But in a roundabout sort of way, he has proven to be a scribe as well. Because after closing the book on his football career two years ago at Texas A&M, Hamilton is writing the final chapters of his athletic tome at Mary Hardin-Baylor.
“At A&M, I kind of thought I was done with football at that point,” said Hamilton, a former high school standout at Temple who spent a redshirt season at Texas State before transferring to A&M. “I thought that part of my life had passed.
“Then I started getting the feeling that I wasn’t actually done yet. Ever since you’ve been in middle school you’ve been playing football, and then all of the sudden you’re not. I missed it.”
Hamilton is right back in the middle of things at UMHB as a starting linebacker. The 6-1, 225-pound junior has recorded 25 tackles - three for losses - for the seventh-ranked Crusaders (7-1 overall, 6-0 American Southwest Conference), who can clinch their fifth straight trip to the NCAA Division III playoffs with a homecoming win over Howard Payne (2-6, 1-5) at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Despite a cracked scaphoid bone that requires him to wear a cast on his right wrist, Hamilton’s numbers likely will continue to climb. After appearing in all 14 of UMHB’s games last season and making 36 stops, he had seen most of his playing time this year at weakside linebacker.
But when injuries forced the Crusaders to shuffle their lineup, Hamilton returned to his familiar spot in the middle.
“I’m more comfortable in the middle, just because that’s where I’ve played pretty much all of my life,” he said. “Plus, the (weakside linebacker) has to cover a little more ground in pass coverage. And I’m more of a physical player than a speed guy.”
Hamilton’s comfort zone includes not just his playing position but the university as a whole.
“I’ve always known about this program and the success they’ve had, so I kind of had an idea of what to expect,” he said. “I don’t have any regrets at all about coming here.
“You’re always unsure when you make a decision like that about changing schools and coming back home. But being here with this team and playing here, I don’t have any regrets about it.”
Hamilton is coming off his first start of the season last week, when made two tackles behind the line of scrimmage and was in on a sack during UMHB’s 27-6 win at East Texas Baptist.
That performance was evidence of his still-present appetite to compete as well as his knack for finding the ball, which he credits to film study and the Crusaders’ coaching staff.
“We have meetings every day where we watch film of the opponent,” he said. “Then we come up here on our own and watch as much film as possible.
“The goal is to have a pretty good idea of what the play is before the ball is snapped. What the coaches always say is that we defend formations. So they’ll teach us each of the opponents’ formations and what they run out of them. Then when we see that formation on the field, we have a pretty good idea of what the play might be.”
That type of discipline and knowledge has helped the Crusdaders’ defense lead the ASC by holding opponents to 263 yards and 12 points per game.
And those are the types of statistics than an analytical player takes joy in.
“It’s been a lot of fun this year,” Hamilton said. “Some of the injuries have probably lowered expectations other people had for us, so we feel like we have a lot to prove. We still feel like we have a long way to go to reach our ultimate goal."
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
