An Ivy League runner, a ‘dream’ realized: Rock Hill High has 5 sign to play college sports
It started on YouTube.
It was the fall of 2018, Noah Summers’ freshman year at Rock Hill High School. He was 5-foot-2, Summers remembers, “maybe 120 pounds.” He was a linebacker, and he was a good one throughout his high school career, too. But early on, he couldn’t get on the field and heard the same reason why over and over: “We can’t,” his coaches would say, “you’re just too small.”
In response, Summers got creative. He figured he could get on the field as a long-snapper — an undervalued but critical part of a special teams unit. He watched long-snapping tutorials online to teach himself at first. He then started taking snaps as a freshman, continued as a sophomore and so on.
On Wednesday, Summers was one of five athletes to sign National Letters of Intent during the early signing period.
What will he be doing? Playing Division I football at Charleston Southern University.
Long-snapping.
“(It started) watching YouTube videos of how to long snap, figuring it out,” Summers told reporters in the Rock Hill High gymnasium on Thursday morning. “Then I came in and started on the freshman team as a long-snapper. And then my sophomore year, they said, ‘Oh you did it last year, so you’re going to do it this year.’
“And then, my junior year, I started seeing people getting recruited for it. … I started going to some camps, started getting some exposure. And it kind of took off from there.”
Making dreams come true requires work, yes. But as Summers’ story proves, it also requires creativity. Luck. At times — both proverbially and, in Summers’ case, literally — it requires snapping a perfect ball on your first start on your team’s first drive with your team backed into its own end zone.
It requires a lot, Summers said.
But all of it made Summers’ college decision all the more sweet.
“I couldn’t be happier where I’m going,” the senior said. “They want me to come in and hopefully start, that’s the goal. They got big plans for me, talking to some of the coaches. I just can’t wait to get down there.”
Another Bearcat football player finds D1 home
Summers isn’t the only Bearcat who’s bound for a Division I football program. Four-year teammate and friend Luke Bracey signed to play at North Carolina Central University on Thursday morning.
Bracey had a senior season to remember: The 6-foot-6, 235-pound defensive lineman earned 70 total tackles, 13 tackles for loss, two interceptions, 9.5 sacks, a safety, a fumble recovery and four blocked field goals in 2021. On offense, as a tight end, he also added 10 receptions for 142 yards and four touchdowns.
One of his favorite memories?
“A football memory that stuck out to me was when we beat Clover this year,” Bracey said on Thursday. “I ended up having a pretty good stat-line, and that was our first win in two years because my junior year we went 0-6. And then two weeks after that, we played Blythewood and ended up getting into the playoffs.
“So that’s a good memory. To take an 0-6 team to the playoffs the next year? That’s always a good memory I’ll look back on.”
Bracey was a leader for the Bearcats in 2021, just like he’s been the past several years. He said on Thursday that he’d “been dreaming about this day since I was a little kid.”
And he found a home in NCCU — an HBCU located in Durham, North Carolina, he said.
“It really felt like a family feel,” he said. “(I have) an opportunity to come in and make an impact as a freshman… on a Division I football team. So that’s always been the goal.”
A baseball, basketball and runner put dreams on paper
Three others — a basketball player, a baseball player and a runner (who also moonlights as one of the best basketball players in the area) — also signed to play college sports on Thursday.
Jada Jones signed to run track and field at Dartmouth University. The sprinter chose the Ivy League school for a variety of reasons. Among them: The school offers computer engineering and is one of the best engineering schools in the country.
Jones said she still has big plans for the rest of her senior year. She hopes to finish the basketball season strong — she’s the Bearcats’ starting point guard — and wants to leave as a state champion in the spring track season.
“I want to be a state champion this year, either in the 400 or 800,” she said. “This year, I’m also running the 200, testing my short sprints as well. So to just test myself, be a state champion — that’s definitely what I’m looking forward to.”
Makayla Street, a teammate of Jones, signed to play basketball at Brevard on Thursday. She said she chose the school in western North Carolina because of the team’s “family feel.”
It’s similar to the family environment she has at Rock Hill, she said.
“Everybody was just like a family basically,” she said. “I can move from this family and go to another family. We have a sisterhood here, and Brevard has a sisterhood. So I’m going from one to another.”
Cayden Towell of the Rock Hill baseball team signed to play at USC Sumter. The pitcher — who has a fastball, changeup, curveball and slider in his arsenal — couldn’t choose a favorite memory when asked on Thursday morning.
“Just everything, really,” Towell said. “We’re just a family. I’ve grown so close to these guys over the four years I’ve been here. We played C-team ball together, middle school ball. It’s just crazy how many memories I have here. I can’t really pick out a favorite because there are so many of them.”
He then said something that probably applied to all the signees sitting in the gym with him: “I know it’s coming to an end soon. The second semester is right down the road. It’s kind of sad it’s coming to an end, but it’s a new chapter for me. So I’m excited.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
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