Homeless to “Hope of Light:" The Julian Hill Story
Real all three parts in full right here. Miami Dolphins tight end Julian Hill is on a mission to save lives. He knows thousands of kids grew up exactly like he did, or much worse.
Good morning! Here at Go Long, we’re forever grateful for your willingness to hit pause on life and read a story. The goal, always, is to bring this sport to life. In that vein, here are all three parts of this week’s series — “Julian Hill will save lives” — in one location.
For those reading within the email inbox, be sure to click the link at the bottom to read all three parts in full.
As always, you can access everything at Go Long three different ways:
Your email.
GoLongTD.com.
Inside the Substack app, which includes audio narration:
Thank you for reading and sharing.
Part I: Underworld
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Close your eyes and try to remember anything that happened in your life at age 5. Or 6. Or even 7. Chances are, all that leaps to the forefront of mind are fleeting moments preserved on VHS or a Polaroid. Moments kept alive with Mom or Dad’s colorful narration over time: the trip to Disney World, the first Pop Warner touchdown.
Left alone, memories fade. Childhoods get fuzzy. Life goes on.
This is the not the case for Julian Hill.
First, the same damn chihuahua chased him home from elementary school. It’d yelp and yelp and nip at his heels the whole way. Then, he’d walk through the front door of a trailer and brace for the worst every day. There was no telling what’d happen that particular day in Fayetteville, N.C. The scenes persist — permanently — as flashes of light etched his mind. Sights and sounds and smells he will never forget.
A stranger smashing the windows out of his mother’s car.
Bullets spraying his home.
Cockroaches and rats scattering across the bedroom floor.
Marijuana smoke filling the air.
Domestic violence.
When asked for the lowest of lows, Hill doesn’t hesitate. He can still picture the couches thrown, the glasses shattered, the flurry of hooks and uppercuts and haymakers thrown at his own mother. It was awful. He’ll never be able to forget it. The stream of boyfriends who moved in with his mother were physically abusive. One particular fight didn’t scar Hill because this was what he witnessed every single day.
“It got rough,” Hill says. “Who’s breaking it up?”
Eventually, the abuser gets tired and quits. Perhaps a neighbor or a housemate calls the cops. But even that knock on the door from law enforcement never solved a thing. Mom never went to the police herself, never sought help in a serious way. The very next morning, Hill would see everyone act as if nothing happened. His mother never tried to actively flee these situations, so Hill never viewed the violent attacks as a problem. Rather, this was the “culture,” the result of Mom thinking she could fix these men in her life, viewing the abuse as a necessary sacrifice to survive and her own demons. She had severe drug issues.
Floor to floor. Trailer to trailer. Fight to fight. Son didn’t realize it at the time but — for 3 to 4 years of his childhood — he was homeless.
At worse, Julian Hill knows he could be dead.
At best, he should suffer trauma at a deep level.
Instead, he’s in the NFL. He’s lounging inside the Miami Dolphins sparkling facilities. The man with a bushy beard and tender eyes wears a Chicago White Sox hat and a t-shirt featuring a close-up of Marty McFly. The third-year NFL tight end is a hulking presence. The 6-foot-4, 251-pound bull appears fully capable of supplying the NBA’s Heat six hard fouls or NHL’s Panthers a five-minute major. On a football field, he’s exactly what these Dolphins need to finally win in December: all smash, no flash. Hill would love to seal off a defensive end and spring De’Von Achane free for 50 yards. Or catch a TD on third and goal. Or lead these Dolphins to their first playoff win in a quarter-century.
But when Hill wakes up, his motivation is quite different than his peers.
He’s on a mission to save lives — no metaphor, no exaggeration. Hill knows the millions of viewers at home watching the NFL do not see the America he survived as a kid. So it was only natural for Hill to feel a magnetic pull toward kids like him living on the brink today. When he’s not at his day job, this Dolphins pro is 2.9 miles down the road at His House Children’s Home chatting 1 on 1 with as many at-risk kids as he possibly can.
Kids who’ve been trafficked. Kids who’ve never felt healthy love in their entire lives.
Kids in desperate need of hope.
Hill must pay it forward because, if not him, who?
There’s no burying his childhood.
He’ll relive it all.
Go Long is your home for human-interest stories in the NFL.
We’re fueled completely by our readers.
The conversation begins with the banging of a fist on the table. He declines to disclose her name — their relationship is complicated today — but Julian Hill insists his biological mother did everything she could. Back in the day, she was in the military. She even worked as a chef.
Unfortunately, to put it kindly, she then “fell down a rabbit hole” of drugs and couldn’t stop.
Different boyfriends. Different people to “house-sit.” Anyone who could help pay a few bills was welcomed inside their trailer. Most fed her worst impulses and, at one point, Mom entered drug rehab. Hill never knew his Dad. He bailed from the jump. So for those three months, he moved in with his mother’s best friend from high school: Shannon Schaeffer and her husband, Paul. Mom was released. Julian moved back in with her. Next thing he knew? An entirely new family was moving into their trailer. Three people. Then, four. Then, five. To the point that eight people lived inside and his mother was sleeping on the couch.
One chilly morning, Mom started the car up early to get the heat circulating. When they walked back outside to leave for school, it was gone. Never to be seen again.
Hill was 6 years old at the time. At home, all he recalls seeing is alcohol and marijuana use out in the open. Thinking back, he’s certain his mother and the others were using worse drugs behind closed doors. About three months into this living arrangement, a fight broke out. The couple that had moved in was able to contribute money. Mom was broke. Hill, his brother and his mother were all booted from their own home.
That’s when the descent began.
“You’re surviving,” Hill says. “It was nothing but that.”
After borrowing a friend’s car for a while, they got a minivan. Whatever he owned — school clothes, a few pairs of underwear — were tossed into the back and Hill moved trailer to trailer. In all, he attended four different elementary schools.
First, they moved in with a different friend from Mom’s high school days. (A miserable experience.)
Next, they were eight deep in another person’s trailer for two months.
At 1 a.m., Hill awoke one night to raucous screaming. When he walked outside to see what all the commotion was about, 20+ people were cussing and fighting. Suddenly, a dude with a baseball bat approached their minivan. “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” shouts Hill, reliving each blow. All four windows were smashed. Mom frantically tried to stop him. She didn’t even have anything to do with this altercation. Turns out, this person was pissed off at someone living inside this trailer and thought the minivan was theirs.
He did spare the windshield. Mom was able to cover those four windows with trash bags and drive Julian to school.
But once again, Hill’s family was booted. The hosts blamed them for the melee.
Naturally, they moved two trailers down… into the home of the people who wrecked their van.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out. This stint lasted four months.
Fourteen people lived inside. One woman inside had five children — who had girlfriends, who had babies. Julian slept on a water bed with his mother and brother. There was hardly any food in the cabinets, cockroaches scurrying all over the floors and the fridge never had a drop of milk. Julian remembers pouring water into his Fruity Pepples cereal. It was revolting. (“I’m scarred still!”) For dinner, he usually ate a Hot Pocket or a Little Debbie cake. And if he was lucky, they’d dine off the Dollar Menu at McDonalds. His go-to order was a McChicken sandwich. (“When we got those, man, it was a celebration. Let’s go! That’s a feast.”)
