First, he had to reach the college game. It wasn’t easy. Scouts from the University of Nevada – the only one to eventually offer him a scholarship – watched the clips his older brother had burned to DVD, but even they were not convinced.
They took a gamble because they saw him dominate a high-school basketball game he really should have missed,, external having been struck down with fever the same day.
He went to college. He studied for a degree in business management, excelled on the pitch, and opened his curious mind wide to the world.
Dr Reginald Stewart spent 19 years at the University of Nevada, and knew Kaepernick during his time there.
He told USA Today:, external “He is very, very smart and very intellectual. He’s a very deep thinker. What he’s doing is absolutely and directly in line with how he’s always communicated.
“It’s not like I turned on the TV and was like: ‘Wow, where did this come from?’ I was like, you know what, he has been thinking about these issues for at least the time I’ve known him. At some point, he made the decision that this was important enough for him to act.”
Kaepernick is drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 2011. He leads them to the Super Bowl two years later, but they lose to the Baltimore Ravens.
He continues to read widely – about the civil rights movement and post-colonial theory, Malcom X’s autobiography and Franz Fanon’s The Wretched Of The Earth.
He begins to attend classes at the University of California, Berkeley, having befriended Ameer Hasan Loggins, who is working towards his doctorate in African Diaspora Studies.
In August, Loggins wrote an article for The Athletic, external about their relationship. He compared Kaepernick to Ella Baker, the civil rights activist who died in 1986, aged 83.
“She was a civil/human rights leader that was invested in developing a leaderful movement,” Loggins wrote. “She pushed the folks to politicise and mobilise the people via group-centred leadership.
“Here I am, taking leadership cues from Ella Baker, and next thing I know I am in the inner circle of a passionate, intelligent and conscious NFL star with a tremendous heart and a righteous indignation over the treatment of the oppressed.
“I met Kaepernick before he became a cultural icon and a lightning rod for both hope and hatred.
“People that trace our connection to UC Berkeley assume he became politicised in my class. But Colin was aware, focused, well-read, eager to learn.”
And then came three days in July last year.