NORTON SHORES, Mich. — There is nothing outside that suggests the machines sitting inside this gray, nondescript building in an industrial office center could disrupt the trading card industry.

Sign your name on the clipboard just past the entrance. Walk by a long table with pizza boxes next to a refrigerator and it all feels pretty normal. It’s not until you turn the corner and see millions of dollars worth of machinery in an open space flanked by a giant American flag on the wall that it starts to feel different. When you’re asked not to take certain pictures or video because of the required privacy of inventory nearby, yeah, that’s when everything changes.

There could be airplane parts. Pieces of a satellite. Rocketry. Military ballistics. And on a recent Friday afternoon, an unopened Mega Box of 2023 Donruss Optic Football cards with Anthony Richardson and Brock Purdy on the front, bought at a Detroit-area Meijer for $60.

The goal? To use the technology at Industrial Inspection and Consulting to see what’s inside without breaking the plastic wrapping that traditionally indicates an unsealed, untouched and unexamined package of cards.

For most of its history, buying and selling packs and boxes of trading cards was a game of chance with neither the buyer nor the seller knowing the results.

“The product is designed to be a mystery,” said Keith Irwin, the general manager of Industrial Inspection and Consulting.

And if it wants to stay that way?

“They’ll need to find new packaging solutions,” he said.

IIC went from a company focusing primarily on industrial X-rays and CT scans within the medical and aerospace fields to potentially taking the cover off the trading card industry without taking the cover off any product at all. And in the process, they say, their company — with no prior connections to the trading card industry — has earned thousands of satisfied customers in the collectibles space. All electing for a sneak peek at their cards before tearing the packs or boxes open, circumventing the mystery that has long been a central element of these products.

The service caters to high-end products manufactured by Topps, Panini and Upper Deck, with the technology best suited to reveal cards in densely packed configurations. Take a 2023 Panini Flawless Football First Off The Line case for instance. Each case comes with two boxes. Each box comes with one pack of 10 cards. At $15,000 a case, it certainly makes economic sense that collectors are willing to pay IIC the going rate of $650 per case of that product to get a CT scan and see whether there’s something inside that they want, or to keep the package sealed and sell it on to someone else.

The economics are easy. But the ethical dilemma isn’t for this group of non-collectors in western Michigan whose industrial scanning start-up has received a financial windfall from those in the hobby willing to pay for a preview.

“We’ve had to wrestle with that as a team and some of us think differently about it,” Irwin said. “So some of us say ‘It is what it is. We can do it (scan products).’ And others say, ‘This feels like we’re participating in something that is very much in a gray area.’ And we still wrestle with it. I think where we land is that we are data people and we’re very good at what we do. And if we’re not doing it, then somebody else will.”

Nick Andrews, co-host of the Sports Card Madness podcast, has been one of the more prevalent online commentators addressing the practice of CT scanning since IIC opened its doors to the trading card industry in late July. He’s been loudly expressing how this could be a significant concern within the hobby.

“I think ultimately they took the stance of Napster in a way, like they’re not committing fraud,” Andrews said. “What these people do with these CT scan(ned) cards is not their problem. You know, they’re not the shepherds or steward of the hobby.”

IIC’s website states, “Pandora’s box is open,” which is an interesting choice of words considering the controversial practice involves not opening the sports card box at all.

“I think that you can probably draw a lot of correlations to different industries that have been negatively impacted by a group or a large number of groups that figure out a way to get an edge,” said Zach Stanley, CEO of WeTheHobby, one of more prominent online card dealers and box breakers (the practice of opening boxes of cards in larger quantities after customers buy the rights to all the cards of specific teams, players, etc. that may come out of them) within the industry. “I also think my hope is that it is something that can be combated from a technological standpoint, but we’re obviously a ways off from that now.”

And with the CT scanning technology comes the increased possibility for questionable resale practices at best and fraud at worst.

“I’d strongly encourage collectors to buy from established shops they trust,” said Eric Doty, CEO of Loupe, a live streaming platform for online vendors. “The short-term gain you’d make from scanning is not worth the risk of losing your entire business due to breaching that trust.”

Stanley said WeTheHobby has been approached by other contacts within the industry to explore or be helped to explore CT scanning technology. He immediately followed up saying, “Obviously we rejected (the offer) quickly.” But not every seller stands on equal ground, or possesses an equal moral compass.

“When people get desperate they do desperate things,” Stanley said.

