Sports
Revisiting Travis Hunter’s high school exploits: ‘He’s the best skill kid I’ve ever been around’
Daniel Shoch stepped up in the pocket and rolled out to his right. The quarterback at East Coweta (Ga.) High School — under pressure all night — saw his receiver open for a split second.
But there was a problem. Travis Hunter was on the other team.
“I threw it to where I thought only my receiver would be able to break on it fast enough to get back down to the ball,” Shoch said.
Predictably, this did not end well for East Coweta.
Hunter broke on the ball, snatched it out of nowhere and took it 70 yards the other way for a pick six on that Friday night in September 2021.
FSU commit Travis Hunter with the PICK 6 🔥 @TravisHunterJr pic.twitter.com/oWH82txcHP
— Overtime (@overtime) September 25, 2021
“I came to the sideline, our two backup quarterbacks, I remember them saying, ‘Look dude, that’s the No. 1 player in the country. We were standing on the sideline saying, ‘Throw it. Throw it. Oh crap, there’s Travis Hunter,’” said Shoch, now a student at the University of North Georgia.
Three years later, Hunter, the two-way sensation at Colorado and a Heisman Trophy hopeful, is still the best player in the country, or at least the most dynamic. He has played 844 total snaps (414 on defense and 430 on offense), 210 more than any other player in college football this season, according to TruMedia. His impact is unprecedented in the modern era.
Generational.#Big12FB | @CUBuffsFootball pic.twitter.com/jULOO67wZ4
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) October 28, 2024
No one in Georgia is surprised.
For those who had the privilege of competing against Hunter when he was the nation’s top recruit out of Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Ga., in the Class of 2022, this was only a matter of time.
“That’s the thing people don’t understand,” said Lenny Gregory, Hunter’s head coach at Collins Hill and now the head coach at Gordon Central (Ga.) High. “We saw (this) every day in practice.
“He’s like a human matrix.”
In the summer of 2018, Gregory received a call from someone at the local recreation department’s football program. There was a rising ninth grader, “a really athletic kid,” who had mentioned he’d be enrolling at Collins Hill in the coming weeks.
“So I met him on a Monday morning,” Gregory said of his first encounter with Hunter. “And I asked him, ‘Are you a baller?’ just kind of messing around with him. He just kind of, not rolled his eyes, but he just gave me this look and he says, ‘Baller? You haven’t seen a baller until you’ve seen me.’”
Gregory, taking note of Hunter’s confidence, told the 15-year-old to show up the following morning for a conditioning test.
All of Collins Hill’s players had been training together since the first week of June and spent every Tuesday running 200-meter dashes to prepare for the dreaded fitness assessment. To pass the test, players would need to run a series of six 200-meter dashes, each in 32 seconds or less. They’d have a one-minute break in between each run.
“So I said, ‘Are you in shape? Are you going to be ready to do that?’” Gregory said. “(Hunter) goes, ‘Oh, no problem, Coach. I can do that easy.’ And so I’m thinking, ‘Yeah he’s gonna run one or two and be throwing up everywhere.’”
The next morning, Hunter ran his first 200 with the Eagles defensive backs — a group of fast, athletic and experienced players.
“He smokes everybody. Bam,” Gregory said. “And I thought, ‘He’s done. This kid ain’t gonna be able to finish.’”
Then the second 200 came around.
“Boom. Smokes everybody. And I walk up to him, I say, ‘Are you all right?’ And he’s just standing there and he’s not even breathing hard. At all,” Gregory said. “And he goes, ‘Coach, this ain’t nothing. Let’s go again.’”
By the end of the test, seniors were splashed out on the track, exhausted and in pain.
Hunter, meanwhile, ran every 200-meter dash in 28 seconds or less, shattering the 32-second requirement.
“I’ve been doing the conditioning test for 20 years and I’ve never seen anybody do this,” Gregory said. “I’m like, ‘This guy is going to be special.’ I knew it right there.”
