Signing Day: Rock Hill-area athletes sign to Alabama, USC and more. Hear their stories
The early period for high school football players to sign National Letters of Intent began on Wednesday. Several athletes in York County and Chester County took part in the day’s festivities. These are their stories.
Check back for updates throughout the day.
York wide receiver, impacted by his late father, signs to App State
The day before Thanksgiving, York Comprehensive High School wide receiver Da’Shawn Brown knew he’d made the right decision.
He, his mother and his father were on a Zoom video call with Appalachian State football coaches he’d been acquainted with for several months. They were “chopping it up,” he said, laughing and joking. His pops, Shannon Floyd, was cooking a Turkey.
“The coaches said that we need to bring them some fried food and bring it up to the mountains,” Brown recalled to The Herald on Wednesday and laughed. “And my dad said, ‘Think about next year, I’m gonna smoke us a turkey!’”
National Signing Day on Wednesday this week was a joyful day for Brown and his family. The 6-2, 170-pound wide receiver signed to play football at App State next year, fulfilling a lifelong dream to play college football.
But it was also a tough day in some respects — a day in which Brown was reminded of who wasn’t there. Brown’s father died in a car accident, Brown said, on Thanksgiving Day. That Zoom call with those Mountaineer coaches was one of the last memories Brown had with his father.
“Not going to lie, it’s been rough,” Brown said with a soft smile, wearing an App State shirt, an App State mask, a gold necklace his mother gave him and custom black pants that pay tribute to his two late cousins and his late father in yellow paint. “I’ve been trying to stay strong with my mom. But when I’m alone, it’s been rough. There’s not a day when I don’t think about him. It’s going to be tough. I don’t know if it’s ever going to stop, but I know it’s going to be rough a long time.”
Brown said his father helped get him into football. That he had a “big impact” on him and that he’d always “brag on him” to other people about things not related to football — like his son’s good grades and his character. When Brown decided to commit to App State before his senior season, his father supported him; when Brown decided to de-commit briefly because he wanted to weigh his other options, his father supported him then, too.
And his father also supported Brown on Wednesday, the senior said.
“My mom (Latisha Floyd) came in today to wake me up this morning and said, ‘Just know he’s always here with you,’” Brown said.
York head football coach Dean Boyd told The Herald Wednesday that Brown is “just a great young man.”
“I’m so happy for him and his family,” Boyd said. “And if anybody ever deserved to get an opportunity to play at the next level because of work ethic and just being a fine young man, it’s him.”
Boyd added: “The family is just so strong, and they lean on each other so much, and I believe that’s probably where they draw their inner strengths from. When it comes to attitude and all the right things, he’s a kid that’s special.”
Chester’s Octaveon Minter signs to South Carolina State
On Wednesday morning, Chester’s Octaveon “Tank” Minter relived some of the highs and lows of his high school football career.
He recalled his sophomore season’s 2018 state championship — the game that capped off a perfect season for the Cyclones, who were always viewed as underdogs, Minter said. He recalled going through the hot summer workouts with his “brothers.”
There were tough times, too, he said — like when he had to play through a nagging hamstring injury in his senior season, or when, just days before his team’s second scheduled game in 2020, his grandmother passed away.
But all those experiences culminated on Wednesday, when the senior signed to play football at South Carolina State.
“I just want to be a Bulldog,” Minter told The Herald, wearing a gold watch, a garnet South Carolina State hat, cowboy boots, blue slacks and a big smile that showed his braces. He added, “They’re going to take care of me.”
Minter, who’s 6-2, 245-pounds according to his Hudl.com profile but plays much bigger on the field, said with a big smile that he knew he’d be good at a young age.
“I was kinda big,” he said. “I used to come back down to the high school games, and I was like, ‘Man, I always wanted to play high school football.’ And it came true.”
Minter was “thrown into the fire” starting as a freshman, Chester head coach Victor Floyd said. By the end of his four-year varsity career, he’d played several positions for Floyd, who Minter sees as a second father: He has played linebacker, anywhere on the defensive line — and he even got a few reps as a tight end as a senior.
“He’s one of the most loyal, hardworking kids we’ve had in the program since I’ve been back,” Floyd said, who retook the helm of Chester football in 2015 after serving as coach the decade before. “Just committed to whatever he’s a part of. ... There’s no in-between, he’s going to try to do exactly what you tell him.”
Rock Hill High’s Robbie Ouzts talks Saban, commitment to Alabama
Robbie Ouzts still remembers getting an unexpected text message in March. He was in Spanish class, and after reading the message on his phone, he asked his teacher if he could duck out into the Rock Hill High School hallway and take what he called a “really important phone call.”
“So I go outside, and I’m talking to him for like 10 minutes, and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe this is real,’” Ouzts told The Herald. “‘Like, I’m literally talking to Nick Saban.’”
That day in March was the first time Ouzts talked to Saban, and it was also the day that the 6-4, 240-pound tight end was offered a scholarship to play football at Alabama — an SEC powerhouse of a program that’s peered by few.
