From Boynton Beach to Colorado 2-way star

On December 15, 2024By Littum

BOYNTON BEACH — As the conversation among family members of Travis Hunter Jr. was about who is going to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony, the Colorado star’s grandmother, Shirley Hunter, wasn’t sure if she wanted to make the trip.

“I want to go,” she said. “But I don’t know yet.”

But Travis Hunter Sr., father of the overwhelming favorite to hoist the trophy when the winner is announced Dec. 14, knows where he wants to be.

And it won’t be in New York.

“I don’t want to go,” he said. “I want to be there when he gets married and when he is appointed. I want to watch this from home.”

For Travis Sr. is just part of the plan to see his son lift the most coveted sporting trophy in this country.

“I really don’t feel any different because I always know he could win if he set his mind to win,” Travis Sr. said. “He’s always had that … since he started playing football when he was 4 years old.

“At the end of the day, I’d always tell him he’s the best player anyway, so he’s got to go out there and play like that. Every time I’d tell him he’d go out there and play like whether he was the best player in the world.”

Travis Sr. is grateful that he can even make that decision. He spoke about his son the day he was released from the Palm Beach County West Detention Center in Belle Glade. Travis Sr. was sentenced to 90 days in late September as a result of an arrest in 2023. He was released about three weeks early.

Travis Sr., 39, often attended his son’s games, either at Jackson State, where he played for a year before following his coach, Deion Sanders, to Colorado; or his two seasons with Buffaloeswhere Travis Jr. has emerged as a generational talent.

While at the adult facility, he was able to watch most of his son’s games.

“Yeah, it hurt,” he said of not being able to attend Travis Jr.’s games in the second half of the season. “But it always hurts if I don’t go to a game.”

Travis Hunter comes from athletic royalty

Travis Sr. is not the only one who knew early on that his son was a talented athlete. Shirley Hunter certainly saw something special in her grandson.

Travis Jr. was just 5 years old when Shirley, known as Miss B — “because I’m always busy,” she said — watched him throw a football during his days with the Boynton Beach Bulldogs.

Suddenly he threw spirals with his left hand. Travis Jr. is a right-handed person.

“I told his coach, ‘You know, he throws with both hands,'” she said. He didn’t believe her.

Shirley then turned to Bill Tome, the man who started the Bulldogs program 30 years ago and is still a friend of the family.

“I said, ‘Bill, that’s it. That’s it,'” she said of Travis Jr. “I just said it like that.”

Almost two decades later, and no one now doubts Shirley, the 68-year-old matriarch of the Hunter family.

Travis Hunter Jr. is not only the one, but The Chosen One.

Travis Jr. grew up in Boynton Beach before moving to Suwanee, Georgia, with his mother, where he attended Collins High School and was the No. 1 recruit in the nation in 2022. Now he’s not only the best two-way college football player in the country , he is among the best in the country at both positions: receiver and cornerback. And he is expected to be the no. 1 player selected in next spring’s NFL Draft.

For people like Tome, the Hunter name is royalty when it comes to athletics and the Bulldogs.

Shirley Hunter was a sprinter at Atlantic High School in the early 1970s. She had eight children, five boys and three girls. All were extraordinary athletes.

The five boys played football and three ran track, including Travis Sr. Two of her daughters ran track and the other was a gymnast.

“The hunters, you never wanted to take them off the field,” said Tome, who retired from the Boynton Beach Police Department in 2019 and is now director of the city’s Police Athletic League. “They were so talented at doing everything. They all played both ways. They’re all tough athletes.”

Where did the athletic ability, and especially speed, come from?

Miss B knows that.

“From me,” she said. “I saw it the first time with my oldest son. And then it was just passed on. Everyone had speed. They all played football because football was my thing. What was different for me was that I was a girl, so I couldn’t play football during those times.”

Shirley attended Atlantic High School and was the 1975 state champion in the 200 meters. Her middle son, Travis Sr., began making a name for himself at Lantana Middle School and then at Boynton Beach High as a track and football player.

At 15, Travis Sr. ran. 10.82 seconds in the 100 metres, which was 1.03 seconds slower than the world record at the time. In 2004, he was part of Boynton Beach’s 4×100 meter relay team that ran a school record of 41.63. That same year, he scored on an 82-yard kick return and a 46-yard pick-six against Martin County to help Boynton Beach snap a 14-game losing streak.

Travis Sr. was 17 1/2 when Travis Jr. was born, derailing his ambition to play college sports. Instead, he played for the semi-pro Southeast Florida Reapers along with several family members, including three brothers.