Several times, he credits his mother for putting whatever food she could on the table but she couldn’t get clean. Whatever money she earned cooking at a hotel was spent on something else. Hill never had the luxury of “wants” in life. When it was time for a new pair of shoes, he’d get hand-me-downs or a $10 pair at Payless. Yet, any lack of material desires was nothing compared to what he witnessed on a daily basis.
Childhood innocence, bliss were nonexistent virtues.
Inside this trailer, domestic violence was at its worst.
“There were definitely times where you were fearful,” Hill says. “I’m a little kid, man. I’m seeing grown men. I’m seeing my mom in vulnerable states, and that’s the only person I know in my life. I don’t have anybody else to go to. This is the person who’s leading me into battle, who’s taking care of me at night, who’s directing me. My mom wouldn’t let anybody come in-between us.
“She’s trying to make ends meet. So she’s going to try to bring anybody she can into life that can help and whatever sacrifice she has to make personally, she was trying to make that. At the cost and expense of her.”
Punches were thrown by the adults nonstop. Kitchens were completely “flipped over.”
Violence was an everyday thing. Guaranteed as the sun rising in the AM.
And the next morning, he’d always see them made up, kiss, express love, move on.
“So as a young kid, you’re like: ‘Is it a problem?’” Hill says. “They’re loving and they’re happy the next day like nothing happened.”
He repeats: This was the scene “every day.”
Considering this was all he saw, Hill started throwing fists himself. On the trampoline out back, he’d spoil for a fight vs. other kids.
He cannot even put a number on the number of men brought into his life. Not all were romantic partners because his mother needed all financial assistance she could get. “And whatever she was using that money for?” asks Hill, biting his tongue. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she was using it for. Only thing I can say is that I had food on the table — not all the time — but, at times, it was good.”
One near-fatal night, those fists were replaced by bullets.
The night before his birthday, around 11 p.m., their trailer was blasted by gunfire. A terrified Hill fell from the couch to the floor and hid underneath a blanket.
Once the noise subsided, everyone walked outside to assess the damage. It felt like he was in the middle of a movie. Hill remembers staring at the trailer and counting the bullet holes. There were one… two.. three… nine in all. Somehow, nobody inside was struck by those nine bullets. Cops showed up. Cops never got to the bottom of this. Hill has no clue who pulled the trigger but Hill sure as hell knows why.
“Drugs,” he says. “I’m sure it was drugs.”
One week later, they were kicked out.
The good news? A woman with two daughters across the street let them move in.
The bad news? The woman was a hoarder.
“Stuff all the way to the ceiling,” Hill says. “Disgusting, man.”
Walking through the house was essentially an obstacle course. Plates were stacked everywhere, even inside the bathroom. The sight. The smell. All of it was gross. At night, Julian and his mother slept on a small twin air mattress. They’d watch The Lion King on VHS and then put earplugs in to mute the sound of cockroaches and rats. Trying to kill one or two of these insects was useless since they were hiding in every nook and cranny. Move one item and a handful would dart out without fail.
So one day, his mother had an idea. She spent the entire day cleaning the place. All trash was thrown out. All floors were scrubbed. This was an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition brought to life. Only, this grand reveal did not lead to celebration.
The homeowner returned and was livid. Fuming. Went ballistic because she preferred the grime.
You guessed it.
Julian was kicked out again.
Back to square one. Back to survival mode. Back to trying to think of anyone who may open their home for a few months. One lady Mom knew from work let them stay at her house across town. Living quarters were crammed again — Hill recalls a dozen people living inside — but this period of childhood also proved to be a defining moment in his life. One night, the 9-year-old Julian finally realized that this lifestyle was not normal, not healthy.
Details are hazy. All Julian remembers is that it was (very) late and they were driving down a (very) desolate road. His mother didn’t explain where they were going or what she was doing. Only that she needed to visit someone and that he needed to stay in the car. “You can only imagine what was happening, right?” he adds. Mom returned, turned the key to start driving home on these backroads, and couldn’t stay awake.
She closed her eyes… tilted her head down toward the steering wheel… and their car swerved.
They easily could’ve struck another car. Or a tree. Anything.
“She’s falling asleep and I’m waking her up,” Hill says. “I’m like, ‘Ma, ma! Wake up, wake up!’ Right there, I made a vow to myself: ‘I’ll never smoke.’”
That night, son saw how quickly drugs could’ve ended both of their lives. An enlightening moment. The root of their homelessness — and all problems that came with it — was substance abuse. On the spot, he vowed to never drink or smoke his entire life. He only saw the negative effects of both. Hill believes his mother’s intentions were good. Car gets stolen? She finds a new means of transportation. Booted into the street? She talks their way into another trailer. She hustled. But after this night, his eyes were clear to the vicious cycle. Absolutely nothing was going to get better because his mother wasn’t making structural changes to her life.
“A kid’s going to need to be a kid and follow your parent,” he says. “Wherever they go, if they go down that dark room, and they take the car? Shit, you better go because where else am I going?”
After two months inside this home, yet again, they were kicked out.
By then, Hill’s brother was living with his grandmother. His sister was living with her biological father.
Completely out of options, Julian and his mother turned back to Shannon and Paul Schaeffer.
His life changed forever.
April 2025. His afternoon is free, so Julian Hill takes the short drive from his current world at Miami Dolphins HQ to His House Children’s Home. There’s no signage out in the open, no indicator that you’ve arrived at your destination. His House is hidden — by design — with extremely tight security.
We cannot simply drive directly to the main lobby. A woman inside a booth must first examine your ID.
We get the OK, drive on and a gentleman named David Castrillon greets us inside. He’s the director of development here and, no, he is not a man who sugarcoats the dark reality facing the forgotten children in America today.
As soon as he taps the gas pedal on a golf cart to tour the campus, he brings up this vigilance.
His House cannot let any of its children venture off into South Florida via public transportation. Vans transport them to school, to restaurants, etc. And the reason the flow of traffic is monitored so closely, the reason bells and whistles are kept to a bare minimum along the main drag is that these kids are most at-risk to be trafficked. After sporting events — Dolphins games, F1 races, Copa America, etc. — employees have caught such monsters with telescopes tracking their movement. A few years back, His House intercepted drones flying over their property to locate specific children. Castrillon cites the movie, “Sound of Freedom,” which reveals the horrors of child trafficking. If a kilo of coke costs $15,000, he adds, a child that’s sold “a hundred times over” can make 10,000 times more than that.
This is a multi-billion-dollar industry and South Florida ranks No. 2 in the country for the highest number of kids trafficked.
“Their perpetrators are still out there,” he says. “We’ve got to protect them.”
