Munford senior Traveon Hawkins signs a football scholarship with Campbellsville University Tuesday afternoon. Also pictured are, front, Cynthia Hawkins, mother; back, from left, Slade Calhoun, MHS coach; and Mike Huffman, Munford athletic director. Photo by Jeff Ireland
The defenses that Munford played against last fall knew to keep an eye on number 2, but it didn’t seem to make any difference.
A 6-0, 190-pound receiver/running back, Traveon Hawkins racked up big play after big play last season, helping lead Munford to seven wins and a region title, and college recruiters noticed.
Hawkins had more than one offer, but after visiting Campbellsville University earlier this year he knew that was the place for him.
He made his commitment official Tuesday afternoon when he signed a football scholarship with the school in Kentucky. Hawkins will be reunited with his Munford teammate Kelton Mason, who signed with Campbellsville last week.
“I went up there and it was a really beautiful campus,” Hawkins said. “Everybody treated me like I was with them already before I even committed. I just thought it was going to be a great fit for me.”
Munford head coach Slade Calhoun played at Campbellsville in the late 1990s. If there’s a perception that Calhoun used his connections to get Hawkins and Mason scholarships, Calhoun wants to make sure everybody knows that’s simply not true.
“Traveon got himself to the next level,” Calhoun said. “Film speaks for itself. I can call colleges and tell them all of this stuff and what a great kid they are, but the big eye in the sky don’t lie. Either they see something they want or they don’t. All I did was advise him like I would my own son, but I’d be a liar if I said I got Traveon in school. Traveon got Traveon in school.”
Hawkins was a defensive starter as a sophomore. He played primarily running back as a junior. When Calhoun was hired as Munford’s head coach last season, he installed a spread offense and began to regularly deploy Hawkins at wideout and he prospered.
He led the team receiving with 18 catches for 428 yards and five touchdowns. He caught an 86-yarder for a TD vs. St. Benedict and had two long TD catches against Dyer County and Brighton. All three were Munford wins.
“Clearly he’s explosive. He’s a playmaker,” Calhoun said. “We really worked on his hands a lot and started getting him the ball in space. He really jumped off the film catching the ball in space. He won us some ballgames.”
Hawkins not only made an impression on college recruiters, but opposing coaches as well. Calhoun said other coaches told him that Hawkins’ name came up when they talked to recruiters.
“That’s what kids don’t understand,” Calhoun said. “Word of mouth is very powerful. When you have other programs talk about kids and recommend them to colleges, that carries a lot of weight.”
Calhoun said Campbellsville plans to use Hawkins, who ran for 447 yards and six touchdowns last season, at running back and receiver.
Hawkins said he wasn’t sure how it would go when informed he would be playing some receiver in 2020.
“The transition was kind of hard,” Hawkins said. “I had never really played receiver before and this was our first year really throwing the ball like that.”
Turns out it went really well for everybody involved.
