“Eyes up chest up,” Isaiah Deloatch declares to a group of JV linebackers. “Don’t look at the bags!”

The sun is setting at Hillside High School in Durham. Deloatch is done playing, but he isn’t finished in the community he grew up playing football in.

“It means a lot,” Deloatch said. “I’ve been playing with the same people since I was five years old.”

The senior linebacker got his first offer from Duke University in January.

“My first offer coming from almost an Ivy level school,” Deloatch said. “It being so close to home it meant a lot.”

As tempting as Duke was, Rutgers is what felt like family.

“I have 400 hand written letters everybody from the special teams coach to the nutritionist,” Deloatch said. “Everybody on the staff talks to you.”

Deloatch committed to the Scarlet Knights in May.

“They facetime you, Coach [Greg] Schiano facetime’s you,” Deloatch said. “They make sure you’re taken care of.”

Rutgers stood by Deloatch when his senior season abruptly came to a halt week three versus Dudley.

“My foot got stuck in the grass and my body rotated the opposite direction,” Deloatch said. “I was trying to go out of bounds on a broken punt.”

Initially the injury wasn’t thought to be severe, but tests revealed a torn ACL and a small tear in his meniscus.

“I’m still trying to help out where I can,” Deloatch said. “Right now I’m still on crutches so I can’t do as much as I want to do.”

When Deloatch isn’t taking college level classes he’s helping Hillside head coach Torrey Nowell with the team.

“I told him when he first got injured listen I need you to just help me out and tell me what you see as a coach also,” Nowell said.

A track star when he’s not playing football, Deloatch is known for his speed, but is now helping the Hornets with his smarts.

“I like to guide younger players especially ones at my same position,” Deloatch said. “I like to make sure the next players after me are still just as good, the standard is the standard.”

Deloatch’s commitment to his athletics and academics earned him WRAL’s Tom Suiter Extra Effort Award.

“That’s one of the big things we talk about here is being more than just football,” Nowell said. “Isaiah is a guy who helps us out with the young guys.”

“When he was playing he was our leader, he played every position on special teams,” Nowell continued. “He does a lot of things other than just play football and that’s one of the reasons he definitely deserves this award.”

“It means a lot knowing how much I went through in school to have the grades that I have,” Deloatch said. “How much I went through outside of football practice and here as a team.”

Source: highschoolot.com