Notre Dame Recruit Brandyn Hillman Learned Value Of True Sacrifice & More From Mom
Things come easy to Brandyn Hillman on the field, but ask him to describe how proud he is of his mother and the 2023 Virginia athlete hesitates in a way he’s unlikely to do during a Friday night Churchland High School football game.
“100,” Hillman says at first. “I'm beyond the charts proud of her…Infinite. I'm infinite proud of her.”
Unsatisfied with his first couple attempts, Hillman accepts the fact that he won’t be able to sum it up sufficiently.
“There's no scale to measure how proud I am of her,” he says.
Shawn Hillman recently retired from the Army after 16 years of service.
Constantly being on the move wasn’t easy for Shawn or Brandyn.
“We moved around quite a bit,” says Shawn, noting that they’ve lived in Hawaii, Georgia, New York and Virginia while she also did deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Poland and Korea.
“He enjoyed the moving when he was with me,” she continues. “As far as me deploying, I don't think he enjoyed that too much because I would have to leave him and go.”
“Growing up, I understood at a young age that I wouldn't be in one place for a long time,” Brandyn recalls. “It was tough knowing that my mom wouldn't be able to make it to any of my games being deployed.”
When she deployed, Shawn would leave Brandyn with her mother and when she returned, they were often quickly on the move to the next stop.
“He enjoyed the moving and the traveling,” she says. “I just think he didn't enjoy the part of not being around me.”
She didn’t enjoy that part either.
“I did not enjoy leaving him at all,” Shawn says. “I wish I could bring him everywhere I went. But like I said, when duty calls, I have to go do what I have to go do. I tried to make sure that I reiterated to him that that was a part of the job and that's just the sacrifices I had to make to make sure that we were taken care of and make sure he was taken care of. That's just a part of being in the military and making sure that he was taken care of.”
Sacrifice is just one of several lessons Shawn has taken from the Army and taught her son.
“I was a big believer of our values in the Army, which are personal courage, leadership, integrity, selfless service aspects like that,” she says. “I preach to him about integrity, about telling the truth and selfless service. We go out and do things in the community.”
Whenever Shawn’s motorcycle club goes into the community to serve, she takes advantage of the opportunities she didn’t have in the Army and brings Brandyn everywhere she goes. Just recently, they went downtown to pack food and personal hygiene bags for the homeless.
“He enjoys it,” Shawn says. “I always let him know that you are fortunate to be where you are. Some people aren't and that's why we make sure we give back to to those who aren't as fortunate as we are.”
Brandyn says his mother has helped him “tremendously.”
“My mom really molded me into who I am today,” he says. “Everything that she told me really hit hard.”
In 2019, Shawn took advantage of an opportunity to establish some stability and even before she returned from her latest deployment had Brandyn stationed with her mother in Virginia, allowing him to entrench himself in the Churchland football program.
“It really helped me relax during school and sports,” he says. “It really helped me not have to worry about, 'Am I going to move next month or next year?' It felt great knowing that I was going to be in one spot for the next four years.”
It’s no coincidence Brandyn mentioned school before sports.
“School comes first,” Shawn says. “You can't do anything in sports without school and without having the great grade point average. School is definitely a big factor in him playing sports.
“We try to reiterate to him that, 'If you want to play at the next level, it's all about grades. It's all about grades, it's all about school. You can be the best athlete in the world, but if you don't have the grades to go anywhere to showcase that, you're just the best athlete in the world with no exposure. You're not going to get exposure at the next level without the grades.'”
Message received.
“Without academics, you're not going to do anything in life,” Brandyn says. “You're not going to be able to get the job that you want or get in the position that you want.”
Sports is a major part of Hillman’s family too. Shawn played basketball at Norfolk State and his grandmother, Shelia Hillman-Manderville, was an All-American hoopster at Hampton University.
In the last couple of weeks, Brandyn has landed scholarship offers from some of the nation’s top football programs, but says his grandmother is “hands down” the best athlete in the family.
“She has her jersey retired at Hampton University,” Shawn says of her mother. “She was a three-time CIAA All-American. She's in the Virginia Hall of Fame and the CIAA Hall of Fame.”
“I can get information from them because they've been there before,” Brandyn says. “They know what it takes to get in the spot to be great at the next level.”
Brandyn had a single scholarship offer – from Norfolk State – heading into his senior season at Churchland this fall.
Brandyn played on both sides of the ball growing up, but had focused on playing quarterback in high school. With her son frustrated by the recruiting process, Shawn spoke with him about the idea of playing more than just quarterback.
“He was kind of up in air about it,” Shawn says.
But she spoke with Churchland head coach Dontrell Leonard anyway.
“I let him know that I wanted him to play both sides of the ball this year,” Shawn says. “I told Coach, 'This is his senior year. You won't have him anymore after this year, so you might as well just let him loose on the field.'
“He said, ‘OK,’ and put him on both sides of the field. It's just kind of skyrocketed from there.”
In a 48-hour span last month, Hillman added offers from Virginia Tech, Boston College, Vanderbilt, Virginia, West Virginia, East Carolina, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Kentucky before adding North Carolina to the list a few days later.
“I just remind him every day to remain humble,” Shawn says. “I tell him all the time to just continue playing football as if you just had that one offer from Norfolk State. I think he needs to be humble because there's no need to boast about what you have because it could easily be taken away at the same time.”
It’s wise advice and advice Brandyn will certainly listen to it considering the source.