A few weeks later, Gregory and his team traveled to play Marietta High School, one of Georgia’s top programs at the Class 7A level.
Hunter was still raw as a freshman, but Gregory had already seen enough.
“We were warming up and we didn’t really have a chance to win that game. They were much better than us,” Gregory said. “But I remember pointing out Travis to my dad, who was standing (with me) before the game and I said, ‘You see that kid right there? That kid’s going to be one of the best players in the country. He’s unbelievable.’”
Hunter’s freshman season was relatively quiet, but he exploded onto the scene in the talent-rich Atlanta area the following fall.
As a sophomore, he finished with 49 catches for 919 yards and 12 touchdowns as a receiver and seven interceptions as a defensive back. He took another step as a junior, with 137 catches for 1,746 yards and 24 touchdowns on offense and eight picks on defense. He missed one month of regional play as a senior due to injury but still caught 85 passes for 1,284 yards and 12 touchdowns to go along with four interceptions.
“I’ve been coaching for 20 years or so and he’s easily the most dynamic player that I’ve ever come across in high school football,” said Philip Jones, the head coach at Brookwood (Ga.) High School. “It’s not even close.”
Jones first faced Hunter when Brookwood played Collins Hill to open the 2021 season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, but he’d previously watched him dominate — on both sides of the ball — in 7-on-7 games over the summer.
“He’s scoring every time he touches the ball,” Jones said. “At one point, he’s so wide open he catches it and he does a backflip in the end zone.
“Coach Gregory, who was his coach in high school, I saw him afterwards. We’re eating lunch and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Coach.’ It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before just watching a kid do that. And then coach Gregory didn’t even say anything really. He just kind of took his hands like he was wiping off crumbs or whatever off his hands and he just looked at me and was like, ‘Just get him on the bus, Coach. Just get him on the bus.’ He was like, ‘That’s my only job this year. Just get him on the bus every game.’”
Hunter dazzled in that 2021 opener, catching 13 passes for 232 yards and two touchdowns while also intercepting a pass thrown by current Alabama backup quarterback Dylan Lonergan. Oh, he also threw a 28-yard touchdown pass on a reverse in Collins Hill’s 36-10 win.
“This. Kid,” Philips said. “In-sane.”
Two weeks later, Collins Hill played Greenville Christian Academy, a small private school from Mississippi, in the annual Atlanta Freedom Bowl. Greenville Christian coach Jon Reed McLendon said it felt “surreal” when his players found out they’d be playing against Hunter, whose highlights they’d already devoured on YouTube.
McLendon and his staff made sure to stress to their defenders that week in practice that they’d need to know where Hunter was at all times. Sure, he was dangerous on defense — “You’re almost just holding your breath, just hoping that disaster doesn’t happen,” McLendon said — but the idea of Hunter running loose on offense?
“It doesn’t necessarily matter if you cover him or not,” McLendon said. “That to me, was a little scarier.”
Greenville Christian played zone coverage that night, deciding that it was better to make sure not to let Hunter beat them with big plays. They rushed three and dropped eight as though they were facing an Air Raid offense.
The strategy worked … sort of. Hunter caught only four passes for 28 yards and no touchdowns, but Collins Hill won the game, 37-22.
McLendon looks back on the game with mixed emotions.
“On one hand, you’re really proud of the fact that our defense did a good job that night of limiting him,” he said, laughing. “But because it’s so special, just as a guy that loves football, you almost would’ve liked to in-person been able to see more of it.”
Alpharetta High School coach Jason Kervin joked he’d be happy to send McLendon some of Hunter’s highlights after Collins Hill beat his team in 2020 and 2021 by a combined score of 72-22.
“When we played them in the playoffs (in 2020), I said (to our defensive coordinator), ‘Look dude, I don’t care where they put him, we’ve got to double him. … Give everybody everything else they want,”‘ Kervin said.
