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Coleman Tyrance had watched college coaches evaluate players at the Hargrave combine for years.

Eventually he had to put that hat on himself. 🎖️🏈

Because the job wasn’t just finding talent. It was being honest about where that talent could actually land.

Can this kid go Division I? Can he go Division II?

“You don’t want to go hunt a kid down, bring him in, and the ultimate goal can’t be met.”

So you strategize. You know exactly what you’re looking for before you look.

A lineman at six five, six six, three hundred pounds with good feet? That’s almost an easy one.

A guy at six two, two thirty running a 4.5 or 4.6? Easy.

The hard part is everybody else.

🎙️: Coach Coleman Tyrance ( @coleon_94 )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #ColemanTyrance #PrepSchoolFootball #FootballRecruiting

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A phone call. That’s how Callahan Bright heard about Hargrave.

Somebody got hold of his mom and laid it out. There’s a school where a lot of top athletes go. You’re a perfect candidate. This is where you go to get your grades right. 🎖️🏈

And you can still make it to Florida State. You just have to take a little longer route.

At the time he didn’t care about any of the rest of it.

“I wanted to play football. That was my livelihood. That’s what I did.”

His brother played. His older cousins played.

“I’ll go. I’ll give it a shot.”

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #CallahanBright #FloridaState #FSUFootball

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Evan Ward says the hardest part of Hargrave wasn’t the hills or the formations.

It was accepting that he had to give up a year of his life. 🎖️🏈

A full year to grind. A full year to struggle.

“But how bad do you want your dreams to come true?”

Because the older you get, the more you understand what a year actually is.

“A year really isn’t that long compared to the rest of your life. Especially if it sets the foundation for the rest of your life.”

Time waits for no man.

🎙️: Evan Ward ( @cantoutwork_ev )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #EvanWard #MiddleTennessee #BlueRaiders

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At 18, Tyrus Lawson thought Hargrave was stealing his freedom.

They weren’t. 🎖️🏈

They were teaching him how to be an adult. Giving him the tools he’d need to be successful. He just couldn’t see it.

So the second he left, he was done. Didn’t look back. Figured he didn’t need any of it anymore.

His college career didn’t go the way he expected.

If he could talk to that 18-year-old today, he knows exactly what he’d say.

“Stay the entire year. Work out. Soak it all in. Take bits and pieces and use them the second you leave.”

“Things could have turned out a lot different.”

🎙️: Tyrus Lawson ( @king_laww )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #TyrusLawson #GlenvilleState #MountainEastConference

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Look at the Hargrave schedule and it doesn’t make sense.

Navy’s JV. Kentucky’s JV. Virginia Tech’s JV. Georgia Military Academy. Montgomery College. Fort Union. 🎖️🏈

Now consider this. Coach Messick had two weeks to assemble an entire football team out of kids from all over the South.

Helmet day. Upper pads day. Then you’re pretty much going. Then you’re in the season.

And they’d win seven or more games against that schedule.

Marcus Hairston is 43 now and says in hindsight he can finally see how difficult that actually was.

“Pretty impressive.”

🎙️: Marcus Hairston ( @hairstonscuts )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #MarcusHairston #VirginiaTech #Hokies

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“If you can make it at Hargrave, you can make it anywhere.”

That wasn’t a slogan. Ansel Ponder says the whole unit embodied it. 🎖️🏈

He still thinks about the guys who were just that hungry for an opportunity. Something special about a room full of people in that exact position at the same time.

But he’s honest about the other part too.

If you don’t keep the same habits you had at Hargrave, what you learned there starts to fizzle away.

“You’ve got to get stuff done. You’ve got to handle your business.”

Never give up. That’s the whole thing.

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #AnselPonder #WesternMichigan #RowTheBoat

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Nate Anglin saw Hargrave from both sides. He was there as a high schooler before he ever joined the post-grad team.

And he’ll tell you there were two types of people in that building. 🎖️🏈

The ones whose parents sent them there. They didn’t want to be there, so they slacked off and did whatever they wanted.

And the ones who actually tried to excel.

Chapel Hill. UVA. West Point. A couple of guys to Yale. A couple more to Cornell out of his class alone.

Because Hargrave had real college-level professors who would take the time to engage with you.

“But you had to take advantage of it yourself. It wasn’t going to be handed to you. You had to go and take it.”

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #NateAnglin #VMIFootball #VMIKeydets

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Andrew Farr thought he was done with football.

And he’ll tell you straight that it was his own fault. He was too much of a knucklehead at the time. 🎖️🏈

Then his dad got a phone call.

He didn’t think that was a coincidence. He thought it was a sign.

“This is my second chance to get things right with myself. Otherwise, who knows what I’d be doing.”

So he went to Hargrave and made up his mind before he even got there.

“If I waste this opportunity, I wasted my own time. I wasted these coaches’ time. I wasted my family’s time.”

He qualified academically while he was up there.

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #AndrewFarr #EastCarolina #ECUFootball

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Chris Hatcher won a Division II national title at Valdosta State and gave Kirby Smart and Will Muschamp their first coaching jobs. He’s since been the head man at Georgia Southern, Murray State and Samford.

But the one that got away still stings. 🎖️🏈

Charles Grant.

Hatcher was a graduate assistant at Kentucky, so he couldn’t go on the road. He did all the legwork instead. Every phone call. Every conversation. They were close.

Grant actually committed to Kentucky. For about seven or eight days.

Then he went to Georgia and had a great career.

“Some good times there.”

🎙️Coach Chris Hatcher ( @chris_hatcher18 )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #ChrisHatcher #Samford #RollWave

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That trumpet sound is still stuck in Darren Gaines’ head.

Every single morning. Wake up. Make your bed. Get downstairs as fast as you can. Make sure you’re shaved. 🎖️🏈

Saturdays without a game, they’d sneak into town for food and rush back before anyone noticed. They weren’t supposed to. They did it anyway.

And the walk to practice. Through the woods. Through the trees. Across the gravel. It felt like a mile every time.

He still tells everyone about that walk.

“It’s kind of crazy that we had to walk like that just to get to practice.”

🎙️: Darren Gaines ( @dotdadonnn )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #DarrenGaines #AshlandEagles #GeorgiaState

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Hargrave built calluses on Jabari Thomas.

But the thing he actually took with him wasn’t toughness. It was time management. 🎖️🏈

Structure for how to manage a day. When to meet academic advisors. When to sit with tutors. When to be where you’re supposed to be.

So when he got to college during football season and everybody else was out, he had one answer.

“I’m going to bed. I’ll meet y’all in the spring.”

Practice at 4 a.m. meant lights out at 10.

“My father installed discipline. Hargrave installed the structure on how to actually maneuver time.”

🎙️: Jabari Thomas ( @jabarithegreat )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #JabariThomas #TowsonTigers #HamptonUniversity

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Lee Miles rode a Greyhound by himself from Marietta, Georgia all the way to Virginia.

He got off at the bus station in Chatham and met three guys who’d be part of his life from that point forward. 🎖️🏈

Leonard Pope. Roger Garrett. Ryan Smith.

All of them strangers. All of them headed to the same place.

They stayed at the coach’s house that first night.

The culture shock hit immediately. Formation. The haircut. Clean shaven every day. Learning an entirely new set of people.

“It taught me a lot. So I’m not mad at it.”

🎙️: Lee Miles ( @mr_cartersville )

#HargraveFootball #HargraveMilitaryAcademy #LeeMiles #GeorgiaSouthern #GATA

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