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Miami Dolphins star Tyreek Hill did not have it easy during his collegiate career. While he is a highly regarded wide receiver in the NFL, Hill faced several difficulties in college, including not receiving any offers from top programs.
In Dec. 2022, Hill joined Shannon Sharpe on the "Club Shay Shay" show. There, he opened up about the ups and downs of his collegiate career, as he received more traction as a track and field athlete than a football player. Coming out of Coffee County High School, he had no college offers to pursue his football career.
"So believe this or not man, my senior year (high school), I had all kinds of options of what I wanted to do," Hill said. "I didn't have the grades coming out so I had to go to JUCO. But, I had ran track my final year and I had no football scholarship.
"So ran track and I ran fast ... and all these big colleges like LSU, Alabama, Florida State, they were all hitting me up ... And I was like I don't got the grades.
"So I'm like, okay I can go to JUCO and then I can come to y'all," he continued. "So they recommended this JUCO called Garden City Community College ... So I go to Garden City. Once I get to Garden City, I'm just there for track. But Garden City they got a football team."
Hill then described how he got his chance and never looked back:
"I don't know if you know Nick Marshall, he was an Auburn cornerback ... I knew Nick from playing against him in high school. And Nick was like, 'Hey Reek you should come play football.' So I go out to play football. And I started killing it.
"And that's when I began to get all this attention from like scouts and stuff and I forgot about what the track people had said ... I'm like, 'I'm football now.'"
Tyreek Hill's recruitment process at Oklahoma State is quite the story. After the university completed its new $10 million track in 2013, track coach Dave Smith hired an Auburn sprints coach known as 'Flaquer.' That was when the football program decided to use this opportunity to reel in the WR from Garden City.
Cody Stavenhagen quoted Flauqer in an article written in 2014. He stated that the football program's strength coach requested Flaquer to help them recruit Tyreek Hill.
"(Rob) Glass took me upstairs to meet with the football staff and they mentioned, 'Hey do you think you could help us reruit Tyreek?'. I said, 'Hey, I'll do it man.'"
Flaquer then went on to entice Tyreek Hill by saying positive things about OSU's atmosphere more than the advantages of joining their program. In January 2014, Hill enrolled at the university.
Tyreek Hill once opened up about his decision not to go to NC State
Tyreek Hill spent two seasons with Garden City before playing one campaign each with Oklahoma State and West Alabama. However, during an interview last year, he talked about the one D-1 offer he had received in high school.
Hill talked about visiting NC State during his senior year in high school and watching WR T.J. Graham play. He went on to talk about how Graham's performance led to him not committing to the program.
"I took a visit to NC State my senior year. Whoever (NC State) was playing against, the receiver T.J. Graham went crazy... NC State was the only school that offered me a scholarship in high school. The only reason I didn't go there was T.J. Graham, he went off that game."
Tyreek Hill then got a second chance at his collegiate career with West Alabama. The Tigers took him in as a part of their football team after being dismissed from Oklahoma State for his arrest due to a domestic violence case.
Then Tigers HC Bret Gilliland had initially rejected Hill for his arrest but later accepted him after getting to know his nature and personality.
During the 2015 season, Hill recorded 444 receiving yards and three touchdowns for West Alabama. He was then taken as the 165th overall pick by the Chiefs in the 2016 NFL draft before being traded to the Dolphins in 2022.
