AHSAA Super 7 Alabama high school football championships set through 2028
AHSAA Super 7 Alabama high school football championships sites are set through 2028, alternating between Birmingham and Mobile. Birmingham will host 2025.
For Tuscaloosa Academy’s Ellis Hamiter, time off is a mere luxury.
Football starts in the summer and goes through the fall. Basketball is in the winter. Then baseball in the spring. Add in a little golf in the summer, too, just for good measure.
“Basically my whole life, since I can remember it’s all I’ve done,” Hamiter said.
More often than not, one season rolls straight into the next. Football workouts start up a couple of weeks into summer not long after baseball season wraps. From there, football bleeds into basketball, and basketball gives way to baseball — over and over again.
“Spring break was a few weeks ago,” Hamiter said with a laugh, “but we had baseball during that, too.”
This year, Hamiter’s time off was even more limited. The Tuscaloosa Academy football team made a run to the Class 2A state championship game, ultimately falling 49-13 to Reeltown. Two days after the loss, Hamiter was back in the gym practicing as basketball season officially began.
The Knights didn’t slow down, making their own run to the 2A state title game in basketball where they fell to Providence Christian, 89-61. The very next day, Hamiter was on the baseball diamond playing a doubleheader.
“Literally no offtime,” Hamiter said.
All along the way, coach Ethan Haines has been right there with Hamiter. A TA grad, Haines serves as an assistant on the football, basketball and baseball staffs at Tuscaloosa Academy.
“He’s the hardest worker in the room,” Haines said. “Always the first one there, the last one to leave. … He would always go straight from football, hit in the cage, throw. Basketball, he’d hit before, then throw after. So he was always doing work for every sport. It’s special. Getting a kid like that, someone that everyone kind of look ups to, whether you’re playing or even coaching, just the way he handles his business is impressive.”
While Hamiter said baseball is his passion, his favorite sport is basketball. In regard to which sport he thinks he’s the best at — it’s a toss up between football and baseball.
Hamiter finished as the second-leading receiver on the Knights football team with 1,492 yards on 94 receptions and six touchdowns. Eighteen games into the baseball season, he is averaging .341 with 15 hits from the plate with a 3-1 record and an 1.65 ERA on the mound.
In basketball, he averaged 12.4 points, 7.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists.
“I practice baseball the most so that’s the one I would like to be best at,” he said. “But it’s between football and baseball.”
Balancing all three sports comes with its challenges – like not having enough time to fully practice and prepare for any one season. But if you ask Hamiter, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s awesome being able to do all three,” he said.
With a few weeks remaining in the regular season, Hamiter and the Tuscaloosa Academy baseball team sits in sole possession of Class 2A, Area 5. The first round of playoffs start April 18, going through to the state championship between May 12-16 in Jacksonville.
发表回复