It all began over lunch and a search for Charizard. The start-up industrial scanning company was looking for ways to market its capabilities and a brainstorming session led to the idea of scanning packs of Pokemon cards. Compared to airplane parts, scanning packs of cards was child’s play.

“It was like a revelation of ‘Holy cow! Not only did this work, but it’s extremely obvious,’” Irwin said. “That was really the extent of what we thought. So hey, let’s throw it up as a case study.”

Irwin said he posted the imagery and results on his LinkedIn page in late June, where it received “140 or 150 likes and tons of comments.” The company had no idea what it stumbled upon.

“Immediately we were like well nobody’s gonna be paying for our labor to be able to do this,” Irwin said. “But I think that that was a naive thought because we didn’t understand the true value of these cards.”

The values of sports and Pokemon cards have grown exponentially in recent years, with regular sales in the six-figure range and some going well into the millions (the highest sale to date for a Pokemon card was nearly $5.3 million in 2022 and the highest sale for a sports card was $12.6 million, also in 2022).

Irwin said the company began receiving emails from parties interested in having products scanned following the post on social media. He estimated it only took a week and a half from there to turn it into a “full flooded service.”

“We laugh that you have rocket components sitting on one shelf and then cards on the other shelf,” Irwin said. “It’s just odd.”

Irwin estimated the volume of product IIC has scanned since starting in July to be “in the thousands.” Though that’s still just a drop in the bucket for an industry that produces millions of packages of cards each year.

Now months into what’s gone from lunch room chatter to a sizable portion of Industrial Inspection’s income, what’s the biggest technical challenge for scanning thick paper and cardboard?

“How do we go fast enough to make it worth it for people to pay,” said Irwin, who told The Athletic on Wednesday the company has hired additional full-time staff to help with the card demand.

And what’s become the biggest non-technical challenge entering an unfamiliar niche space?

“It’s a moral dilemma,” Irwin said.

There have been threats. A window near the front of their building is covered. They’ve taken steps to protect themselves from those in the collectibles business who believe what they’re doing is morally wrong and a serious threat to a billion dollar industry.

“I think it’s certainly a disruption (in the industry). … First of all, for boxes that were produced before today, I think as a potential buyer of those boxes you have to be very cautious,” Professional Sports Authentication (PSA) CEO Nat Turner said in a recent interview on the Sports Card Madness podcast. “Basically you have to assume the box has been scanned. So I think you can see a price correction in boxes that are thrown up on eBay, for example, perhaps. But I think manufacturers I think are going to have to respond.”

The CT scanner loaded up with a box of football cards. (Photo: Craig Custance)

There’s been rampant speculation within the hobby long before IIC existed around card vendors using CT scanners to view inside card packs and boxes. Many times online accusations occur when box breakers unveil what some within the hobby would deem a disproportionate amount of “hits” from sealed products with a break.

Irwin said the company has seen verified proof that “many sources” are already scanning products and have been doing so without being public about it. (No proof was offered to The Athletic for this story.) IIC was the first one openly offering the service for certain price points, which is part of its moral defense. It believes it’s being very transparent about all of this. Its price list is on the website. So are pictures of the scans. IIC invited The Athletic in to see how it all works in person, an invitation that was accepted.

The company specifically quotes prices for high-end products (boxes priced around $1,000 or more, generally) manufactured by Topps, Panini, Upper Deck and Pokemon on its website, whose homepage essentially doesn’t promote the service at all other than an initial announcement near the bottom of the page. There’s a focus on cards from the last 25 years or so containing foil, raised portions, imprinted numbering and patches or relics (cards containing pieces of jerseys or other memorabilia) since those elements are the most defined on the scans.

Pricing varies per product. For example, IIC charges $75 for one box of Topps Dynasty, which is one of Topps’ premier products containing only one autographed patch card encased in a plastic holder and carries a retail price anywhere from $900 to $1,200, depending on the sport or year.

“Dynasty is our favorite, I’ll say that,” Irwin said. “It’s probably the easiest to detect, I’m guessing. It’s a single (package), it’s one to two cards, typically one card. It’s just a dream, and those are very expensive products. We sent out a quote to somebody with a Dynasty box, and they’re like, ‘God, this is a no brainer, I’m sending it over.’”

A patch autographed card numbered to 10 of Formula 1 star Max Verstappen from 2022 Topps Dynasty (image below) serves as one of IIC’s prime scanning discoveries. The card displayed by IIC last sold on eBay for nearly $2,200 on Aug. 3 according to CardLadder, which tracks sales across major online marketplaces.

