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Floating somewhere amidst the flotsam and jetsam of a couple of high school careers’ worth of awards and various distinctions, there’s a flier Booker T. Washington High’s Rodney Hammond and Lake Taylor High’s Malik Newton both insist they still have.
Along with Princess Anne High cornerback Tony Grimes and former Granby High defensive lineman KaTron Evans, who is now at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, Hammond and Newton dreamed big when they were all young friends brought together by various youth football and AAU basketball leagues and were just starting out in Southside high schools.
They put their images on a piece of paper and captioned it “The Fantastic Four.” There was talk of becoming known for their football exploits together.
“We were all thinking maybe we would go to the same college,” Hammond said. “I knew everybody wasn’t for real about it, but we were always talking about it.”
It rarely turns out the way you envision it when you’re 14 or 15 years old, but for Hammond and Newton, the original plan is becoming a partial reality.
After establishing themselves as the best running backs in Hampton Roads, and earning positions in the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot’s Fab 15 state recruiting rankings for the class of 2021 along with the top-rated Grimes, Hammond and Newton will play in the same backfield in college. They’re both headed to Pittsburgh.
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Wooed to Pitt by the typically brilliant recruiting of Panthers wide receivers coach Chris Beatty, who has coached at Salem High and Landstown High in Virginia Beach as well as Hampton University and Virginia, Hammond committed in November to Pitt.
He was one of four Hampton Roads players in the 2021 class who would at one point be recruited by Beatty and commit to Pitt, including Newton, Phoebus linebacker Trevion Stevenson and Ocean Lakes athlete Myles Alston. Stevenson has since reneged on his commitment and pledged to North Carolina, but Hammond, Newton and Alston still intend to be Panthers.
Newton, who said he needs one more English credit to be able to graduate high school, and Alston have expressed plans to enroll in January at Pitt. Hammond said he wants to try to do the same.
“I want to get to my goal as soon as I can,” Hammond said.
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During the recruiting process, Newton said Pitt’s coaches told him that he and Hammond were the top two running backs on the Panthers’ recruiting board. Pitt running backs coach Andre Powell apparently already has a lot of plans for how to use Hammond and Newton.
“He always tells me, ‘You all are going to be thunder and lightning. We’re going to use Rodney in open space and on like third-and-1 or third-and-3 plays, and then Rodney can go in the slot and we’ll bring you in the backfield,‘” Newton said. “There’s a lot of different options for using us.”
Though they’ve been friends since playing together in seventh grade on the Norfolk Titans’ AAU basketball team, Hammond said he didn’t believe Newton when he started to mention in early spring he was going to commit to Pitt.
“He was like, ‘I’m about to commit, too,’” Hammond said. “I said, ‘Man, shut up.’ We started laughing about it.”
In May, Newton brought it up again. Still, Hammond thought Newton was pulling his leg.
“We always joke around with each other,” Newton said. “I was just like, ‘I’m coming to Pitt with you.’ ”
Not until he started getting texts from Pitt’s coaching staff about Newton’s commitment did Hammond believe it. A notorious and self-professed trash talker, it probably served Hammond right to have to live with the uncertainty of whether or not he was being pranked.
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Despite their close relationship, Hammond admits he often sought out Newton to stir things up a bit when Booker T. played Lake Taylor.
“That’s what I do,” Hammond said. “At the end of the day, we all have the same goal and it’s all love, but I’m going to talk to you before the game, during the game and after the game.”
For Newton, his friend’s chirping didn’t amount to much, given the final results of the meetings.
“I always get the bragging rights,” Newton said. “We always beat them.”
Now, they’ll look to get the bragging rights together on their Fantastic Four buddies. Grimes is heading to North Carolina, which plays Pitt annually in ACC Coastal Division play. Evans is going to Tennessee, which is slated to host Pitt on Sept. 11, 2021.
“We’re going to get the job done,” Hammond said of his future backfield partnership with Newton. “I prefer playing with players from the 757 than from anywhere else.”
Norm Wood, 757-247-4642, nwood@dailypress.com