Jermaine Bishop was moments away from running out of the tunnel at an OT7 7-on-7 football tournament. He just needed to find a costume for his grand entry.

The producers for the game’s live YouTube broadcast directed Bishop and his teammates to a bin of props. Something big and puffy caught Bishop’s eye. It was only when he turned it inside out that he noticed the logo across the chest - it was a Batman suit. 

Bishop ran out in the suit for the player introductions, but there was a 30-minute delay while the production transitioned to the actual game. As Bishop did high knees and short sprints to stay warm, he realized he had full range of motion in the Batman suit. So he asked his coach if he could keep it on for the game.

For 99 percent of kids, the answer would’ve been, ‘Hell, no, you can’t wear a Batman costume during a nationally broadcasted game.’ But Bishop is a one-percenter. 

It’s not that the superstar athlete from Willis is intimidating without shoulder pads on. He stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 155 pounds. His goofy nature, the constant smiling and joking, is just disarming. Bishop has a joy for everyday life usually reserved for kids much younger than he is, which makes it impossible to tell him no. That goes for Willis head coach Trent Miller, who didn’t believe a 5-9, 107-pound eighth-grader named Jermaine Bishop who said that he’d start on varsity as a freshman (he did), and teammates, like when Bishop walked into the Willis varsity locker room as a freshman and told returning seniors to stop horsing around (they stopped).

One mistake, and you take off the suit, his OT7 coach told him.

Except Bishop doesn’t make mistakes on the football field. The reigning District 13-6A Overall MVP and Texas Longhorns commit is just 796 receiving yards away from breaking the all-time record in the greater Houston area and locks down the opposing team’s No.1 wide receiver every week. Bishop played the entire game in the Batman costume, recording two pass breakups on the first drive alone, then scoring a post-route touchdown.

The viral videos of Bishop balling in a mask and cape are admittedly hilarious - and absurd. But it represents all the narratives surrounding his football career. 

His play on the field has created a reputation that has preceded him since he was 4 years old. At the State 7-on-7 Tournament in College Station, opposing players huddled together pregame, craning their necks, asking which player was Jermaine Bishop. He’s turned Texas High School Football into Gotham City, wearing his No. 7 jersey like a cape that inspires Willis while striking fear in opponents. 

“When he lines up and he’s wearing your colors, people look at him as the savior of what’s fixing to happen,” Miller said. “Even as coaches, we don’t take it for granted. We know as long as 7 is healthy and he’s on the field, we’ve got a chance to beat anybody.”

Kyle Coats, head coach at The Woodlands College Park, remembers last season how none of his players would talk trash to Bishop like they normally did to other players. So Coats started lightly jawing at Bishop from the sidelines, asking him why he was too scared to go across the middle where the linebackers were. When College Park punted it out of bounds, Bishop ran by Coats.

Y’all won’t kick it to me, though, Coach!

"I’m not that dumb," Coats responded.

“He is one of those generational talents, in my opinion,” Coats said. “The kid doesn’t have to come off the field because it doesn’t seem like he gets tired, which is frustrating as an opposing coach. You’d like for him to have to get a water break at times, but it never seems like it has to happen.”

Bishop toes the line between confident and arrogant, depending on if you’re asking his teammates or opponents. The people who know him know the story behind the Batman costume, while the people who don’t think he brought the Batman costume for a publicity stunt. What kind of kid has the gall to face the top recruits in the nation in front of thousands of online viewers in a superhero outfit?

He came across as cocky when Miller first met him. Bishop would stand on the sidelines as an eighth grader for Willis’ spring practices and point out returning starters whose spots he’d take that fall. In the first 7-on-7 practice that summer, when the varsity players were running 1-on-1s, Bishop told, not asked, Miller that he was hopping in. 

"The freshmen are over there," Miller said.

"I know," Bishop responded, staying where he was. He then proceeded to clamp three-year starter Jalen Mickens, who now plays at Louisiana Tech, for four straight reps. 

By this point, Miller was convinced he needed to play varsity, but was reluctant to let him start. He put Bishop at free safety for the first scrimmage against Klein Forest. On the first play from scrimmage, the running back took a hand off on an inside zone, Willis’ linebacker plugged the wrong gap, and the hole parted like the Red Sea. A then-115-pound Bishop was the only thing standing between Klein Forest’s 200-pound running back and paydirt. 

“Jermaine spins it downhill and smokes the running back for a two-yard gain,” Miller said. “I’m like, ‘Oh… my God. Maybe he is what everyone says he is.’”

This is the third aspect of the Batman costume that illustrates Bishop’s high school career: he shouldn’t be able to physically do what he’s done.

Bishop’s been “The Man” since he was a 4. His head coach knows the cape he wears is heavy. Miller can see how much film all of his players and coaches’ HUDL accounts are watching in a given week. Bishop watches more tape than half of the coaches. The most dangerous part of his game isn’t his size or speed; it’s his ability to know what’s about to happen before it does. This is the preparation required to maintain the title of being “The Man.” 

“He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders,” Miller said. “And he does it so gracefully that you’d never know when anything is bothering him.”

But something is bothering Bishop, bubbling under the surface of his jovial personality. He’s dubbed “TXHFB’s Travis Hunter,” but his ultimate goal is to be the SEC’s Travis Hunter, and most doubt he can be a two-way star in college. His commitment to Texas is in large part because the Longhorns are giving him the best shot to do it. Most other coaches told Bishop to his face that he’d play both ways, only to tell Miller behind a closed door that he’d soon have to pick a side of the football.

“I said the exact same thing when he walked into my office at 115 pounds soaking wet. ‘There’s no way on Earth he can be a varsity player as a freshman, and a two-way player, at that,’” Miller said. “I’ll be the first to admit amongst the long line of people who’re going to have to make that same admission here in the next couple of years – I was wrong. That dude can do whatever the hell he wants to do.”

Whether playing both ways in the SEC, or wearing a Batman costume.