By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Deavin Hilson is now set to go where no Des Moines North High School football player has gone in over 40 years.

He achieved that milestone by accepting Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz’s scholarship offer on Friday before announcing his commitment on Saturday.

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Hilson said Iowa is recruiting him to play running back. He also played linebacker for North and has talked to the Iowa coaches about playing defense.

Iowa has a history under Ferentz of turning unheralded recruits such as Hilson into heralded college players. Hilson’s only other scholarship offer was from Northern Iowa, so he definitely fits under the title of unheralded.

The on-the-field stuff will eventually sort itself out, but Hilson already should be an inspiration for other kids from Des Moines.

His commitment to Iowa shows that anything is possible, even for a kid from a high school that hadn’t produced a Power Five football recruit since Mark Butts signed with Iowa State in 1978.

I remember Mark Butts very well because he played against my brother in high school. My brother was an all-state defensive tackle from West Des Moines Dowling, and was part of Iowa’s 1978 recruiting class.

Butts also played on the offensive and defensive lines, and I still can remember watching him and my brother battle in the trenches.

And while Dowling has won seven of the last eight Class 4A state titles in football, North rarely has won on the football field.

But Hilson didn’t let that stop him from pursuing his dream, nor did he let the global pandemic derail his hopes of playing college football at the highest level.

Hilson wasn’t on Iowa’s recruiting radar until some other more heralded running back prospects turned down the Hawkeyes.

But who cares?

All it takes is one school to like you, and Iowa likes Hilson enough to have given him a scholarship despite North having played just two games last season because of the pandemic.

The odds were definitely stacked against Hilson, and yet, he still found a way to beat the odds, with help from so many people who have his best interest. Nobody earns a scholarship without help from others. It takes support from teammates and coaches, from classmates, and from the community as a whole.

Hilson started talking with the Iowa coaches in September and they continued to monitor his progress on the basketball court where Hilson averages 7.7 points and 5.8 rebounds per game for North.

Hilson committed on the spot when Kirk Ferentz offered him a scholarship on Friday.

“It’s a dream come true,” Hilson said. “That’s something I’ve been waiting to be for months. I told them before back in September if I got the opportunity I was going to commit. We stayed patient and kept working and it finally came true.”

It would’ve been easy for Hilson to have given up on his dream of playing big-time college football because so few from Des Moines have achieved that elusive goal, and because of the impact from the global pandemic.

But Hilson stayed the course, stayed optimistic and stayed patient.

And now he’s being rewarded for it as Hilson will sign his letter of intent on Wednesday, which is the second national signing day for college football.

I was really pulling for Hilson to get a scholarship offer from Iowa because my mother graduated from North in 1948 and I knew what it would mean to the North High community, and to the entire Des Moines community.

Hilson is proof that dreams do come true, but not without sacrifice, hard work and persistence.

He now can inspire other kids from his high school, and from Des Moines, to dream big and realize that anything is possible if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to get there.