When asked if card manufacturers like Topps and Panini have reached out to discuss the company’s scanning practices, Irwin said, “Any conversations like that are under non-disclosure, but we have spoken with a variety of interested parties that are leading the market. So I’m not just talking manufacturers — auction houses, authentication houses, third-party services that are like couriers, you name it. Pretty much anybody that is interested has either spoken to us or spoken to people that know us.”

Fanatics Collectibles, the owner of Topps, declined an interview for the story. But people inside Fanatics Collectibles told The Athletic: “While we believe that CT scanners aren’t currently being widely utilized, we take any issue that potentially harms collectors very seriously. As such, we are working on innovations and solutions to address the issue.”

Panini declined to be interviewed for this story. Upper Deck said it would look into the possibility, but never agreed to an interview. Goldin Auctions and parent company eBay declined an interview for the story, deferring the issue to individual sellers. The Athletic also reached out to four other prominent online vendors who never responded to interview requests.

When asked if the conversations with other parties involved a request to discontinue scanning products, having products scanned or ways to hinder the ability to reveal the contents of a product through scanning, Irwin said, “All of the above.”

“That’s an interesting question because it seems like publicly everybody wants us to stop,” Irwin said. “In private, nobody wants us to stop because everybody that you can imagine has reached out to us.”

There’s also no way to know whether a pack or box has been scanned without the person or company divulging that. There’s no database kept by IIC for what’s been scanned, nor is there an indicator placed on the product to show it’s been scanned by IIC.

Additionally, the company doesn’t know the true identity of everyone sending in products to be scanned.

“We’re not verifying our clients,” Irwin said. “A lot of them we assume are using fake emails. And so we don’t know who they are. Fake emails, fake names, and then we use Square for credit card processing. So we don’t know who any of these people are, honestly.”

Irwin said the company hasn’t looked into any instances of nefarious practices by individuals, box breakers, hobby shops or anyone else using IIC’s services once a scanned product leaves its hands.

“Our objective position is one of scientific ability and data-driven results,” according to IIC’s website. “It is not our responsibility to determine the ethical positions and choices of others and we do not accept responsibility for their actions. Our quotes require clients to disclose to their potential buyers if they have CT scanned their sealed products.”

The consequences from IIC for a customer failing to disclose to a potential buyer that a product was scanned is unclear. Legally speaking, that’s a different story.

Paul Lesko, a Missouri-based attorney known for being “The Hobby Lawyer,” said while scanning packs and boxes may be legal, consumer fraud charges could result for the owner of scanned products if resold without disclosure.

“Consumer fraud claims require a knowingly false representation about a product made with the intent for buyers to rely on that misrepresentation,” Lesko said. “So, if a seller scans a pack/box and determines it does not have a hit (industry parlance for a desirable/valuable card), but when selling states it ‘could contain an auto(graph) or patch’ or really just recites that the boxes ‘may contain an auto or relic’ or just shows a picture of the box with that representation from the manufacturer, that’s a false representation made by the seller in the hopes of duping the buyer.

“Best case scenario, after scanning a pack/box, if you’re going to resell it, disclose you scanned it.”

Irwin posed the question that anyone in the hobby would ask, though.

“Are people going to do that? I have no idea,” Irwin said.

Irwin was handed the box of 2023 Donruss Optic football cards, our attempt to see just how effective his technology was and the first thing he did was turn to YouTube. He wanted to learn more about a product in which he was unfamiliar since most people weren’t spending $75 to scan a $60 box of cards.

He landed on a video of a breaker sorting through each card individually. Immediately, he was able to determine that his machines wouldn’t be able to pick up the names of each player on the cards because of the design. But he was confident in the ability to pick up the outline of the players along with any uniform numbers, important indicators when searching for specific hits. He also expressed confidence in the ability to identify numbered cards and patches.

So we moved on to the next step.

A few feet away, a giant XTH 320 X-ray machine sat, waiting to reveal what was inside this box of football cards. Irwin placed the box in the middle of the machine on a round table on top of a piece of styrofoam. A large sliding door closed slowly, sealing itself next to a red emergency stop button and a caution sticker. Within minutes, the contents of the box of cards showed up on a monitor near the machine, each card a blurry gray rectangular shape that revealed little, until the outline of a patch on one of the cards became clear.

