you think you've got and not really what it is." Where does he want to end up? At whichever program can help facilitate his dreams, he says. "Wherever I can get business taken care of."*An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Kayvon was on full scholarship at Oaks Christian. While Kayvon and his family referred to his financial aid at Oaks Christian as a scholarship, a school spokesperson clarified that Oaks Christian does not offer athletic scholarships—Kayvon is receiving need-based financial aid.