Consider this the front lines of a war nobody wants to think about — let alone talk about — because such a netherworld is too unfathomably horrific. Sadly, such evil has a very large pool of abandoned kids to prey on. In the U.S., there’s roughly a half-million kids in foster care. Florida alone has 19,000, trailing only California and Texas. “The kids that we have here,” Castrillon says, “are kids that have nowhere to go. They’ve been rejected everywhere.”
On average, kids who land at His House have already cycled through 50 different home placements. All arrive with a level of trauma because all they know is abandonment, abuse and neglect from a hodgepodge of terrible situations. The best way Castrillon can put it? Think about the last time someone broke up with you, and the pain it caused you as an adult. Now imagine a young child being told they’re loved only to get dumped again… and again… and again… and again. One 14-year-old girl here had 92 different foster-care placements.
Whenever a child ages out of foster care, they can opt for a stipend of $1,200 but far too many drift right back into high-crime, low-income areas. The majority end up homeless or commit a crime within six months. Compounding the problem is the fact that as biological parents bail — Dads refusing to be Dads — foster families also dwindle. There’s a stigma to fostering. The net result: thousands of kids slipping right through the cracks of society.
Right here is a last resort. A chance for kids to finally receive what Castrillon calls “healthy love.”
How a boy or girl winds up here is no mystery. Child Protective Investigators are alerted to a child who may be in trouble and — if there’s no family member, no foster parent available — this is a lifeline. A facility that hosts up to 200+ kids at a time inside 16 large homes. Most are between the ages of 5 and 18. His House matches up staff members who are from the same ethnic communities as kids, and does everything possible to prepare teens for the real world that awaits in adulthood via financial literacy, health/nutrition and career workshops. They’ll even learn how to cook.
Of course, Hill wasn’t trafficked. But Hill knows better than anyone that saving a child requires more than just a roof overhead. Nothing is fixed overnight. Everyone here witnessed the same sights Hill — often worse — which means somehow getting them to truly believe they’re more than a product of their circumstances.
Our golf cart pulls up to one such house. Castrillon chats in Spanish with one of the workers at the door and we slip inside to continue our chat.
More chilling stories are shared.
This is a real world we can choose to deny, or fight.
So many teen moms arrive — many the victim of trafficking or sexual abuse — that His House has its own maternity ward. “The youngest I think that we’ve ever seen here,” Castrillon says, “we had an 8-year-old that had a four-month old baby.”
Sometimes, new arrivals don’t even know their age. Other times, a teen mom doesn’t know the name of her own child. Six months ago, an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old arrived and neither was sure if they were a boy or a girl. They didn’t know anything about sex organs, nor had ever attended a day of school in their lives.
Ten years ago, Castrillon learned they cannot accept every single child. One girl had been trafficked for so long she became a trafficker herself from the inside. They’ve since learned to detect such red flags. Those with an arson background also cannot be admitted. One strong personality has the potential to destroy a home. “And,” he adds, “it takes so much more effort and time and resources to build it back up than to tear it down.” Even then, there’s a fine line to tightrope. It’s common for kids to tear apart a house during an event because that’s normal for them and “normal,” Castrillon acknowledges, “is chaos. They need to see chaos to feel like, ‘I’m OK.’”
Normal is also sleeping on the floor or underneath their bed the first two weeks.
Normal is hoarding food because old survival instincts kick in — the concept of a consistent meal is foreign to them.
Normal is a young girl approaching Castrillon and saying the most inappropriate things he’s ever heard in his life. Things he’d never repeat.
“It’s like, ‘Whoa!’ Why? Because they’ve been trafficked since they were four years old. So that's all that they know,” Castrillon says. “And so to get them from what they know to ‘This is healthy love. This is a healthy relationship. That takes a true community to come together and be able to see it.’ And when they see somebody like Julian that like, ‘Hey, I came up from this and look where I'm at now.’ That gives him hope. And if there’s anything that these kids need it’s hope.
“Hope in a brighter tomorrow that if he can make it, I can make it. And so when he’s here and they see him, he’s a walk of hope. He’s a hope of light.”
Whenever visitors do stop by to bring gifts or speak or lend a hand in some capacity, they’re usually taken aback. Hill was himself, and we’ll explain more in Part II. Kids look suspicious, not grateful. They barely utter a word. The instinct isn’t Thank You, rather What does guy want from me? They’ve never encountered such generosity before.
One in 4 kids who’ve been in foster care suffer a form of PTSD. Through 1-on-1 psychiatry, His House tries to help them all discover that joy within.
Before even thinking about a possible career, kids must learn to believe in themselves.
“Otherwise, all the stuff that you give them,” Castrillon says, “it’s not going to make a difference.”
Boys and girls themselves get to pick the theme of their bedrooms. This day, we’re standing in the “butterfly room.” Flowers are perched on a ledge next to a large teddy bear. On the wall there’s a purple butterfly, which signifies inner strength and overcoming adversity. On another wall there are several positive messages painted as reminders: Dream Big, Work Hard, Be Brave, Keep Smiling, Stay Positive, Make it Happen. This is the hard part for anyone trying to save at-risk kids anywhere in the country. No stranger with a microphone can instill true hope in kids via a 45-minute speech because hope itself is something most of them have never felt before. It’s cultivated within.
Focusing on the positive is always the first step toward healing. Before meals, kids are asked the same question: “What are you grateful for?”
First-time experiences help. One by one.
Birthday parties and baby showers and Christmas parties. (Most have never even seen a Christmas tree.) New clothes. (That’s why His House doesn’t take clothes donations. These kids have been wearing the shirts and pants of other kids their entire lives.) Dining out at a restaurant is always a thrill. The first time they went to Benihana — a hibachi chain — kids effectively went bonkers when the chef started flipping utensils and steak right in front of their eyes. Most were on such a high from the theatrics they didn’t even bother to eat their meal when it was cooked. Still, something as simple as a waiter asking kids, “How can I help you?” is a subconscious boost. (“They’ve never heard that before,” Castrillon says.)
Venture into any major city and you’re bound to see the jarring juxtaposition. Near a very rich neighborhood, there’s homelessness. Miami’s the perfect Petri dish. Two blocks away from Wynwood, a booming entertainment district, is Camillus House serving the homeless. Castrillon notes that 50 percent of those people living in the street grew up in foster care.
To him, that’s the key: Save as many kids as you can and you prevent future drug abuse, future homelessness, future offspring left to pour water into their cereal.
“You’ve got to catch it,” he says. “You have to be proactive about it so they don’t become a statistic.”
With that, we climb back into the golf cart and start looping around the property.
There’s a peace and prayer garden. Two years ago, Publix helped create this space to plant and care for vegetables in six pots. A few girls are laughing at the playground. There’s colorful artwork splattered on the buildings, too. Inspirational messages such as The key to success is within and Love Yourself. But, uh, nobody will be playing basketball any time soon. The backboard is completely smashed. All that exists is the rectangular border of what used to be a backboard. “It needs a little bit of TLC,” Castrillon admits.
Which is putting it kindly. The sight of that backboard is symbolic. Places like this do everything they possibly can to save a life, but it can feel like nothing is ever enough.