About 20 minutes later, the CT scan was complete. Irwin was able to rotate the scan in every direction. He was able to zoom in on specific cards. It was abundantly clear that the bottom pack contained the patch card, which he was then able to rotate and zoom in on to identify more characteristics of the card.

If we knew the specifics of a card we were trying to get, at that point we would have been able to identify it. But in the case of this patch card, we only could make out vague details. There was some writing on the front. It appeared to be a wide receiver with a number in the 80s. Just as important was identifying what wasn’t in the box. There didn’t appear to be any numbered cards. If we wanted to spend the time, we likely would have been able to determine there wasn’t a C.J. Stroud.

Once opened, the patch card turned out to be Raiders tight end Michael Mayer. A 10-minute scan of the contents was enough to conclude this wasn’t a particularly valuable box, which ended up being confirmed when it was later opened the old-fashioned way. By a 13-year-old ripping through foil.

The Michael Mayer patch card detected by the scan. (Photo: Craig Custance)

It wasn’t a fast process. There was a lot of card rotating and data reading. To truly benefit, there needs to be a target card in which the person doing the scanning can be on the lookout for. It’s tedious work on expensive equipment, one reason Irwin isn’t convinced the work is going to spread throughout the industry.

“You saw me scrolling through this data, it’s annoying, right?” Irwin said. “We were a startup hungry for work. We’re all workaholics without enough work. So we stumble upon this thing that nobody’s done before and all of a sudden we have… clients in a brand new territory.”

It’s transformed his business. Whether it alters another just might depend on what happens next.

There is a train that runs past the industrial complex where these scans are taking place, blaring its horn each morning while crossing a nearby road. It’s close enough that the shaking it produces in the building can disrupt scans that rely on complete stability for pinpoint accuracy.

The slightest vibration can get in the way of an accurate scan and that realization has helped this same group design a solution. IIC has patented a process that would make the scanning much more challenging.

“All (new packaging) has to do is introduce a slight vibration to the cards and it makes it very challenging for us to read it,” Irwin said.

The company hopes its solution would either be licensed or outright purchased by a card company.

“It would be strange to both want to be the fixer and then also the breaker,” Irwin said. “But in the conversations we’ve had, we’ve been compared to say Google wanting to hire the hacker to go through their systems, find loopholes, find ways in.”

But that still leaves every unopened product in the world made up to that point unprotected.

Geoff Wilson, a prominent YouTuber and owner of Cards HQ in Georgia, said in a video posted last week that he believes the CT scanning topic is an overblown issue for most collectors. He immediately followed up, though, saying certain types of collectors and investors should be “terrified.”

Wilson pointed to high-end sealed wax boxes that people have held onto for years as being an issue. He went so far to say he’s in the process of selling off older sealed boxes he’ s collected because “people will forever be concerned that this box was CT scanned” and the concern will only grow over time.

“I mean because of the moral gray, I think the best thing to do would be to eventually find a way to stop this, move out of it,” Irwin said. “What does that do for the last 25 years of product that is prime for CT scanning? I don’t know.”

So there lies the dilemma for the industry. The biggest problem isn’t that this is happening on a small scale. It’s that it’s creating distrust amongst consumers on a potentially larger one.

“Once you sow that distrust with the consumer, you’ve got bigger problems,” Stanley said. “I think that right now, educating the consumers on the fact that this is happening is going to enable them to be educated and prioritize who they are buying from. I think the resale market right now for sealed wax is going to become increasingly problematic.”

Follow The Athletic’s regular, in-depth sports memorabilia and collectibles coverage here.

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(Top image: Industrial Inspection and Consulting, Craig Custance, Bruce Bennett/Getty Images, Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images; Design: Meech Robinson)

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — During quiet moments on the sideline, Calais Campbell can still hear his father’s voice.

Truth is, it never left him. The words were stored away, hardened into his psyche. Charles Campbell saw his son’s path before his son ever could. Twenty years later, the lessons have lasted.

Like the time Calais — long, lean and consumed by football from the minute he first slipped on a helmet — bragged about two first-quarter sacks on the way home from a high school game. He felt on top of the world. Wait until his older brothers heard …

“What’d you do the rest of the game?” Charles asked, quieting the car. “You got satisfied.”

Or the time Calais climbed the steps of the high dive at the local pool, then froze once he got there, too terrified to jump. This ain’t gonna work, he told himself. He tried to beg his way back down, but dad wouldn’t hear it. “Once you start something,” Charles told his son, “then you finish it.” So Calais gritted his teeth and tiptoed toward the edge.

