Fire and desire: ASU safety Josh Hill unbothered by the cancellation of HBCU combine due to coronavirus
Andre Toran
One. Two. Three. With every rep, former Alabama State safety Josh Hill can feel the fire he once had for the game of football returning.
It's all around him, the embers of renewed passion lighting up the darkest corners of his hotel room at roughly 2 a.m. Four. Five. Six. Hill can no longer hold his excitement, stretched out on the floor of a Synder, Texas Days Inn. Up and down. Over and over again.
He had to work out now. He had to prepare, and there was no time to waste — a shot at NFL dreams he's had since he was a kid awaited. Dreams that date back to the Nintendo 64, playing Madden 99 and NFL Blitz with his brother Kelsey, he says.
Dreams he put on hold when he left ASU following the 2019 football season to join his brother in Fort Worth, Texas, as tractor operator for Nelson Tree Service. Dreams he packed away and all but repressed, because he had to provide for his family in the wake of his mother, father and stepfather all losing their jobs in the span of six months.
But now, those dreams were again within reach and "a fire just started burning inside of me, and I instantly started doing pushups, situps and everything until like 4, 4:30 in the morning. My brother was in a bed next to me sleep but I didn't care I was up playing music, working out," Hill said.
Lil Baby's "Sum More" carried the cadence of Hill's workout.
Jumped right off the porch and straight to the streets
I went and got me some dough
But that ain't enough, I want some more
I want some more and some more
Hill had just received the revelation that he was invited to the first-ever historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) combine, a part of the NFL's Combine Series. It would take place from March 27-29 at the Miami Dolphins' Baptist Health Training Facility.
"Just woke up randomly, because I always wake up in the middle of the night," Hill said. "But this time, I grabbed my phone and checked my apps. Twitter was the first app I checked." He said the first post he saw was from Elijah Bell, a wide receiver at North Carolina A&T.
Hill read Bell's post: 'Ain't want to let me in the door in Indy, so I'll go get everything they owe me in Miami.'
Hill said he had to clear his eyes "to make sure I was looking at the right thing," but it didn't take him long to realize that Bell was referring to the HBCU combine that had been announced by NFL Operations on Feb. 12. Hill wondered if he too had earned an invite.
"I said 'Oh, people are getting invited. Let me check my email and see if I got the invite,'" Hill continued. "And just as soon as I checked it, I scrolled down past two emails, and it was right there."
Prior to the email, football was in Hill's rearview mirror and the struggles his family experienced became his No. 1 priority. Shortly after a tight overtime loss to Prairie View A&M in the Hornets' season finale, Hill approached his brother to let him know that this was officially the end of his football career.
Five career interceptions. 129 career tackles. Ten career pass breakups. Three career forced fumbles and one 2019 preseason All-SWAC team selection. It was all over.
"After the season ended, he told me straight up, 'I'm going to come out there and work with you,'" Kelsey said. "He wanted to help do this and that. He didn't like seeing our parents struggle. That's what it was at the moment."
So, Hill packed his bags with one semester left to complete his degree and moved to Texas to join Kelsey at Nelson with the hope of creating a steady cash flow that could be sent back home.
Kelsey said he knew what Josh was doing was "tough for him," he said. "Since a kid, I knew where his heart had been.
"I tried to talk him into staying and playing football. I told him 'Whatever happens we just need you stay focused on football.' We knew that he had a big opportunity ... but no matter what we said it was like he had already had his mind made up."
Hill had had enough.
Growing up in Prichard, Hill said he had seen his family go through enough loss. He had seen this all before, he said. "Man, I can't keep going through this. We can't keep doing this!"
"My dad ended up losing his job (at a fish oil company), and then my mom (a personal aide for seniors) and her husband lost his job, so there was no money coming in," Hill said. "My mom was delivering food from Walmart, Ubering and just getting a little money to bring into the household just to put a little money here and there on bills, so nothing would get turned off. ... It hurt me. I don't like seeing that, or hearing about it, because we done been through that so much in my life that I'm tired of dealing with that. So, I was like 'This has to end now.'"
At the time, football was not the thing that would put food on the table for his family. Furthermore, it he wasn't guaranteed to get drafted or picked up, and an invite to the NFL combine in Indianapolis was unlikely.
However, the invite to the HBCU combine, as one of 50 invitees, was just enough confirmation that he was on the NFL's radar — an opportunity he couldn't pass up. An opportunity that could change the fortunes of his family and reignite the fire in the man he once was.
The night Hill got the invite, he woke up Kelsey to show him the invite and through the cover of night Kelsey smiled with joy, turned back over to sleep and let his brother finish his workout. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
"I just saw how his face lit up," Kelsey said. "At that moment I felt good from a brother's standpoint. Just knowing he had an opportunity to finish out his dream. I knew he really didn't want that job.
"That whole night he was just up. He was just happy. He started doing pushups. ... At that moment I saw him back in his football mindset. Because once he told me he was coming here, it's like his motivation for football was just gone. But after the invite, it was like 'OK I see the old Josh.'"