Transformational change is possible. At a ceremony last year, a woman named Jackie Gonzalez said she and her sister would’ve become victims of trafficking if it wasn’t for their three years here. She became the lead detective on the human trafficking task force for state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. There are glimmers of hope on the national level. Castrillon notes that Jamie Foxx was in foster care and that Tyler Perry endured both abuse and homelessness growing up.
Most people, however, suppress their past trauma. Bury it so unbelievably deep that they’re never able to represent “a light of hope for somebody else.”
A light is needed here — and everywhere — for kids struggling.
Someone who was nearly swallowed whole himself, received a second chance, and completely turned his life around.
Someone who’s closely listening to every one of David Castrillon’s stories this sultry spring day.
They need Julian Hill.
Part II: Rescued
Today, Julian Hill calls his adopted parents “Mom” and “Dad.” As these memories replay through his mind — from age 9 on — he beams. No baseball bats smashing windows. No bullets. No violence. These “flashes” of light are much more pleasant.
The day he discovered football.
The nights he shot free throws until he could barely see the basketball hoop in the pitch-black night.
Mostly, he thinks of the sacrifice both parents made.
When a homeless boy in Fayetteville, N.C. had absolutely nowhere else to go, Paul and Shannon Schaeffer opened up their home. In October 2009, both Julian and his biological mother moved in. The two women were friends back in high school and the Schaeffers wanted to help again. Problem was, the drug use continued. Julian’s biological mother could not quit and no way were Paul and Shannon allowing drugs inside their home. Paul set basic rules for her to follow and she objected.
By December, she was kicked out.
Initially? Julian felt trapped between two worlds. He’d pack a bag and spend a night with his biological mother inside of her Section 8 housing. At Miami Dolphins HQ, he pretends to grip a rope with each hand and sways back and forth. He could not completely quit seeing the woman he went into “battle” with through childhood. But he also couldn’t deny that she refused to get better. Bad characters were still passing through her doors. Drugs were still out in the open. One night was the final straw. With a 10-year-old Julian seated right there on the couch, the adults all passed a joint around. Smoke filled the air.
Here, a fleeting moment of anger passes through Hill — “at least go outside!” he laments.
Visits to his biological mother came to a close. Hill decided to throw himself into this entirely new world of structure, and it wasn’t easy. Paul and Shannon felt like total strangers to Hill. “Are these my people?” he asked himself. The transition was difficult. It took him several years to warm up to both. When they walked through Lowe’s or shopped for groceries, Hill trailed a full three paces behind. He didn’t tell Paul he loved him until he was a senior in high school and referred to Shannon as “Aunt Shannon.”
But as time passed, as he could analyze the situation with more clarity, justifiable anger crept in.
He wondered why his biological mother didn’t fight harder to change — for him.
To his core, Hill was craving structure.
He learned table manners and how to eat. (Hill had no clue.) He learned that it’s bad to lie. It could’ve been something as simple as denying that he ate the last Oreo. (“I was very deceitful. That’s how I grew up!”) He cut his afro off. He started doing chores around the house. On Saturday mornings, it was his job to pick the weeds from plants. Day to day, he witnessed how a man should treat a woman. With respect, with love. Seeing Paul work so much taught him work ethic. His adopted father would wake up at 5 a.m. every morning to get to his auto repair shop in Fayetteville by 7. He’s been fixing cars since he was 14 years old.
Paul and Shannon had a son and daughter already, but both had graduated high school.
For the first time — ever — Julian Hill built a true “foundation” for his life.
Instead of vanishing, he had a second chance.
Paul credits his wife for having “the biggest damn heart on earth” and praises Julian for being one of the best things that’s ever happened to them both.
“Here’s the thing, man,” Schaeffer says. “When you take somebody in, you have no idea what what he’s going to be like. Especially since I know the background. Julian ended up being just phenomenal. I never chased him down for anything. … He deserves it, man. Any kid deserves a chance. There’s no such thing as looking at the kid saying, ‘Oh, he’s useless.’ No. You can’t help people’s upbringing.”
Hill’s grades skyrocketed. Hill knew who to avoid because he witnessed how drugs ruin lives. Schaeffer still remembers Hill coming home from a day of pickup ball saying he cannot play with that particular crew ever again because those peers were on a one-way track to jail. Julian much preferred to spend his idle time in the pool. When Schaeffer adopted a boy who had seen things no boy ever should, he half-expected him to be rebellious, to push back against his rules. And thinking back, Schaeffer estimates he raised his voice once. Maybe twice. Hill never got in trouble at school. Even the lady working at the local rec center who saw Hill as much as anyone praised his behavior every single time Paul picked him up.
Then, he found football.
The extent of Hill’s sports career before Paul and Shannon adopted him was two weeks of tee ball at age 4. That’s it.
Nor did his new parents know much about football.
But Julian was a big kid. Julian had loads of energy. They figured it’d be good for him to play in the local 9/10U youth football league. Paperwork was filed and Julian was drafted by the “Trojans.” But in a weird twist fate, he reported to practice on the wrong day. As Shannon and Julian wandered around the field in search of their team, the coach of the “Panthers” spotted both… and sprang into action. Erwin Montgomery Sr., you see, was not thrilled with the results of the league’s draft. All of his players were “little bitty,” he jokes. Roughly “three-feet tall, 35 pounds” apiece.
During his team’s practice, he spotted this big kid who appeared lost and politely informed the mother that her son played for his team.
Shannon pushed back and said she was sure Julian had been drafted by the Trojans, and Montgomery insisted. No, no, no. He most certainly was a Panther.
And that was that. They relented. That night, Montgomery ordered Hill a uniform as cover. So when Hill never showed up for the Trojans? And the league manager approached him? Montgomery played dumb. Montgomery said he thought he had drafted Hill and — wouldn’t ya know? — he had already purchased Hill a uniform. The league relented.
Hill was the star of the team.
Hill got hooked on football.
This stroke of fortune also changed Hill’s life.
Montgomery — a former state trooper — is the one who taught him the sport. Those first few weeks, Hill sure was “clumsy,” the coach says. But the kid learned fast. He constantly asked questions. He wanted to know what all 11 players on the field were asked to do every play. Erwin Sr. played him at nearly every position: tight end, linebacker, defensive end, quarterback, tailback. And beyond the sport, Montgomery became a second father. He soon teased Julian that his last name should be “Montgomery-Hill” because he hung out at his house every weekend. His son, Erwin Jr., instantly became his best friend.
If the Schaeffers didn’t adopt him? Erwin Sr. says he would have in a heartbeat.
When he heard what Hill witnessed as a kid, it put tears in his eyes. To this day, it angers him that the biological mother would jeopardize her own child’s life to such an extreme. Those early days? He could tell Hill was abandoned growing up. He describes him as “wide eyed” — especially when he learned Erwin Sr. was a former Marine who worked for the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.
Once again, though, Hill gravitated toward authority as if yearning for the Dad he never had.
