Come on, what star athlete in his early 20's DOESN'T have a long-term, long-distance, high-drama relationship where he literally never sees the person he "loves" face-to-face when talking to them for the entirety of the relationship? I mean, those happen all the time, right up to the point where the other person dies, and then the star athlete passes on the one final chance he would have had to EVER see this person in the flesh (for the first and only time) in order to play a game. It really could happen to anyone. (Provided they have no functional cerebral cortex)