“Belly-flopped,” he says now, laughing. “Hurt so bad. But after that I jumped in 25 times.”

Charles had been gone four years by the time his son entered the 2008 NFL Draft. Calais left the University of Miami a year early, showed up to the scouting combine out of shape and figured he’d coast on his God-given ability. He was wrong. He bombed.

Teams wrote him off.

So he sat there that afternoon and seethed, watching helplessly as he tumbled out of the first round. He knew what his father would tell him: “You let everybody pat you on the back, and you didn’t put in the work. It’s always about the work.”

Calais had to wait 50 picks to hear his name called. He’s never forgotten.

“You know how many defensive linemen went ahead of me?” he asks. “Ten.”

Most of them didn’t last five seasons. He’s in Year 17.

He’s been playing so long that he once shared a high school field with his head coach.

It was 2001. Mike McDaniel was a scrawny wide receiver at Smoky Hill High School, just outside of Denver, on his way to Yale. Campbell was the best player in the state of Colorado, a 6-foot-8 game-wrecker with offers from every top program in the country.

“I still have a ribcage, so he didn’t tackle me,” McDaniel joked last month. “I stayed away from him. I was trying to coach here 20 years later. I couldn’t do that if I was dead.”

A month ago, Campbell’s agent called. The trade deadline was nearing. Six teams had reached out to the Dolphins, wanting to deal for the veteran defensive tackle. Among them was Baltimore, where Campbell played from 2020-22. The offer was a fifth-round pick. Another team — Campbell won’t say who — offered a fourth as long as a late-rounder was going back to them.

“A fourth?” Campbell says, flattered. “I’m 38 years old!”

But the Ravens made the most sense. Campbell was going to get another shot at a ring — maybe his last shot. The trade was all but agreed to. Then his phone buzzed.

“I can’t do it,” McDaniel told him. “You’re too valuable to us.” The Dolphins coach had nixed the deal. Campbell would stay.

At that point, the season looked lost. Miami was 2-6, tied for the second-worst record in the league. A gilded career would sputter to a forgettable finish.

A few nights later, standing on the sideline before kickoff of a “Monday Night Football” game against the Rams, Campbell heard his father speak to him.

Once you start something …

“That’s when I decided I was gonna do everything in my power to get this thing going,” he says.

Miami is 4-1 since.

Campbell’s 109.5 career sacks place him third among active players, behind only Von Miller and Cam Jordan. (Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

McDaniel refers to Campbell as “the Tom Brady of defensive linemen.” Dolphins tight end Jonnu Smith calls him “the LeBron James of the NFL” because of the respect he garners around the league.

“One of my favorite teammates I’ve had on any team on any level,” Smith says.

Defensive end Zach Sieler admits there’s a running joke inside the position room: with Campbell on the roster, the unit’s average age is 33; without him, it dips to 27. “I’m so grateful I get to come to work every day with that guy,” Sieler says. “I’m always asking him, ‘What’s the secret? How are you still doing this?’”

Campbell never wanted to do anything else. He’s bounced from Arizona to Jacksonville to Baltimore to Atlanta to Miami. He’s played every position along the defensive line. He’ll step in on special teams and block for field goal attempts.

“He’ll do anything,” says one of his former coaches, Bruce Arians. “He’s more than just a run-stopper. He’s so rushable. He’ll blow up plays in the backfield. And the best thing he does is use those long arms to bat balls down and tip passes. We got so many interceptions off that.”

Campbell’s missed fewer games (15) than seasons played (17). He’s one of four defensive linemen in league history to make 250 career starts. He’s two years older than every defensive player in the league. Heck, he’s two years older than his own position coach.

He’s wrestled with retirement each of the last few years, dreading the prospect of getting his body ready for another season. It’s the first two weeks he hates the most. “Do I really wanna go through that torture?” he’ll ask himself.

But he hasn’t been able to convince himself to walk away. Not yet.

“The man could be at home sipping his Piña Coladas with his gold jacket on. Instead he’s putting everything he’s got into this team,” Smith says, shaking his head. “And you know the crazy part? He’s still one of the best players in the league at his position.”

Smith’s right. Campbell’s 27 solo tackles are fifth-most in the league among defensive tackles. His five batted passes are second-most. He’s second on the Dolphins in both sacks and tackles for loss, trailing only Sieler.