“I’d bark at him and my son all the time,” Montgomery says. “I didn’t give them a chance to breathe. So he went from seeing stuff and fending for himself to, now, somebody who’s caring — who really, really cares — and showing him, ‘don’t do this, don’t do that.’ And I made sure I rewarded them when they did something. Once he got in that environment, the new environment, he became very, very humble. He knew what he came from, to what he’s got now, and he was not going to lose it.”
Right down to each plate of food at night. One day, Montgomery’s wife bought a box of 30 sausages and Erwin Sr. chastised her for wasting food. Thirty? Really?! She cooked all 30 anyways… and a full 18-pack of eggs… and a full pot of grits with toast. The entire meal was set on the table, Montgomery slid outside briefly, and when he returned? Hill and his son ate it all. (This sure beat a Hot Pocket.)
Each weekend, he’d stress to Hill that giving anything less than 110 percent was a waste.
“And that’s the first person I know in my life that when you tell him something,” Montgomery says, “and once he gets in his mind that’s what he wants to do? He’s going to give you 120%.”
The man is an absolute character. His voice bellows. His stories are electric. The reason these two connected so effortlessly was that Erwin Montgomery Jr. saw himself in Julian Hill. He, too, rode the fine line between life and death growing up. He, too, has scars that’ll last forever. Whenever friends tell Montgomery he got his PTSD from his military days, he corrects them. Nope. He simply grew up on the east side of downtown Detroit.
One day, he and his friend were approached by a man who demanded their shoes. Erwin Sr. handed his over. His friend refused. His friend was shot dead in the head..
Never affiliated himself, Montgomery lived on the border of three rival gangs and made nice with all three to avoid being killed. A tightrope act that backfired one day. When all three groups converged for a massive gang fight at his corner, Montgomery was stuck in limbo. “Get over here!” one gang member yelled. “Hey man, over here with us!” another shouted. His eyes darted from one group to the next. The gangs couldn’t understand why he wasn’t picking a side and — in a state of panic — everybody took off running. The most terrified of all was Montgomery. He locked himself inside his home for several weeks in fear of someone murdering him in retaliation.
Looking out of his dining-room window felt like “watching TV.” He witnessed drive-by shootings and full-fledged riots. Once, 100 police officers were called in.
Even work at KFC came with its hazards. He hated throwing the trash away because the dumpster was home to mutant rats that were large as cats. Once, a rat leapt onto his friend and sunk its teeth into his chest. Erwin wailed away with his mop — Whap! Whap! Whap! — until the rat’s teeth finally dislodged. Albeit, with a chunk of skin off his friend’s chest. (To date, he’s deathly afraid of rats.)
Then, there’s the time he found a baby in his basement. Seriously.
Nobody even knew his sister was pregnant. Somehow, she hid it from everybody. When she cut the cord herself and thought the baby was dead? She panicked, hid him in the basement, headed to the hospital. Of course, doctors could tell she had given birth and demanded answers. Otherwise, they’d need to get the authorities involved. Erwin and his sister walked into the basement, Erwin pulled the blanket away and he didn’t believe this was a real baby. He thought it was a doll.
“He opened his eyes, looked at me and smiled. Didn’t cry or nothing. I took off. It scared me.”
Fifty years later, that nephew is still alive.
Yes, Erwin Sr. could relate to Julian.
Naturally, Julian Hill gravitated toward the quarterback position. He wanted to lead. Early as middle school, Paul told him that people looked up to the quarterback. He had a responsibility. If anyone approached him after a game? Take the time to chat. “Talk to anybody that talks to you,” he told Julian. “Don’t shun them. Be nice to him, man. Don’t be that peckerhead who says ‘whatever’ and keeps walking.” Words that stuck with him. If anyone gave Julian their valuable time, he vowed to return the favor. He loved basketball, too. Julian recalls shooting “100, 200, 300, 400, 500” free throws in a row in the family’s driveway. By 8 p.m., Shannon had no choice but to call him in for dinner.
His adopted parents never pushed him to work this hard. It was all intrinsic.
Good thing because he wasn’t in the clear yet. Life would get harder.
At Pine Forest High School, Hill took over as the starting quarterback at the end of his freshman year. Head coach Bill Sochovka had been keeping an eye on Hill since those youth days. His offensive coordinator didn’t think Hill would amount to much as a QB, but Sochovka identified those leadership traits early. He knew this player needed to have the ball in his hands more than anybody else. Almost immediately as the starting man, Hill was bringing his own notebook into the film room to dissect his game with a critical eye.
Whenever Sochovka dropped the team’s film onto Hudl around 1 a.m., he could tell that most fast-forwarded to their highlights and skipped past the lowlights.
“Not Julian,” Sochovka says. “Julian was like, ‘I noticed on Clip 11 I did this, but I need to do better.’ And that’s very rare to find the high school kid — especially as a sophomore. Every kid wants to hear about how good they do, but he was asking the question: ‘How could I get better?’ And that’s something special.”
He had a strong arm. He was poised in the pocket. His greatest strength was knowing the playbook like the back of his hand. Hill would tell everyone where to line up before the snap and got into the habit of recommending play calls to the sideline.
Against E.E. Smith, he had a breakthrough performance in throwing for 147 yards with three total TDs.
Everything was peaking beautifully… until the next week, until the final game of his sophomore year.
In a driving rain against Jack Britt, Hill changed the play. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle the ball and effectively run the QB sneak from under center in such conditions. So, he lined up in shotgun and tried to diagonally dash toward the pylon with a head of steam. That’s where he got popped by a defender and felt indescribable pain in his knee. It was an out-of-body experience, “a movie type of deal,” he says. Face down, through the rain, he started to army crawl. Hill reached his hand out toward an ankle and that defender kicked it away.
Teammates helped him up, carried him off the field and the diagnosis was a torn ACL.
“I’ve been affected in my early years with things emotionally and mentally,” Hill says. “Now I’m getting affected physically. I can’t do something that I’ve been doing I love. It’s taken from me.”
Rehab was treacherous. He couldn’t help but mope around the house in self-pity — Paul was not having it. “Dude, what the hell’s wrong with you?” he asked him one day in his southern drawl. Hill sounded helpless. Hill said he didn’t know what to do now. “What have you been training for since you were 10 years old?” Paul asked. When Hill said he wanted to play in the NFL, his father responded: “Well, there you go, man. Go for it.”
With that tough love, Hill snapped out of his funk. He worked his way back and — as a junior at Pine Forest — emerged as one of the best passers in Cumberland County with 1,642 yards and 17 touchdowns. He started generating very real college football buzz… until the final game of that season, until it happened again. Even with a brace on, he tore the same ACL in Pine Forest’s final game. Hill had film galore available for colleges, but none of it mattered now.
