FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- When New England Patriots rookie defensive tackle Woodrow Hamilton arrived in the locker room after his NFL debut Oct. 9 against the Cleveland Browns, Bill Belichick stopped him to acknowledge the moment.
“You got on the board,” Belichick said in video posted on Patriots.com. “I saw you make a couple plays.”
Hamilton responded with a wide smile and a polite, “Yes, sir.” The exchange meant a lot to him.
“He’s Coach Bill for a reason,” the 23-year-old Hamilton relayed. “It’s always going to feel good if the head guy, or your boss, says they like the work you’re doing. That’s always going to be motivation to keep going and work hard.”
The hard-working approach has been Hamilton’s calling card since signing with the Patriots as an undrafted free agent out of Mississippi on May 6. His official breakthrough came on Oct. 8 when he was promoted from the practice squad to the active roster.
Hamilton has since played in two games as a backup to Malcom Brown and Alan Branch, with his 6-foot-3, 315-pound frame holding up well on the interior.
“He’s got good size, runs OK, raw, but he’s learning, he’s getting better,” Belichick said. “He’s got some skill, has some development to go, has a lot to learn technique-wise -- hands, block reactions, pass-rush technique, those kinds of things -- but he’s a good guy to work with. We’ll just keep going with him.”
Hamilton grew up in Raleigh, Mississippi and became one of the first-ever eighth-graders at Magee Middle School to play varsity football at Raleigh High School. In fact, an award is now named after him for anyone who follows in those footsteps.
Hamilton, who is referred to as "Woody" by Belichick and others, shares his “football journey” with ESPN.com as part of a weekly feature:
When he first started playing football: “I had started in Pee-Wee football, but after a while, as I grew up, my mother [Lisa Barnes] didn’t want me to play. So I stopped playing for a while. When I got to Junior High, I was still doing the shot put in track, and my coaches said they saw something in me, but you still had to sign some permission papers that your son could play, and my mom wouldn’t sign them for a while. My uncles had talked to her and said, ‘Give him an opportunity, a chance, to make something of himself.’ I was 12 at the time.”
Favorite teams and players growing up: “I wouldn’t say I had a favorite team, but I just loved football. Of course, everyone has a couple people they might have looked up to, but I just looked up to the men in my family, and of course, my mom. My family didn’t have it easy. When my grandma passed away, my uncle Eric [Barnes] was the backbone of the family. You have that one person in the family who supports everyone -- I told him one day that I wanted to be like him because of what kind of man he was. He took care of his responsibilities and worked his butt off all the time. He just told me, ‘Be better than me. You can make something of your life. You can get out of the country.’ Here I am.”
Football success at Raleigh High: “We went to the second round of the football playoffs my senior year, which was probably our best year. We played Philadelphia, and my boy CJ Johnson [a future teammate at Ole Miss]. We had a good team, I just hate how it ended [with a loss].”
Enrolling at Mississippi (47 games played, 25 starts): “The head coach that recruited me, Houston Nutt, came to my house and his swag -- he was just this cool person. He popped his feet up and was getting some tea. That stood out to me. I was just so happy that my mom and uncle had been proud of me to go farther than most of my family. I visited two other schools, but I had a cousin, [Colts wide receiver] Donte Moncrief, who was heavily recruited there. And my family had been big-time Ole Miss fans, so it was a plus-plus. Right when I was getting ready to go to official visits with other schools, maybe the third visit I took, I committed. I just looked at the all positives -- my family was happy, I had a cousin there, and there were great people there.”
Signing with the Patriots as an undrafted free agent: “The fact that I was undrafted didn’t really affect me. I was just so happy to have a coach like Coach Belichick and the coaches here to see something in me to give me the opportunity to come and play and show them what I can do. I wasn’t caught up in the fact I wasn’t drafted.”
Involved in a practice scrap with former center Bryan Stork after Stork went after him: “Every day in football helps you become a man. It didn’t have to be that, but the fact it was, I just looked over it and tried to learn from it and get past it. We talked after. You have to be a pro; this isn’t personal. This is our work.”
What he loves about football: “Everything, man. Of course, you have to love the sport to play it. But I like how it makes us guys turn into men. Things like being on time when you’re supposed to and doing what you’re supposed to do. Like others, we make mistakes but I feel like football can make you out to be a good, presentable man at the end of the day. There is a lot to learn from football besides just the physical part -- there’s mental toughness, too. I love the fact it made me the person I am.”
Summing up his football journey: “It’s been a good ride, and I’ve learned a lot -- ups and downs, being told that you’re good but then other times, that you’re not good enough. It’s not like all my life I’ve been told that I could do it by a lot of people. I’ve used that as motivation. I feel blessed to have done well enough to be at this point, but I still know I have to be better.”