“(Hunter still) scored the first two drives of the game. You don’t stop a kid like that.”
Hunter capped off his career by leading Collins Hill to the first state championship in school history. He was committed to Florida State for much of the 2022 cycle but — in one of the biggest recruiting shockers ever — flipped to Jackon State on the first day of the early signing period. He played one season in the SWAC before following Deion Sanders to Colorado.
Gregory has been fielding calls over the past few months from NFL teams about Hunter, who is almost a lock to be a top-five pick in the 2025 draft. The coach has made it clear to anyone who asks that as long as Hunter stays healthy, nothing is stopping him.
“I think the kid could play both ways in the NFL,” he said. “He’s the best skill kid I’ve ever coached or I’ve ever been around that I’ve been able to work with. And I coached in the Under Armour (high school All-America) game, like, seven times. So I’ve seen NFL guys and I’ve seen a lot. But I’ve never seen anybody like him as a skill player.”
No one has.
“We’ve played against Will Anderson and Justin Fields and those guys,” said John Reid, the head coach at Georgia powerhouse Rome High School. “You’re talking to a guy who’s seen some really good players. … But the Hunter kid is different.”
“I coached George Pickens and Marlon Humphrey,” said Kervin from Alpharetta. “I know what a first-round draft pick looks like in high school and you don’t mess around with those kids, I can tell you. Guys like that are gonna make you look stupid.”
As Colorado heads toward the final third of its season, Hunter is on pace to once again earn first-team All-America honors and is very likely to be in New York in December as a Heisman finalist. Last Saturday, Hunter caught nine passes (on nine targets) for 153 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Buffaloes to a win over Cincinnati — their sixth of the season, ensuring a trip to a bowl game in Sanders’ second season.
Across the country, those from Hunter’s home state of Georgia continue to cheer from afar.
“I think that he’s a Hall of Fame player. I can’t see how he couldn’t be,” Gregory said. “Just stay focused and keep doing what he’s doing and he’ll end up putting one of those gold jackets on.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Dustin Bradford / Getty Images; courtesy of Travis Hunter)
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Dallas Cowboys star CeeDee Lamb opened up about why he and teammate George Pickens were benched for the first drive of the team’s blowout win over the Las Vegas Raiders.
Lamb explained that he and Pickens were out late at a Las Vegas casino and were disciplined for returning past curfew. The wide receiver also said he wanted to refute reports on social media that he was seen throwing up at the casino the morning before the game.
Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, left, celebrates his touchdown against the Las Vegas Raiders with Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) during the first half of an NFL football game Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
“That’s a disrespect to even suggest that,” Lamb said, via The Dallas Morning News. “I know how to hold my liquor.”
Regardless of the benching, Lamb and Pickens had themselves a dynamite game.
Pickens had nine catches for 144 yards and a 37-yard touchdown catch. Lamb had five catches for 66 yards and a touchdown. Their touchdowns helped contribute to Dak Prescott’s incredible game as he was 25-of-33 with 268 passing yards and four touchdown passes.
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Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Ryan Flournoy, left, celebrates his touchdown catch against the Las Vegas Raiders with Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb during the second half of an NFL football game Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Pickens, who was acquired by the Cowboys in the offseason from the Pittsburgh Steelers, has had a terrific year in Dallas. He has 58 catches for 908 yards and seven touchdowns, as he’s pacing for his best season yet as a pro.
Lamb missed a couple of games with an injury. He has 40 catches for 557 yards and two touchdown catches.
George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb of the Dallas Cowboys celebrate a touchdown during the second quarter against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium on Nov. 17, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ian Maule/Getty Images)
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The Cowboys, despite their stunning trade of Micah Parsons, are still hanging around playoff contention and have a big game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Dallas will enter the game 4-5-1 and Philadelphia will be at 8-2.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Sports
Committee organizing L.A. Olympic Games adds former House speaker McCarthy, other GOP leaders, to the board
LA28, the committee behind the upcoming Olympic Games, has quietly added high-profile Republicans with deep ties to President Trump to its board of directors.