All schools that had expressed interest sprinted 100 MPH the opposite direction. East Carolina, Old Dominion, everyone. One day at school, on crutches, he hobbled into the gymnasium and a kid on the basketball team couldn’t help himself. “Man, you got hurt again?” Hill recalls him saying. “The best you’re ever going to do now is D-II. That’s it, man! That’s all you got now!” There wasn’t much Hill could say. If anything, that twit was being kind because even local D-II schools such as Fayetteville State and UNC-Pembroke were backing off.
This time, the doctor recommended Hill take a full 12 months to rehab. There would be no football his 12th grade year. The NFL dream was all but dead.
“So you can imagine there was nobody,” Hill says. “Nobody.”
Adds Sochovka: “They dropped him like a hot iron.”
A crushing blow that could’ve broken Julian Hill’s soul for good.
Hell, it’s hard enough for any talent in Fayetteville to escape. At one point in our conversation, we both rave about the speed and athleticism and raw talent this pocket of North Carolina breeds. Ironically enough, my first full-time job after college was at the Fayetteville Observer, right when Hill had moved in with Paul and Shannon. The talent here rivals anything you’ll find in H.S. football hotbeds across the nation. Unfortunately, poverty and crime and a general lack of parental direction prevent that talent from going D-I. Considering he’s the coach who was around so many of these kids in their youth, Montgomery has the best vantage point. He’s seen promising 11- and 12- and 13-year-olds break bad more times than he can count.
“All you can do is shake your head,” Montgomery says. “They come out to play rec ball, basketball, whatever. You ask ‘Where are your parents at?’ and they say, ‘My grandmother, she brought me out here.’ You find out that the parents — the father and the mother — are in jail. And then the grandmothers can’t keep up with ‘em.”
Look no further than Hill’s own team at Pine Forest.
Willis Anthony, a star running back, was accused of shooting a man in the face during the 2016 season.
Lavonte Carter, the star running back in 2017, stayed in town to play at Fayetteville State University, started hanging around the drug crowd and nearly lost his life. One night on campus, he was shot nine times — including once in the head — and was arrested himself on charges of intent to sell cocaine and bringing a gun to educational property. The 9-1-1 call is haunting. Carter begs for his life.
Long before his peers, Hill permanently ditched this dangerous layer of Fayetteville, a.k.a. “Fayettenam” for the crime and local military base.
He saw his biological mother falling asleep at the steering wheel and knew he’d never touch drugs.
Yet even after avoiding all those pitfalls — after everything — he was now deemed damaged goods by college recruiters.
“In my life,” Hill says, “I was always going against something. I was always going against some type of odds. It was rough, man. It was tough. Those college coaches want them cats who are clean and pristine and don’t have any bruised bones on them. But that wasn’t my story.”
It would’ve been easy to contract Senioritis and forget football altogether that 2017 season. Move on.
Instead, Hill continued attending every single practice that fall. He didn’t play one down on Friday nights, but there was Hill in the scorching August heat. The monsoons. The sleet. The November cold. Inside the weight room. Inside the film room. That’s why Sochovka praises him as the most positive force he’s been around in his 30 years of coaching. Hill’s mere presence set the tone for the entire team. He’s had many kids from broken homes but — with Hill? — you’d never know. He never uttered a word about his harrowing childhood.
Nowadays, when Sochovka describes a player as “like a Julian Hill,” everyone in the building knows exactly what he means.
There were gut-check moments back home. At 3 a.m. in the morning, his knee would throb and Shannon would wake up to ice it for him. (“It’s hurting, man. I can’t feel it. And she’s falling asleep.”) Finally, he started referring to “Aunt Shannon” as Mom. Meanwhile, Paul loved ribbing Julian. He’d tell him it really sucked to pick him up from practice every day when he couldn’t even watch him on Fridays. Finally, Julian started referring to Paul as Dad. There hasn’t been one day that Hill has even contemplated finding his biological father. (“I’ve got a great father in my life right now.”)
Hill has zero clue where he’d be without the Schaeffers and Montgomery and everyone who embraced him. Lost somewhere in Fayetteville. Certainly not in the NFL, not involved in sports at all. Why exactly did they take him in? Hill takes a deep breath and stares ahead to ponder the decision that changed his life.
“The honest answer? They’re great people,” Hill says. “That’s the only reason I can give you. Deep in their hearts, that’s who they are. They saw somebody who needed help and they were willing to take that big step. A lot of people are not willing to do that.
“I would never be where I’m at today if they didn’t come into my life.”
By this point, Julian Hill was built to handle anything. Two ACLs? Pshh. He didn’t care if colleges were crossing his name off their list. Someone would believe. All he needed was one opportunity. His high school football career might’ve been over, but Hill rehabbed in time to play basketball that senior year at Pine Forest.
All he needed was a chance to compete.
That’s when another person entered his life and Julian Hill inched a little closer toward his life destiny.
Part III, Destiny
The one college recruiter who did not abandon ship walked into the basketball gym with extremely low expectations. Damien Adams knows how long it takes 15- and 16-year-olds to mentally recover from one torn ACL, let alone two. Let alone in back-to-back seasons on the same knee. No doubt, Julian Hill would tip-toe around contact.
Adams, an assistant coach at Campbell University 25 miles north, fully expected to see a young man ever… so… gently easing his way back into physicality.
By this point, everyone else bailed. Colleges wanted nothing to do with the kid who survived a traumatic childhood, who completely turned his life around. In thunderous unison, the football, basketball and baseball coaches at Pine Forest (N.C.) insisted Adams give Hill a shot. So, he did. Nor did Adams tell a soul that he was coming. He wanted his attendance at this Pine Forest basketball game to be a secret.
Adams walked into the gym devoid of any Fighting Camels paraphernalia, didn’t speak to anyone and it took all of one quarter for him to realize that Hill was not like most kids.
A bulky brace over his knee, Hill rampaged up and down the 84-foot court with the unhinged fury of a bull seeing nothing but red. He corralled rebounds. He dove horizontal for loose balls. Shy from contact? He relished it. Adams’ favorite play was actually a basket interference infraction that rewarded the other team two points — Hill was running so hot that he inexplicably slapped the backboard. Clearly, Hill was not worried about his knee. At all. He brought a different level of intensity to the entire game.
Technically, Adams was the defensive line coach at Campbell, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t trying to project Hill at a specific position that night. How anyone walking this earth plays basketball tells you so much about that person, and Adams was sold.
All he knew was that Campbell University absolutely needed Hill in the building.
“He’s all over the court,” Adams says. “He’s being ultra-aggressive on the court in terms of his movements and his overall attitude. It was a pleasure to see. … I know that he’s a guy in terms of his mindset. He’s very infectious with his personality. Very intense. A leader amongst men.
“We need him in the building, period.”
Adams “stood on the table” for Hill and Campbell’s head coach — former NFL safety Mike Minter — agreed to give Hill a shot as a walk-on at the FCS school.
Hill was thrilled. But when he arrived, coaches instructed him that he’d be a tight end.