‘My children will be fast’

Tome has seen six members of the Hunter family come through the Bulldogs. Travis Jr. spent about seven years in the program.

“He stood out with his speed,” Tome said. “Fast, running around, playing the whole game, playing both ways at a young age.”

Tome remembers the day Shirley pulled him aside to tell him that Travis Jr. was special. “And Miss B knows soccer,” he said.

When asked to compare her son’s and grandson’s athletic abilities, Shirley said the only difference was that Travis Sr. had more speed.

Both, she said, played receiver and defensive back, but Travis Sr. also returned kicks.

“I watched football with my dad,” she said. “I said when I get older, if I have kids, my kids are going to be fast and they’re going to end up playing football.”

Travis Jr. speaks fondly of both his grandmothers and once credited Miss B with getting him into football.

“She’s always been there, too,” he said during an interview with DawgNation when he was recruited by Georgia. “She’s the one who got me started playing soccer. Signed me up my first day and never looked back.”

Travis Jr. later gave a verbal commitment to Florida State, but flipped on signing day and joined Sanders at Jackson State.

Travis Hunter Jr. vs. Lamar Jackson: Who’s Better?

Perhaps the one player with Boynton Beach connections comparable to Travis Jr. is the only one from the area to win a Heisman … for now.

Lamar Jackson did not play in the Bulldogs program because he grew up in Pompano Beach. But he moved to the area before entering high school and played his final two seasons at Boynton Beach High School before winning the Heisman at Louisville.

Jackson is now carving out a Pro Football Hall of Fame career with the Baltimore Ravens. He is a two-time NFL MVP.

Tome saw both playing youth football. And beyond Jackson’s ability to throw the ball, he calls it a “tossup” when comparing their skills.

“Just two of the most amazing athletes I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.

After Colorado’s final regular-season game, in which Hunter caught three touchdown passes and had an interception in a 52-0 rout of Oklahoma State, the Heisman Trophy favorite signed autographs while others broke out his ‘HE12MAN’ apparel. The jerseys depict Hunter making the Heisman post, something he has done after scoring multiple times this season.

Hunter was named a finalist that week for the Maxwell Award (Player of the Year), the Chuck Bednarik Award (Defensive Player of the Year) and the Biletnikoff Award (Outstanding Receiver). He won the 2023 Paul Hornung Award as the country’s most versatile player and is very likely to do so again.

“Simply put, he’s the best football player in America,” ESPN analyst Booger McFarland said.

However, Hunter is not a finalist for the Thorpe Award (best defensive back), which irked Sanders, who won the award in 1988 while a senior at Florida State.

“The most idiotic thing in college football,” Sanders said of the snub.

Overwhelming favorite to win the Heisman Trophy

After the rout of Oklahoma State, Sanders, who is a member of the Pro Football and College Football Halls of Fame, said Hunter “hit the Heisman.”

And the oddsmakers agree.

Hunter is such an overwhelming favorite to win the most prestigious award in American sports that some books have removed these odds from the board. The race is now for second place between Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty and Miami quarterback Cam Ward.

“Travis Hunter proved today and he’s proven every week that he’s the best player in college football,” Sanders said. “You have to give me a different definition of the award. The award is going to who? The best quarterback? He’s up for best offensive player, best defensive player, a plethora of things.

“Who else has? Ever?”

Hunter plays virtually every snap from scrimmage every game, except in blowouts, averaging more than 120 per snap. game. He has 92 catches for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns, along with four interceptions and 11 passes defensed. And quarterbacks have often avoided throwing his way.

Hunter has the third-highest grade among cornerbacks and fifth-highest among receivers in the country, according to Pro Football Focus.

Jon Gruden was the Raiders’ head coach when they selected Michigan’s Charles Woodson in the 1998 NFL Draft. Woodson is the only true two-way player to win the Heisman in the modern era. Like Hunter, he played receiver and cornerback.

“We drafted Charles Woodson fourth overall,” Gruden wrote on social media. “He could do everything on a football field. When I see Travis Hunter, I see that same kind of clutch game changer.”

Heisman Trophy, Draft Day parties being planned

Tome is organizing Heisman and Draft Day watch parties in Boynton Beach, which will be hosted by the police department. Plans have not been finalized, but the gathering may be at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge in Boynton Beach.

“It’s a testament to what this program does for the kids,” Tome said. “We’ve had so many top athletes come through Boynton Beach who have been coached by our volunteers in those 30 years, and to see something like this would just be a testament to our dedication to our kids.

“It’s amazing how many kids have gone on to the NFL through this program.”

Soon there will be one more.

Palm Beach Post deputy sports editor Eric Wallace contributed to this story.

Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at [email protected].