The 35-member volunteer board now includes former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican who resigned in 2023, and Reince Priebus, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for the first six months of his first term and, before that, as chair of the Republican National Committee.
Diane Hendricks, a major GOP donor who has given millions to Trump’s campaigns, and Patrick Dumont, who owns the Dallas Mavericks, also joined the board. Ken Moelis, an investment banker who worked with Trump in the 1990s and predicted the then businessman would win the presidency in 2016, is also on the roster.
The Trump-adjacent inflow to the board of directors, first reported by Politico, is the latest sign of the president’s possible involvement in the Summer Games.
It is not clear why the directors expanded the board or the criteria used in the selection process. A spokesperson for LA28 did not immediately respond to questions.
Kevin McCarthy
(Associated Press)
Not all of the new board members are tied to the president. Los Angeles business consultant Denita Willoughby and philanthropist Maria Hummer-Tuttle were also named to LA28.
“We are thrilled to welcome this accomplished group to the LA28 Board who will help create an unforgettable Games for athletes and fans alike,” Casey Wasserman, chair of the 2028 L.A. Olympics organizing committee, said in a prepared statement.
Wasserman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Although past presidents have taken a largely ceremonial role when the Olympics are held on U.S. soil, there are signs that Trump is seeking more involvement. The 2028 Games coincide with his final year in office.
In August, he signed an executive order naming himself chair of a White House task force on the Games. The president views the event as “a premier opportunity to showcase American exceptionalism,” according to a White House statement.
Trump at the time noted that he’d be willing to send the military to Los Angeles to protect the Games. In June, he sent the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city amid escalating immigration enforcement actions, prompting pushback from Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Wasserman attended the executive order signing at the White House and thanked Trump for “leaning in” to planning for the Olympics.
“You’ve been supportive and helpful every step of the way,” Wasserman told the president at the time. “With the creation of this task force, we’ve unlocked the opportunity to level up our planning and deliver the largest and, yes, greatest Games for our nation, ever.”
Sports
MLB commissioner addresses sport’s illegal gambling scandal, will cooperate with Congress on investigation
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Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday the league will cooperate with a U.S. Senate committee’s request for documents detailing gambling investigations.
“We’re going to respond fully and cooperatively and on time to the Senate inquiry,” Manfred said during a news conference at an owners meeting.
The sport has been rocked by a scandal involving Cleveland Guardians players Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, who are accused of aiding gamblers by taking bribes to rig pitches.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred speaks during the first round of the MLB Draft July, 13, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee sent a letter Monday to Manfred asking for information by Dec. 5.
The committee is asking for responses to six questions by that date:
- “How and when was MLB made aware of suspicious betting and game manipulation activity by Emmanuel Clase or Luis Ortiz? Provide documents sufficient to support your response?”
- “Provide documents sufficient to show MLB’s policies and procedures relating to sports betting, gambling, or game rigging by MLB or an affiliated team’s players, coaches, employees, or owners.”
- “List any investigation into an MLB or affiliate team’s players, coaches, employees, or owners for violating MLB rules relating to sports betting, gambling, or game rigging or related criminal conduct between January 1, 2020, and the present.”
- “Provide all documents related to any investigation listed in response to Request 3, including: Procedures and policies used to conduct any relevant investigation; Documents received by third parties or otherwise collected by MLB during any relevant investigation; and Findings, conclusions, and actions taken as a result of any relevant investigation.”
- Procedures and policies used to conduct any relevant investigation;
- Documents received by third parties or otherwise collected by MLB during any relevant investigation; and
- Findings, conclusions, and actions taken as a result of any relevant investigation.”
