Life has certainly led Jinhyun Kang down a lot of strange alleyways.

Especially for a young man whose primary goal in life was to speak better English so he could eventually broadcast English soccer matches.

That may eventually happen, but the aspiring placekicker and punter from South Korea is taking a lot of interesting turns before he gets to his “dream.”

Kang is one of a handful of candidates for the open kicking and punting positions on the Idaho State football team this fall. He kicked for Pantego Christian High School in Arlington, Texas, then took his kicking talents to community colleges in New Mexico and California before winding up in Pocatello as a walk-on this spring.

“Tremendous story, he really is,” said Dan Hawkins, director of player and staff development for ISU and the personal mentor for the Bengal kickers. “Here’s a guy who comes to America, wants to learn English. He tells a story that he thought he was going to a soccer tryout, and it was football.”

Kang confirmed that story in a recent interview after Bengal football practice earlier this week. After traveling across the Pacific to the U.S. on his own so he could study abroad and improve his English skills, Kang wound up attending Pantego Christian School, as a sophomore while living with his aunt and uncle.

He was meeting with his high school adviser shortly after his arrival and mentioned that he’d seen “football” mentioned as a potential extracurricular activity.

“I said, ‘I can do that,’” recalled Kang. “She’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s a fall sport, why don’t you do it? Practice literally starts tomorrow.’”

But when Kang showed up for the first day of practice, he quickly realized this wasn’t the same “football” he was used to. At about 6-foot-2-inches and 155 pounds, his skinny frame wasn’t cut out for the kind of physical contact the boys in Texas grow up around on “football” fields.

But rather than turn tail and head for another sport more suited to his body type, Kang was overwhelmed by the kindness of the football players who took him under their wing, showed him how to put on his pads and adjust his helmet, and immediately made him feel like part of the team.

“The guy who was helping me wear a helmet and shoulder pads, he’s playing for Sacramento State now,” said Kang. “He was a great dude, teaching me everything. After just one day, I decided, I started this, I’m going to stick to this.”

It took a while for his coach to find the best fit for his new athlete.

“I started on defense — I was a really skinny guy,” recalled Kang. “Obviously not a right one. I played receiver — slow feet. It was tough, very tough. I actually broke my collarbone twice playing football, getting tackled.”

Then a fellow South Korean kicker named Younghoe Koo, who led the NFL in scoring for the Atlanta Falcons in 2020, caught Kang’s eye. Koo’s success at the professional level provided a spark, and the graduation of his high school team’s starting kicker — a young lady — opened an opportunity for Kang.

He became emotionally invested in football and started attending kicking camps taught by well-known experts like Chris Sailer. After graduating from Pantego, he went to New Mexico Military Institute, where he saw action as a punter in five games and had one field goal attempt. From there he went to Laney College in Oakland, which was one of the schools featured in the Netflix series “Last Chance U.” The series focused on the struggles of community college players trying to keep their football career hopes alive.

Kang couldn’t break through the depth chart at Laney. Rather than give up on American football, however, he continued his quest to find a spot on a U.S. college campus. Idaho State offered him a walk-on opportunity this spring, and after paying what he described as a hefty international student fee, he’s working hard to capture either the Bengal placekicking or punting job — or both.

“He has great potential, he really does,” Hawkins said. “I told him his best years are in front of him. He’s got length, he’s got flexibility, he’s got the work ethic. He just doesn’t have the amount of reps the other guys do. He can hit the ball. He’s a really talented guy. We’ll see how it all plays out.”

Hawkins said after Monday’s practice that he still doesn’t have a depth chart for his specialists in place. He was looking forward to Wednesday’s scrimmage to give him some insight, but even then he said nothing is set in stone.

“I just want them to kick right now,” said Hawkins, who mentored ISU All-American kicker Gabe Panikowski last season. Panikowski, who didn’t miss a field-goal attempt last year, transferred to the Big 12’s Oklahoma State.

While he continues to compete with several kickers for playing time at ISU, Kang is reconsidering his long-term goals after his football career is over. The son of a chemical engineer, Kang said he is interested now in studying economics and perhaps going into the business world.

“I feel bad for my mom — I made her cry often just because I was not doing math and science compared to my dad,” said Kang. “I’m playing sports here, she doesn’t really know that much about football, but she’s just praying I don’t get injured at all. I’m doing that as well.”

Although he lived with his aunt and uncle when he first arrived in Texas, Kang quickly found that speaking Korean with them every day wasn’t really helping him learn English. So he moved in with an American family — the Evans — who helped him adjust to American culture.

“They helped me a lot,” he said of the Evans. “I was 16, 17, still young and missing my parents a lot — I cried a lot. They were the people who took care of me. I call them family now.”

The middle child in a family of three, Kang has an older and younger sister. Both have come to the United States to visit him during his six years here.

“They were surprised that I’m driving a car here,” he said. “In America, driving a car is necessary. I learned it pretty fast thanks to the Evans family.”

The hope for Kang is that all of his family — his biological family and the Evans family who mentored him in America — will get to come see him perform in an ISU game this fall. But even if he fails to beat out his kicking competition this season, Kang remains undaunted in his quest to become an American collegiate kicker.

“I’m just going to keep battling,” he said when asked what happens if he doesn’t win a starting job at ISU. “Coach wants to put the best 11 players on the field. I hope they do as well, because we want to win. We want to win the championship. I respect all the decisions they make. There is always something that I can step up for the team. I’m not giving up on anything. I’m just going to be the best version of myself, and I really think I can do that.”