Consider for a moment how long Campbell has been at this: He was a rookie on the Cardinals team that made it to Super Bowl XLIII in February 2009. Kurt Warner was Arizona’s quarterback. He’s been retired for 15 years.

Campbell can still remember Adrian Wilson pulling him aside before kickoff that night in Tampa, begging him to soak in the moment. “Don’t take this for granted,” the veteran safety told him. “Getting here is hard.”

Campbell’s never made it back. “My No. 1 motivation,” he calls it.

Each spring, while he weighs his future, friends and family throw out an obvious question: “Why don’t you just sign with the Chiefs?” Campbell bristles at the idea. To him, it feels like a shortcut. He doesn’t want a free ride to a championship. He wants to be a reason his team hoists the trophy.

That drive was first fueled by doubt, from a father who taught him to run from complacency and from a high school basketball coach who told him he was picking the wrong sport. “You’re too skinny!” Campbell remembers hearing. “You could make it to the NBA!”

And from Arians, his second coach in Arizona, who once said something in a news conference that Campbell never forgot. “For a guy as talented as he is,” Arians told reporters, “Calais disappears too much.”

The comment made its way back to him. Family members figured he’d fume. “Aren’t you pissed?” they kept asking. Campbell shook his head, then stored the words away.

“From that day on I decided I was gonna show up in every ball game. Every … single … one,” he says, pounding the table in front of him. “B.A. knew how to motivate. B.A. made me a better player.”

Campbell spent the first nine years of his career in Arizona, where he earned Pro Bowl and All-Pro honors from 2014-16. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

Arians’ words lit a fire, and as Campbell’s career took off, so did his ambitions. At one point he decided to Google “Hall of Fame defensive linemen.” He spent hours poring over their careers, watching highlights, studying stats. He pictured his own path to Canton. What would it take? How long would he have to play?

Between 13 and 17 seasons, he decided. Fifteen seemed like a good number. He wrote it down. “Then eight years in, I told myself no way,” he admits.

More research. More conversations. Campbell picked the brain of Dwight Freeney, who played until he was 37. Then James Harrison, who played until 39. Then Bruce Smith, who lasted until 40. He started seeing the chiropractor every week. He added acupuncture and massages to his routine. He spent nearly $30,000 on his own hyperbaric chamber.

He fought off Father Time.

He was 10 years into his career but started to feel like he was in his 20s again.

“I might just do this until the wheels fall off,” he told himself.

Campbell leans back in his chair, letting the silence linger for a few moments.

He’s a mountain of a man, with the voice of a preacher and a smile that warms the room. It’s late November. He’s sitting inside the Dolphins practice facility, weighing the most trying moments of his adolescence against the Hall of Fame-worthy career that followed.

Does one happen without the other?

He’s thinking.

He grew up one of eight, too busy trying to keep up with his older brothers to notice the hard times sneaking up on them. At one point, when Calais was in junior high, the family was forced to spend six months in a homeless shelter, crammed into a room with metal bunk beds pushed against the wall. The boys would take multiple city buses just to get to school each morning.

For years Campbell bottled up the experience, never mentioning it in interviews. He wanted to keep the pain private. But it was always there, same as the words his father left him.

Liver cancer stole Charles Campbell away at age 61, five months before Calais’ high school graduation. His father never saw him suit up at the U. Never saw him play a down in the NFL.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think my career’s the same without everything I been though,” Campbell says. “We’re all a product of our environment, right? I know I am. I had an incredible father who saw something in me. He pushed me, he motivated me, and all those situations helped build up this callus, this toughness in me. He’s still pushing me.

“That’s such an important part of my story.”

The story since: 17 NFL seasons, six Pro Bowls, a spot on the 2010s All-Decades team and the 2019 Walter Payton Man of the Year award. The foundation Campbell was honored for, the one he started way back in 2013, is called CRC. It’s named after Charles Campbell, whose son is now one of the most revered players in the sport.

Campbell won the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award in 2020 for a mixture of on-field performance and community service. (Tom Pennington / Getty Images)

Even so, after he arrived in Miami, Dolphins coaches weren’t sure how much he had left. Campbell didn’t sign with the team until June. He wasn’t there for a single offseason workout.

Then, a week into training camp, they put the pads on, and No. 93 started blowing plays up.

Austin Clark, Miami’s defensive line coach, began to envision Campbell lining up next to Sieler, a 29-year-old coming off his first 10-sack season. “Oh man,” Clark told himself, “we got a shot here.”

