The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/641955
2016 FOOTBALL RECRUITING ISSUE BY BRANDON BROWN Even when Detroit Martin Luther King cornerback Lavert Hill commit- ted to Penn State in January of last year, a lot of people thought that the four-star prospect would ultimately end up at Michigan. When he visited Ann Arbor mul- tiple times throughout the fall, it started to seem more likely. Finally, when he decommitted from the Nittany Lions in late November, it seemed like a certainty. Penn State, along with Michigan State, both remained in the picture for Hill until National Signing Day, but inside the Horatio Williams Foundation in downtown Detroit, during the Detroit Public School League NSD ceremony, Hill put on a big smile, followed by a Wolverines hat. "I prayed on it yesterday," Hill said. "I woke up the next morning and 'The Victors' popped into my head and I started singing it, so I told my mom that that's where I wanted to go. She signed the papers, I faxed them off and that was it." Hill made it sound a lot simpler than it actually was, but Michigan always had an ace in the hole. Hill's older brother, Delano, is senior safety at U-M and in the weeks leading up to National Signing Day, he was a key cog in getting Lavert to choose the Wolverines. The younger Hill ad- mits that is was usually him that ini- tiated the conversations, but regard- less of how the talks started, they always led to one conclusion. "I always would bring it up to him and we would talk about Michigan a lot," Hill explained. "He would just say that Michigan is going to do really good this season and that I should be a part of it, and I just real- ized that, yeah, I should. "I've thought about playing with my brother a lot because I've never played on the same team with him before. I wanted to see what that was like, playing with him." Hill's biological brother played a big role in him choosing the Wolver- ines, but another brother may have been just as instrumental. Hill played his first three years of high school football at Detroit Cass Tech, and a former Technician currently playing for Michigan has made big plays, in addition to a big impact on Hill. "I've thought a lot about playing with JD [Jourdan Lewis], too," Hill said. "I know that he and Delano will teach me a lot during my freshman year coming in. To have them help- ing me out will be really good. "Me and JD were texting before I went up [to the podium] and I told him that I made my decision for Michigan. He was very happy for me. He just said he's got me once I get up there — that he'll have my back — and that he's going to teach me everything he knows to become an Brotherly Love Brings Lavert Hill To Michigan