Brotherly love beyond words

Matt Hayes


The cameras won't follow his every move, and the broadcast team won't talk incessantly about his NFL future.

They won't gush over an All-American season or constantly replay Heisman moments or embarrassing antics. DaeSean Hamilton will just play football for the last time at Penn State.

"He's everything you could want from a young man," Penn State coach James Franklin said.

Franklin stops midsentence, searching for the appropriate way to explain his last four years with the one player who has meant so much to the turnaround at Penn State from the dark days of not long ago.

"No," Franklin corrects himself, "he's everything you'd want in a son."

Want someone to root for this bowl season? Want to weed through the arguments of who should be in the College Football Playoff—or who should or shouldn't be playing bowl games with so much on the line in the future—and find something meaningful, tangible and inspirational?

Here's Penn State's DaeSean Hamilton, a wideout who earned All-Big Ten honors and will likely make someone's roster in the NFL as a third or fourth receiver and special teams player.

But he was also the child thrust into the caregiver role for his older brother, Darius, who has autism. Who also helped care for his mother while she had breast cancer. Who then never veered from what was important and what had to be done to care for his family.

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