UPDATE: Student gets enough 'likes' to win cleats in honor of late father

UPDATE: James has reached the 50,000 mark!

PREVIOUS: One Elkhorn Middle School student's current mission is to get 50,000 Instagram likes in one week.

12-year-old James Hyatt is working with family, classmates, teachers and school administrators to get the word out on an Instagram post, while the numbers tick up by the minute.

James attends school in the building right next door to Franklin County High School, where his father worked for more than 10 years as a teacher, coach and mentor. He was killed in a car crash in Whitley County last July.

Now, his son wants to carry a piece of his father with him when he plays the sport they bonded over.

"I didn't go to bed until late last night because I was getting notifications of people liking the photo," James said.

But he was hesitant about doing this at first.

"I didn't think about the idea of doing it until now because of comments like, 'oh you're just trying to get likes.' Stuff like that," James said.

But he isn't trying to become an influencer, or gain popularity. He's doing it to honor his role model.

"I kind of want to do this idea to represent my dad on the field," James said.

The design of the cleats is still in the beginning stages.

"One of them is going to be gold and I'm going to due a blue tint that goes with Franklin County colors," James said.

As he works toward his goal, he remembers one of the lessons his dad taught him, which was that if you keep trying, you'll end up succeeding.

You can help James Hyatt reach his goal by liking his most recent post on Instagram.