Before the Offer, Before the Hype — Young Braydon Hawthorne Already Bleeding Blue in Viral Throwback
Before the national spotlight. Before the Power Five scholarships and the ESPN interviews. Before Braydon Hawthorne became a household name in high school football recruiting circles, there was a grainy, sun-bleached clip — no more than thirty seconds long — that told everyone who Braydon really was.
It was a sweltering Saturday in mid-July, years before Braydon’s name graced scouting reports. Back then, he was just nine years old, a wiry, scrappy kid in oversized shoulder pads and a frayed blue Wildcats jersey, leading a team of peewee underdogs against a crosstown rival. In the viral throwback clip that resurfaced last week, you can hear the whistle screech, see the snap, and then — chaos.
Braydon bursts through the offensive line like a missile, his blue mouthguard clenched tight. One juke, one stiff-arm, and he’s gone — 60 yards in a blur of cleats and dust. No high-stepping, no showboating. Just pure fire. At the end zone, he doesn’t celebrate. He hands the ball to the ref and taps his chest twice over the Wildcat logo. Even then, at nine, he was all business. All blue.
What made the clip go viral wasn’t just the play — though it was electric — it was what came after. A sideline mic caught him pacing in front of his teammates, helmet off, sweat pouring down his face, shouting, “We don’t quit. We’re Wildcats! We bleed blue ‘til it’s done!”
No one coached that into him.
Those who know Braydon today — the four-star wideout with Olympic-level speed and a highlight reel that keeps scouts drooling — say that fire hasn’t changed. But the video shows the raw version: a young boy too small for his pads, already carrying the weight of a leader.
His mother, Tasha Hawthorne, remembers that day vividly. “We had no idea someone was filming. He didn’t even know what ‘viral’ meant. He was just playing like his life depended on it. That’s Braydon.”
The jersey he wore in that clip now hangs in his bedroom, framed in glass. It’s signed not by any famous athlete, but by his own teammates from that summer — a squad that went 3-6, but fought like champions because Braydon willed them to.
Recruiters love to talk stats — 4.4 speed, 6’1” frame, 1,300 receiving yards last season. But this clip, raw and unfiltered, shows the origin of the myth: Braydon Hawthorne, age nine, no offers, no stars, no audience — just heart.
As one scout put it after watching the throwback: “That kid didn’t wait to be told he was great. He decided it.”
The hype came later. The offers came later. But the blood? It was already blue.