Which, uh, was not what he expected. All offseason, Hill had trained to play quarterback. His auto-tech father even hunted down a local quarterbacks coach to work with his son. (Not easy in Fayetteville, N.C.) Hill hadn’t put his hand in the dirt since he first picked up a football. Minter might as well have asked him to pick up hockey. “I couldn’t catch. I couldn’t block, I couldn’t do anything,” Hill says. Frustration mounted. He’d call Mom every night in disappointment.
“But one thing I did have,” he adds, “was heart.”
That’s all Julian Hill has ever needed.
One school believed, so his dream was alive. No chance in hell he’d waste it.
Hill scoured YouTube for tutorials on “how to block” and “how to catch.”
Hill ran gassers. Nonstop. In full pads — after a three-hour practice — he’d sprint the 53.3-yard width of the field 10 times. Then, it was time to run routes. The most common sight at Campbell was this towering freshman catching passes from a friend deployed as his designated quarterback — “every single day,” Adams adds emphatically. One night, the sun had already set. No lights were on. Hill worked out long after Campbell’s practice, film and meetings concluded. The kid who’d hoist 500 free throws in his driveway back home refused to go to sleep.
“I walk over to the fence,” Adams recalls, “and I say, ‘Julian, it’s time to go home. You can’t burn the candle on both ends, buddy!’”
Hill didn’t hesitate. He informed Adams that he’s not only playing for himself.
“It’s a wanting feeling,” Hill says. “If you’re just doing it for yourself, man, you can have a prosperous career. You can have a phenomenal life. But that feeling of helping, that feeling of serving, that’s my purpose in life: to serve. So everything I do is for that. That’s when that fire started to get cranked up. So I was like, ‘Coach, you don’t get it, man. I got people counting on me.’”
It took all one semester for Campbell to give Hill a scholarship. (“That almost never happens,” Adams adds.)
There was nothing magical about his growth. Hill believed that giving anything less would’ve been a disservice to everyone who poured into him. When Hill learned that nobody from Campbell had ever cracked a 53-man NFL roster, he was stunned. One alum, Greg Millhouse, spent a preseason with the New York Giants in 2016 and his picture was hoisted up on a wall at the Fighting Camels’ facility. The odds of carving out an NFL career at this Big South school in Buies Creek, N.C. were somewhere between getting struck by lightning and winning the lottery.
Says Hill: “I realized if I want to do what somebody’s never done, I’ve got to do things that nobody ever did.”
He learned to block, to catch and — when he suffered back-to-back broken collarbones — Hill did not fret. Neither fracture triggered a day of anxiety. He assured the Schaeffers and Erwin Montgomery Sr. back home that he’d be perfectly fine because Hill knew he was making sacrifices peers would never consider. Good luck finding Hill on social media — he has exactly zero accounts on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Back in high school, Dad offered sage advice: “Who cares? Fuck everybody. Don’t worry about anybody but you and your immediate family.” All hours that could’ve been wasted scrolling were instead put to good use.
He monitored his diet, always made sure to get a full night’s sleep and pushed himself through those extra gassers — all at the expense of the quintessential college experience.
Hill never partied, never drank, never… did a lot of things. Adams describes Hill’s drive as more of an “insatiable desire” to be great and assures Hill was “vigilant” when it came to eliminating the social aspect of college.
Such as?
“He abstained from the females,” the coach says. “He gave that up. He did not want any distractions at all.”
Discipline that eventually paid off tenfold.
The kid who couldn’t catch a cold if you were deathly sick and sneezed into his face soon went an entire spring without dropping one ball. Campbell kept on bringing in other tight ends to take his spot but Hill was never concerned. “Nothing against them,” Hill says. “I’m chasing something. There’s something in me. It’s bigger than me.” Five full years of work and sacrifice led to a breakout senior campaign. In 2022, Hill caught 38 passes for 659 yards with five touchdowns, all while consistently driving linebackers and defensive backs into the turf as a blocker. That season, Campbell’s starting quarterback went down and the backup needed a security blanket.
The capstone was his 122-yard game in a 43-37 loss to Bryant in which Hill cradled a deep over-the-shoulder touchdown.
Another hint is inscribed on his wristband this day in South Florida: Philippians 4:13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Hill laughs that he is the one you’ll see jumping up and down in the first row of church. College is when his faith grew exponentially. The student who got him deeper into religion at Campbell is actually hanging out with us this day.
Hill realized that a sport could help him give back to those loved ones. Football could help him sincerely “serve.”
“That’s my purpose,” Hill adds. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve got to work, work, work, work, work. There’s so many people counting on me.”
Fearlessness was central to his game. The brawler that Adams loved on that Pine Forest basketball court attacked every task at one speed. “To transition from being a quarterback into a blocking tight end,” Adams adds, “speaks to him having the type of attitude that you want to have to impose your will on people.” These days, Adams is the defensive tackles coach at Sam Houston State. Through all of his years coaching, he’s never encountered a player at any position wired quite like Hill.
Now, all Hill needed was one NFL scout to take the same chance Adams did.
The life of a scout can become monotonous. An endless cycle of film… and interviews… and lonely Marriott nights. But visits to Campbell University were always different. When scouts sat down to chat with Hill, a funny thing happened: Hill started asking scouts endless questions. All while taking pages upon pages of notes.
“Every single one of them,” Adams says, “would leave the meeting with their jaws dropped.”
Next, at the Hula Bowl, Hill proved he can hang with prospects from the larger schools and continued to chat with NFL scouts and coaches as if he’s been in the NFL for a decade.
“There’s no 21, 22-year-old kid that would sacrifice the things that he sacrificed,” Adams says. “Most guys are happy with being on the team, catching a few balls in the season, and they’re a captain of the team. So they get all the things that come with that — the marketing of the football program, the girls. He didn’t care about any of that stuff. That wasn’t a part of his thought process.
“He has obviously gone through things that have been tough and shined through all of it. So he’s a level above someone that doesn’t bring those same characteristics to the table. Even if they may have more ability than he does, they’re not going to shine as bright because of the intangibles he’s bringing.”
That spring, the Miami Dolphins signed Hill as an undrafted free agent and everyone back at Pine Forest and Campbell alike knew a spot on the 90-man roster was all he needed. He was making the 53. He’d out-work everybody. Now, he’s entering Year No. 3 in the NFL and Julian Hill is the bruiser the Dolphins need to once ‘n for all trade punches with the AFC’s elites. It’s been a struggle. As Tua Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and De’Von Achane supply the fireworks, someone must do the dirty work in 2025. For too long, Miami has been shoved around when the going gets tough.
Last season, the tight end played 48 percent of the snaps on offense and 55 percent on special teams.
As Hill’s football career miraculously blossoms from the dreary depths of those crowded trailers, one person has been noticeably absent: his biological mother. After initially describing their relationship as “cordial,” he admits they do not speak. There was a major falling out between his biological mother and adopted mother. Today, Hill doesn’t even know where his blood mother’s living but he heard that she’s been clean for 5+ years and maintains there’s no ill will. Rather, he’s grateful she fought as hard as she did through those homeless years.
“She’s a soldier, she hustled,” he says. “Without her doing all those things? I wouldn’t be here today.”
