Coach | Speed, Hard Work Set Notre Dame WR Target Tanook Hines Apart
Notre Dame assistant Marty Biagi has a relationship with the staff at Dekaney High School that stretches back decades.
So, when Biagi hit up the coaches at the Texas power to ask if they had any prospects the Irish should be in on, it didn’t take them long to come up with a name.
Dekaney regularly produces top talent, but the staff understood Biagi was looking for more than simply talented players.
“There's a difference between being a Notre Dame kid and being an Alabama kid,” Dekaney assistant coach Herbert Frazier says.
“Tanook is a high-ranking athlete, but when you see his personality, who he is, it's like, 'Man, that'd be a perfect fit just based on who the kid is.'”
A 2025 receiver, Hines began piling up scholarship offers in early 2023 and has never stopped, accumulating a list that now includes schools like Notre Dame, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Miami, Michigan, Penn State and USC among several others.
“I would say he's probably one of the top five fastest kids in the country, speed kills,” says Frazier. “Obviously, that makes him special, but his work ethic is what makes him special more than anything. He's not going to let you outwork him.
“He's a great receiver, can run, but once you get up to those levels at the Notre Dames of the world, Alabamas of the world, everybody can do that. It's what is going to separate you and what separates him from a lot of other kids is his work ethic.”
Work ethic doesn’t exactly jump off the page the way speed does, but Frazier says college coaches eventually come to realize Hines’ as a true benefit.
“The one thing that I'm pretty sure a lot of college coaches are going to understand is nobody can stay in front of him,” says Frazier. “That's going to be more prevalent to college coaches at first.
“But then once you meet him, you talk to him and he tells you his values in life, you're like, 'OK, I can understand. He's a hard-working kid. He's going to take no slack. He's going to do what it takes to be successful.'
Once the coaches at Dekaney realized Hines could be a good match for the Irish, they made preparations to get the 6-foot-1, 190-pound speedster to South Bend and they made it a point to get him there before official visit season.
“You have to see it for what it is when all of that is not going on,” Frazier says of the glitz and glamor that typically come with official visits.
Hines made the trip in early-April with a couple Dekaney coaches.
“When we got there, the kid instantly fell in love with it,” says Frazier. “Then when he got to talk to Coach (Marcus) Freeman, I think that made it even better.”
Hines and Freeman have similar backgrounds and both come from military families.
“It just all kind of was just like, 'Man, I can see myself in this coach,’” Frazier says of Hines’ thinking. “I think that made their bond and it was like, 'Yeah, I can see myself here.'”
Hines left South Bend promising to return and is scheduled to get back for an official visit in June. He’s since taken one official to Arizona State and is also expected to take officials to Arkansas, USC and Baylor.
Everybody agrees that the Irish have a tremendous chance to ultimately land Hines.
“He has this timeline of wanting to be committed before July,” says Frazier. “I think they have a better shot than anybody else now. It's going to solely be up to the kid and his parents, but I think once his parents get down there, I think they're going to have a legitimate shot to get him.
“It's just the things that Notre Dame has to offer that other schools don't have. Everybody plays football at a high level. Cool. But it's the stuff outside of football that Notre Dame has to offer that makes it a good fit for him and his parents, I think.”
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