Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1081575
48 MARCH 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2019 FOOTBALL RECRUITING ISSUE BY DAVID MCKINNEY Basketball may be in Kyle Ham- ilton's blood, but football is in his heart. With a father who was selected in the third round of the 1988 NBA Draft and a brother playing college basketball at Penn, it appeared early on that the 6-3, 190-pound frame Hamilton would eventually grow into would be perfect to carry on the basketball family tradition. Then he stepped on a football field. "Deep down I've always been a football guy," Hamilton explained. "When I started playing, I had a dif- ferent feeling going on to a football field than I got going onto a basket- ball court. "It's a different kind of love for the game." Still, Hamilton was a lanky high schooler with basketball genes, so it looked like basketball was his path to college athletics. That changed one morning when Atlanta Marist School head coach Alan Chadwick pulled Hamilton out of a literature class to tell him Florida Atlantic had offered him a scholarship. The first offer, Hamilton said, was a bit of a shock. "I didn't even know I was being recruited," he noted. "I had talked to some coaches, but I didn't think anything of it. After that, I started focusing on football more." As high school continued, the of- fers kept pouring in. During his ju- nior season, Hamilton had a modest offer list, but eventually came to a realization that a lot more were on the way. "During my junior year, I started focusing more on my football skills," he said. "I was having a pretty good junior year, I started racking up more offers, and I think that's when it set in that I could really do this and be successful and productive." That offseason, everything esca- lated in a hurry. Offers came in from Notre Dame, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia, Michi- gan, Auburn and several other top programs from across the country. When the camp circuit started, Ham- ilton set out to prove he was deserv- ing of all the attention coaches were showing him. "It was surreal," he said. "After I did The Opening regionals and camps and stuff like that, I got more confident in myself and knew I was in the position I was supposed to be in. I knew I belonged there." Kyle Hamilton Rises With Hard Work And Humility Hamilton earned an invite to the All-American Bowl and was tabbed as a second-team All-American by USA Today. PHOTO COURTESY RIVALS.COM "It's a humble mindset. I know all that stuff [recruiting rankings and other honors] doesn't really matter when you get to college. … I'm ready to come in, put my head down, get to work and make an impact on the team as soon as possible." HAMILTON