In my own words: Tommi Hill
When you start playing football at a young age you seemingly have no other option but to be versatile and play multiple roles in any given game. While there's certainly something to be said about honing your skills in one specific position and perfecting your craft in that specific role, there's also no doubt that some players wear the versatility badge with honor and consequently make themselves more attractive prospects for colleges during the recruiting process.
This is the story of ASU’s incoming freshman Tommi Hill who is coming to Tempe this week, begins his college career playing cornerback but is a true athlete who proved his virtues on the football field this past season and could find himself lining up at various positions on the field during his Sun Devil tenure.
"The first time I picked up a football and started playing, I remember it like it was yesterday. I was five years old, and me and my dad would play in the front yard. I just started playing catch with him, and I feel in love with the game ever since. I played all the positions when I was younger, quarterback, linebacker, running back, fullback, safety, cornerback…I played everything.
“I played some basketball when I was younger, and I did track one year, but I really started taking football seriously in middle school. I was in eighth grade, where I realized I was good enough to play on a college scholarship. At that age, I was playing against all these bigger kids who were supposed to be better than me, and I went out there, show out, and dominated.
"Because I'm so athletic, my coach really wanted me to play in every position (in a previous interview, Hill’s coach said that it was not unusual to have the ASU incoming freshman be on the field well over 100 plays each game). We did have a good team, so it's not like they really needed me to play all those positions, but my coach thought that I would be the best option to do that. I didn't care how many positions I played. For me, it was just the game of football, and I went ahead and did what the coaches told me to, and I played well. I just made sure that I did a lot of conditioning in the off-season to get ready for that.
"The first time I talked to an Arizona State coach was back in January, and it was (defensive backs coach) Chris Hawkins. It's funny because when I saw him for the first time I was in the weight room, I thought my team got a new player or something like that. I thought he was coming out there to work out with us. I didn't know that he was a college football coach. When we chopped it up on the phone after that, just talking about football and school…stuff like that.
"Before they started recruiting me, I did know a little about Arizona State because of coach Herm (Edwards) but obviously I got to know a lot more about them after they offered me. I really didn't have a connection to the school but one of my mentors knows a lot of people from Arizona, and he told me it was a nice place to live at.
"Arizona State was in contact with me a lot when they offered me. They were really showing me a lot of love, not only talking about football but just about life outside of football and what I wanted to do after I'm done playing football. I really liked that. The other schools just talk about what you can do on the field, but coach Hawk, coach Herm (co-defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce), AP, Coach P (wide receivers coach Prentice Gill) all talked to me about what I can do after football. They always talked about how I could make the program better, but I never really knew what I was going to do if football did not work out after college, and they talked to me a lot about that, and that was important.
"Oklahoma, Nebraska, Florida State were some of the schools that were really recruiting me hard when Arizona State offered. It was hard with the recruiting process not being able to visit schools or meet coaches in-person. Besides coach Hawk from Arizona State, UCF was the only other school I got to see coaches from who visited my high school before everything shut down. It made a difference in my recruitment that coach Hawk came all the way from Arizona State to watch me work out.
"It was weird doing all these Zoom calls with all the different colleges recruiting you, but you just have to figure out what felt right when you were talking to those coaches, and they were showing you around campus on their phones. Arizona State talked to me about how I can make myself better if I came over there and how I can make the players and the coaches around me better too. I liked what they had to say about the program’s culture. Learning about all that stuff got me more into ASU and made me commit to them. (ASU freshman) DJ Taylor is a good friend of mine; we both grew up in Tampa. When he committed there, that made a difference to me. I was talking to T Lee, Jayden Daniels, and a lot of other players there, and they all gave me a good vibe about what it's like to be a player at Arizona State.
"Out of all the positions I played in high school, I did like playing wide receiver the most until playing defensive back got really easy for me because I knew what to expect when I was defending someone. I know what moves a wide receiver is going to make out there, and I just love hitting, so defensive back is where it's at. In the beginning, Arizona State did talk to me about being an athlete playing some wide receiver, playing some special teams but later on, when we talked, they said I'm going to come in as a cornerback and also compete for punt returner. Coach Herm who played cornerback, thought that I would be a good cornerback because of my athleticism. Coach Hawk said that he likes my quickness and my arm length. He also liked that I'm a taller physical cornerback.
"Playing at a high level of competition in Florida can help me adjust to playing in the Pac-12. There's a lot of talent on the teams I played on and the teams I played against. I'm just ready to get up there to Arizona State and showcase my talent. Watching them play last season, I know I can fit in because you can tell how much fun they have playing, and they press a lot.
"It's good that I can get to Arizona State early and just hit the playbook and get used to school and everything else much faster than other freshmen that are coming in the summer. I need to watch a lot of film to get better and learn everything I can from coach Herm and coach hawk. They're going to be a lot of seniors at defensive back, and that's great that you get to learn from the best, so I can be a freshman All American."
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