When the time’s right, he’ll reach out. Not yet.
After all, Julian Hill has lives to save.
The NFL is a cutthroat profession quite proficient in draining its participants of all joy. You’re a commodity, a cog, a robot and as the cruel nature of the sport becomes clear, your why gets fuzzy.
Very quickly, young players forget why they fell in love with football in the first place.
As a rookie, in 2023, Hill’s head was spinning too fast to stress out about anything. His brain was only focused on the task immediately in front of him. But last season? The Dolphins needed Hill. Mike McDaniel called running plays his direction and No. 89 became a lightning rod for a large contingent of the fan base. Pressure mounted and he didn’t handle it well. He’s the self-proclaimed “type of cat” who tosses his gloves into the stands to fans after games. A small act of kindness that annoyed the equipment staff.
In ways big and small, he felt the full force of the NFL’s inevitable culture shock.
We’re standing outside of the main entrance at His House Children’s Home in South Florida now. Hill opens up.
“Can I be honest with you?” be begins. “People don’t care who you are. They care what you do. You can lose purpose in that. You can lose your sense of purpose in this game.”
A close relationship with McDaniel helps. The Dolphins head coach knows all about Hill’s surreal roots.
But he felt a void within. Something was missing. In search of “a place to serve” to recapture that same intoxicating adrenaline rush that fueled him from Fayetteville to Campbell, he wound up here at His House. It was a Christmas party. Less than three miles from the Dolphins facilities, Hill arrived with his No. 89 jersey on. And exactly as millions of athletes have since the dawn of professional athletics, Hill shared pieces of his traumatic childhood with kids who’ve experienced their own hardships. The TedTalk-like address generally follows the same theme: Dream big and you, too, can achieve anything you want.
But when Hill looked into their eyes, half of the kids weren’t paying attention and half didn’t give a damn what he was saying.
A light bulb went off.
“They don’t care where I’m from,” Hill says. “They only care about how you make them feel.”
He remembered what it was like to be in their shoes. Before the Schaeffers saved him, chaos was his norm. Cockroaches and bullets and fists and mayhem. Before arriving at His House, chaos was their norm. The reason so many kids looked disinterested was those kids assumed this was the last time they’d ever see Hill. Too often, an athlete, a celebrity, any adult with a powerful message shares a story for 30 to 40 minutes and leaves. Never to be seen again. He put himself in their minds: “Why are we even going to interact? You’re just here to visit. You’re just here to talk.”
Hill realized that these kids — many who’ve been trafficked — need so much more than one speech to heal.
So, he returned.
The next visit, Hill made a concerted effort to befriend kids on a 1-on-1 basis. When one boy dropped a pass and Hill heard him mutter under his breath, “I suck,” he lifted him back up. He could tell the boy all about his first year in college when he couldn’t catch anything. When one young girl was visibly hurting because she missed her brother, Hill explained that he hasn’t seen his biological brother in years. All of which is precisely what His House director David Castrillon insists these 200+ kids need most.
Only true relationships can cultivate the “true love” these children have never experienced.
Rescued from the darkest dredges of society, they’re at the fragile juncture of their lives.
Hill wants to be a source of salvation. As his NFL career progresses — as more people nationwide learn his name — he vows to bring kids with him. He’s now consumed with the same urge that compelled the Schaeffers to save his life. He wasn’t trafficked. He didn’t live in a group home. But Hill can directly relate to their emotions.
Back to college, Adams recalls Hill doing as much as he could in the community.
“This is a life mission for him,” the coach says. “Him wanting to change society and pour into kids that are coming from impoverished or underprivileged or abusive or just adverse situations is no surprise to me. That is who he is. That’s who he was. He’d say, ‘I got it out of the mud.’ So that isn’t a surprise to me that he’s found something to support.”
Building trust with kids who’ve experienced what these boys and girls have since birth is not easy. On one visit, Hill brought a friend from his church. When she introduced herself to one of the boys at His House — heartfelt as possible — the boy took a step backward, scowled and said she could call him “P” for now. This all takes time, takes work, takes a level of effort many of their fathers refused to put in.
Up close, Castrillon sees that Hill is that “hope of light” these kids were missing.
Now? That tall stranger in the No. 89 jersey has personalized handshakes for many of these kids.
Hill gazes out at the sprawling fields adjacent to the 16 homes at His House and says he wants to bring them more playgrounds. He also told the Dolphins that he wants to start a flag football program because he couldn’t believe how talented the girls were when they threw the football around. Soon, Hill will create his own foundation. And he wants businesses throughout the Miami area to know that a simple donation for these kids to go out for dinner — hearing that waiter ask “How can I help you?” — plants a seed of hope.
Evil forces will never stop. There’s no way to completely solve this problem. Hill admits there are tens of thousands of kids nationwide in need of a savior.
But he’ll do his part. He has a platform and he intends to use it.
Look closely and you’ll see signs of hope.
Back in Fayetteville, the crime rate declined in 2024 thanks to a sharper focus on domestic violence. Maybe he doesn’t speak to his biological mother, but he’s happy she’s sober. Hill even heard she’s been making up for lost time with other family members.
When Hill returned home this offseason, he told his old high school coach over dinner that it’s his goal to become the best blocking tight end in the NFL. (“How many people want that as a goal?” Bill Sochovka says.) At Pine Forest, he handed out backpacks and school materials to kids. Nobody asked him to do it. The whole thing was his idea. He brought a Dolphins jersey to hang up, too. And when the school planned to place it in one location, Hill asked Sochovka if it could be moved into the main lobby to motivate as many students as possible.
At His House, Hill seeks those valuable day-to-day connections. As our conversation finishes up outside, a young woman with a sparkling personality appears. She’s a regular here and today she’s teaching a Pilates class for kids. When Hill points out that this saint at His House does a lot more than teach yoga, she brings up her latest effort.
“We’re $800 away from reaching $30,000 to build them a gym here,” she says.
“You’re how much away?” says Hill. “Eight hundred dollars? To build them a gym?”
“Do you want to see what it looks like? Let me show you what this looks like.”
She starts tapping keys on her phone to show pictures, but Hill doesn’t even need to look. His mind’s made up.
“Who do I send the $800 to?”
“Oh, wait. What?!” says the woman, in shock.
He confirms he’s serious and, voila, these kids have a new gym. The woman is in shock. “That is amazing!” she says, celebrating. “Thank you so much! Let’s go!”
They look at more renderings of the gym and kids start piling in for Pilates. As he daps them up, there’s a good chance Hill sees himself in their eyes. Sees the kid from Fayetteville, N.C., who had zero clue what the future held. This is exactly where he’s supposed to be in life. “You’re about to do some Pilates!” Hill says. “Some stretching!” They smile. He smiles.
His work is done for today but he’ll be back again soon.
Then, again.
And again.
Thank you for reading Go Long.
We strive to be your home for longform pro football coverage.
The best way to support our work is by subscribing and sharing the word.
For those interested, you can learn more about His House Children’s Home right here.