Five weeks after his first practice Campbell was voted team captain. One snap into the season he had his first sack. In the months since he’s transformed the unit, the defense and the building. After workouts, he stays on the field and tutors the Dolphins’ young pass rushers. In film sessions, he points out their mental mistakes.

“You can’t go through the motions around him,” McDaniel says. “First of all, he’ll call you out. Second of all, you’ll feel too guilty.”

On Saturday nights, the coach asks Campbell to address the entire team. “When Calais speaks, it’s just different,” Smith says.

Arians says it started in Arizona. Younger players would gravitate toward Campbell. He’d mentor. He’d motivate. He’d counsel. “A special player and a special leader,” Arians says. “One of the most positive guys I’ve ever been around in all my years coaching.”

It carried over to Jacksonville, then Baltimore. In 2022, Ravens defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike was two years into his career and fed up: he had just three sacks in 25 games. He was frustrated and losing faith. “Come visit me in Arizona this spring,” Campbell told him. So Madubuike did.

“I believed in my heart that I could be a guy who could really be a problem in this league and Calais was giving me insight that, ‘You are,’” Madubuike says. “When we don’t get the results we want in any field, you can automatically get discouraged. He always told (me) just to stay up, just stay focused, stay working and eventually you’re going to break through.”

Madubuike had 18.5 sacks over the next two seasons, made his first Pro Bowl and signed a four-year, $98 million extension with the Ravens last spring.

“I’m telling you, wherever I’m coaching the rest of my career, (Campbell) is gonna be around,” Clark adds. “If he doesn’t wanna coach, then I’m begging him to come by the building at least once a week. He has that big of an influence on guys.”

Campbell’s approach then is his approach now: “No. 1, be authentic with everyone,” he says. “No. 2, be the best version of myself. No. 3, love on people.

“If I do all of that, we’re gonna be all right. I believe that.”

The Dolphins are two games back of the final AFC playoff spot with four to go. Campbell’s pep talk to himself before the Rams game sparked something — starting that night, Miami ripped off three straight wins. Then on Sunday, they rallied to beat the Jets in overtime. A season that looked lost in early November suddenly has new life.

“We need nine wins,” Campbell keeps telling himself. “We get to nine wins, we got a shot.”

In the back of his mind, he knows this might be his last stand, the final chapter of a career born of drive and draft-day disappointment. If it is, it’ll end the way it started, with his father’s words ringing in his ears.

Once you start something …

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Todd Rosenberg, Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

India’s 18-year-old prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju capped his meteoric rise by becoming the youngest world chess champion in history after defeating Ding Liren 7½-6½ in a tense championship in Singapore.

The teenager, already the youngest challenger to compete for the world title, gained the point required in the final of the best-of-14 classic games to beat defending champion Ding, banking his share of the $2.5 million prize fund in the process.

He becomes India’s second world chess champion, following five-time champion Viswanathan Anand, who last won the world title in 2013, and, as the sport’s youngest-ever world champion, breaks the previous record held by Garry Kasparov. In 1985, Kasparov, 22, dethroned Anatoly Karpov.

Gukesh was the in-form player entering the tournament, but it was a tight contest throughout with the players level on 6½ points each with one classical game remaining. Ding made a one-move blunder late in Game 14, which handed Gukesh the title-winning point and prevented tiebreakers.

It has been a remarkable few years for the teenager, the son of a surgeon and a microbiologist. Until the summer of 2022, he was solely ranked as a junior. A grand master aged 12, seven months and seven days (the second-youngest at the time), he has gone on to become the third youngest player to reach a FIDE rating of 2,700 and the youngest to achieve a rating of 2,750. Aged 17, in what was the final round of qualifying for the world title, he overcame the odds and got the better of more celebrated players at the Candidates Tournament to earn a title shot against Ding.

Ding, ranked 22nd in the world, has had a difficult reign as world champion, taking a nine-month break from the sport last year for mental health reasons. Before this Championship, he hadn’t won a classical game since January and had only played 44 classical games since winning the world title in April 2023.

He did well to put in strong performances in Singapore, claiming a surprise win in the opening game. Another victory in the 12th game left the tie deadlocked. It had seemed that Gukesh had claimed a significant win in Game 11 after a series of draws between the two before Ding fought back in Monday’s Game 12. A draw in the penultimate game left both within touching distance of the trophy.

(Top photo: Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images)