After talking to their boss at Nelson the next day and notifying him of his decision to pursue the combine, Hill returned to Mobile to train with local coach and trainer Terrence Goodwin.
Goodwin coached at Hill's rival, Blount, when Hill was in school at Vigor High, and the two built a relationship as Hill got into college and returned home to train with Goodwin here and there.
Over the course of a week, from March 4-11, Goodwin worked on Hill's vertical, endurance and stamina. To improve on Hill's 40-time and prepare him for the most important part of the combine, Goodwin brought in Ellis Lankster, former seventh-round pick for the Buffalo Bills out of West Virginia in 2009.
Lankster said he worked on Hill's quick-twitch movement and 10-yard burst with sled workouts, hip mobility routines, box jumps and one-legged hops.
During this time, Goodwin and Lankster raved about Hill's work ethic and will. "You can't break him," Goodwin said. "I don't care what I've thrown at this kid, he's never broke. I don't care how hard the workout is, the only thing he is going to say is 'OK coach, let's go.'"
They raved about his natural fit at the defensive back position. "The way he backpedals and covers so much ground. He has so much range already. The NFL coaches are going love how much range he has," Lankster said.
They raved about his knowledge of the game and his maturity. "His maturity level, his knowledge of the sport, is so off-the-chain, man, Goodwin said. "If you go to an NFL team, they are looking for guys like that. Guys that come up mature, guys you don't have to make work."
Hill was taking strides that would make him attractive to scouts irrespective of what school he was from. Strides that would've made him a combine standout.
However, less than two weeks into his workout, COVID-19 began to sweep through the nation, and as a response, professional leagues, such as the NBA, MLB, NHL and the NFL, began to shut down competition and events.
That included the NFL's regional combines. On March 12, the HBCU combine was canceled. By March 18, coronavirus cases in the United States neared 9,000, and Hill received another email. 'Subject: HBCU combine' it read.
The HBCU combine has been canceled. Your upcoming reservation will be canceled and held for future travel.
Again, Hill had lost it all, and his dreams hung in the balance.
The brothers were in Franklin, celebrating their cousin's birthday, cooking out and riding four-wheelers when the news of official cancellation came.
"I asked him, 'So, what are you going to do? Are you going to come back to work or whatever?'" Kelsey said. "He was like 'Nah, I'm going to stay in Alabama with my trainers and workout some more."
Hill's attitude never changed, Kelsey said. The fire he has hasn't dwindled. This time he'll hold tight to his dream, and he is committed to playing at the next level — at least for the time being. Until his funds run dry.
"He's still got the mindset that he's going to the combine to show out," Kelsey said. "He's taking this opportunity as more time to get better."
Hill can't go back to ASU to finish his degree, because the campus is shut down and the university wasn't offering any classes he needed to graduate until the fall. Additionally, his job with Nelson Tree Service is waiting for him when he decides to return. So this is the time to fine-tune things, he and his trainers say.
"I don't really feel robbed," Hill said. "I just feel like it's another bump in the road. I don't know why. I just feel like everything happens for a reason. That's how I've been feeling ever since they canceled it. I don't feel like anything is in jeopardy."
Nevertheless, there are still questions that need to be addressed: Will the cancellation of the combine hurt his potential to get drafted? How much did he need this event to showcase his ability to scouts? Was this his final opportunity?
Alexa Stabler, an NFLPA certified agent and daughter of NFL great Ken Stabler, says the cancellation of the event is "heartbreaking" for Hill, but the fact remains that he got an invite. That means he is on the radar.
"Of course this is an unprecedented situation," Alexa Stabler said. "We've never seen anything like this, and it's really unfortunate because the HBCU combine seemed to be a really cool idea and could've helped a lot of these guys.
"That said, I think the good news is that he got an invitation. That in itself shows that he has been noticed and that NFL decision-makers have an interest in him, or at least want to see more from him. So, he's caught the right sets of eyes."
Alexa Stabler does not represent Hill, but Goodwin has reached out to her for advice concerning Hill's situation and is hopeful he can get Hill "involved inside her camp," he said.
Alexa Stabler is based out of Mobile and has become fairly familiar with Goodwin because of his involvement with local athletes on every level. They "run in the same circle," she says.
Though Hill isn't currently on her client list, Alexa Stabler said if she were representing him, "I would recommend that they keep training, but also put together a highlight film that's pretty short in length ... of his top film, his top games and then send it out," and to work with ASU's pro liaison, Damon Cogdell, who is currently unavailable due the university's limitation of access to players and coaches during this time of "crisis," the ASU sports information department says.
Hill expects to train with Goodwin and Lankster in Mobile for another two months. The draft is April 23-25, and undrafted rookie free agent signings will take place soon after that. But Hill says, if he hasn't heard anything from teams by the end of June, he'll pack his dreams away once again and head back to work.
Stabler urges Hill and his camp not to worry, because scouts have his film. They know who he is. It's just a waiting game now.
"Being able to showcase what I could do at the combine would have given me a better opportunity," Hill said. "But if they want me they'll find me."
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Andre Toran at AToran@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @AndreToran.