- “Provide communications between MLB and any sports betting platform or sports gambling integrity monitor regarding suspicious or flagged sports wagers: Placed by MLB’s or an affiliated team’s players, coaches, employees, or owners; or Placed on MLB games or propositions related to MLB games, players, or teams.”
- Placed by MLB’s or an affiliated team’s players, coaches, employees, or owners; or
- Placed on MLB games or propositions related to MLB games, players, or teams.”
- “Explain the extent to which MLB has addressed and plans to further address the alleged instances of sports betting, gambling, and game rigging that have occurred including: How, if at all, MLB plans to revise its rules, policies, procedures, or enforcement structure; How, if at all, MLB plans to revise or enforce its rules relating to cellphone use during games; and How MLB plans to ensure players, employees, coaches, and owners do not have ties to organized crime.”
- How, if at all, MLB plans to revise its rules, policies, procedures, or enforcement structure;
- How, if at all, MLB plans to revise or enforce its rules relating to cellphone use during games; and
- How MLB plans to ensure players, employees, coaches, and owners do not have ties to organized crime.”
Two days after the indictments were unsealed on Nov. 9, MLB said its authorized gaming operators will cap bets on individual pitches at $200 and exclude them from parlays.
“We think the steps we’ve taken in terms of limiting the size of these prop bets and prohibiting parlays off them is a really, really significant change that should reduce the incentive for anyone to be involved in an inappropriate way,” Manfred said.
MLB CRACKS DOWN WITH NEW BETTING LIMIT AFTER CLEVELAND PITCHERS CHARGED IN GAMBLING SCHEME
Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee sent a letter Monday to Manfred asking for information by Dec. 5. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Manfred said MLB’s internal investigation into the Cleveland pitchers didn’t have a timetable. Ortiz was placed on paid leave July 3 and Clase was placed on leave July 28.
“We think that we should take advantage of the offseason to make sure that we conduct the most thorough and complete investigation possible,” he said.
Both Ortiz and Clase have pleaded not guilty.
Clase and Ortiz were arrested and appeared in federal court in New York last week. Clase, a three-time All-Star, pleaded not guilty to charges that he took bribes to help gamblers win money on his pitches. Ortiz also pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Officials said in the indictment that, from May 2023 to June 2025, Clase agreed with one co-conspirator to “throw specific pitches in certain MLB games” so that the bettors they were allegedly partnered with “would profit from illegal wagers made based on that inside information.” Ortiz allegedly joined the scheme in June 2025.
The indictment said Clase conferred with one bettor to throw a ball on the first pitch of an at-bat when he was brought into games in relief. The indictment pointed to instances in specific games, including May 19, 2023, vs. the New York Mets; June 2, 2023, vs. the Minnesota Twins; and June 7, 2023, vs. the Boston Red Sox.
Clase allegedly began to request and receive bribes and kickback payments for agreeing to throw the specific pitches in April, according to the indictment. In one instance, the indictment said, Clase used his phone in the middle of a game to coordinate with a bettor on a pitch he would throw.
Bettors allegedly won $400,000 from betting platforms on pitches thrown by Clase between 2023 and 2025.
When Ortiz allegedly joined the scheme, the indictment said, he agreed to throw balls over strikes on certain pitches in exchange for bribes or kickbacks. He allegedly agreed to throw a ball on June 15 against the Seattle Mariners for around $5,000 in his first pitch in the second inning.
The indictment said Ortiz agreed to throw a ball in his first pitch of the third inning on June 27 against the St. Louis Cardinals for $7,000. In June 2025, bettors won at least $60,000 on pitches thrown by Ortiz.
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Cleveland Guardians pitchers Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase’s leave was extended indefinitely Aug. 31, 2025. (IMAGN/AP)
The indictment announcement came weeks after three NBA figures were swept up in an FBI operation involving alleged illegal gambling. Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier and Damon Jones were among the more than two dozen arrested in the alleged scheme.
Fox News Digital’s Ryan Gaydos and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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