And on Wednesday, Ouzts made his plans to play in Tuscaloosa official.
“I thought I’d be a nervous wreck and wouldn’t know what to say, but once I started talking to him, he kind of felt like that uncle that I never had, you know what I mean?” said Ouzts, who was wearing a light crimson button-up with a colorful bowtie that he tied himself, on Wednesday. “He’s really laid back, and if you get to know him, he’s really funny. So every time I get to talk to him, I just enjoy it.”
Ouzts, a three-star prospect per 247Sports, committed to Alabama on Sept. 8, just weeks before the start of his senior football season. The South Carolina Mr. Football finalist chose Alabama over the SEC’s South Carolina and the ACC’s Syracuse and Virginia Tech.
The tight end, whose parents Robert Ouzts and Mia Beleos were with him in the Rock Hill High media center on Wednesday to watch him sign, also said he thought he made the right decision to commit before his senior season, so he could just focus on his Bearcat team.
His relationship with Saban and the whole Alabama coaching staff kept growing throughout his senior year, though.
“So he’s a big golfer, right?” Ouzts said of Saban. “And I recently got into golf. So I’d love to ask him about something, about a swing or a certain shot. And I’d love to kind of see his input on that and hear what he’d say.”
He added: “I’m looking forward to playing golf with him. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from him.”
Five Rock Hill athletes sign to play in college
In addition to Ouzts, Rock Hill had four other athletes sign to play college sports in the Rock Hill High media center: Wide receiver Miles Cross committed to play football at Ohio; sprinter Tierra Frazier committed to run track and field at USC; outside hitter Jada Rouse committed to play volleyball at Elizabeth City State; and first baseman Kyle Wimmer committed to play baseball at USC Lancaster.
Frazier, a 2019 state champion in the 200 event, on how she got into track and field: “I started to fall in love with the sport watching YouTube and stuff. USC was just a good school, too... I’d go to YouTube and type in ‘college track videos,’ and they’d show me the full meets at the SEC or the NCAA. It’s just something I love to do. I could do that all day if I could.”
Rouse, a 5-9 outside hitter, on why she stuck with volleyball: “When I was 12, I was off-the-charts in height. People thought I was going to continue to grow, and I just stopped one day,” she said and laughed. She added: “It wasn’t about until I was about 15 years old when I realized I wanted to play in college. The first three years I was doing this for fun, but then once I figured out how to play and I was doing pretty well, I realized, ‘Oh yeah, I want to do this in college.’”
Wimmer on his favorite moment at Rock Hill — one that could’ve made for a special season in the spring of 2020: “The spring, I think we came in not even in the top 200, and in our first two or three games, we’d beaten the top two teams in the state. And I guess we just surprised everybody out of nowhere. We weren’t the most talented group, but we just all played together our whole lives, so we kind of worked together and beat a bunch of really good teams.”
South Pointe has three athletes sign, including a Gamecock
South Pointe’s O’Mega Blake admitted that he didn’t sleep much on Tuesday night.
“I was nervous, you know,” Blake told The Herald through a facial mask, “but happy as well.”
Blake, who initially committed to USC in June, was South Pointe’s everything-man in 2020: He finished his senior year with 48 catches for 680 yards and seven touchdowns. He also ran for 182 yards and three touchdowns and threw for 180 yards and three touchdowns. (He also was the team’s punter.)
He told The Herald on Wednesday that he’s gotten to acquaint himself with the new Gamecock coaching staff since Will Muschamp was fired as head coach and Shane Beamer was hired to replace him.
“We talk every night, or every other day,” Blake said. “Joe Cox and I, we stay in touch. Coach Bentley and I stay in touch. You know, the coaching staff sends me text messages, and we try to stay in touch as much as we can.”
He added: “It’s time for some real Carolina football, and y’all are about to see the real fans.”
Blake was one of three athletes to sign to play college sports in South Pointe’s main gym on Wednesday morning. He was joined by teammate and cornerback Jordan Mahoney, who signed to play football at UMass, and soccer player Dawson Ullrich, who signed on to play at Rhodes College.
Mahoney — son of Ronald and Kimberly Mahoney and little brother to Jaylen, who’s a sophomore cornerback at Vanderbilt — is a two-year varsity letterman and finished his senior year with 41 tackles, two forced fumbles, nine pass breakups and two interceptions.
Mahoney told The Herald Wednesday that he considered Wednesday kind of like “Christmas morning.” Massachusetts started recruiting Mahoney in late September, he said.
“They’ve been communicating with me and talking to me everyday, chopping it up,” he said. “We’d get on the phone. In November, they finally told me they were going to offer me, and then ever since then, they’ve continued to grow that relationship with me, calling every night, texting, seeing how I’m doing, asking how my family is doing, you know?”
He then nodded and smiled: “So this is going to be my home for the next four years.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 5:00 PM.
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