EWU linebacker Ronnie Hamlin counts more than tackles
Come Saturday at Roos Field, folks will be making a big fuss over Eastern Washington linebacker Ronnie Hamlin.
At some point in the game, Hamlin will throw a Montana ball carrier to the ground and become the leading tackler in school history. The action will stop, teammates will slap his back, and the feat will be announced over the loudspeakers.
Thousands will cheer, and the game will go on – not a moment too soon for Hamlin.
“I try not to read the articles, but my dad is keeping count … probably it will mean more to me later,” said Hamlin, a quiet overachiever from Lacey, Washington, who has 431 total career tackles, one away from the school record held since 2010 by former teammate J.C. Sherritt.
A straight path to success
“His parents sure raised him right,” EWU linebackers coach Josh Fetter said of Hamlin, who was born into a military family in Fort Riley, Kansas, before moving to Lacey.
Basketball was Hamlin’s first love, but it yielded to football by his junior year at Timberline High School. As a senior in 2008, he finished with 156 tackles and 10 interceptions on defense, and gained 1,778 all-purpose yards as a receiver and returner.
In the fall of 2009, Hamlin took his football credentials to Cheney, along with a 3.9 high school grade-point average and a few dozen advance-placement credits. Three weeks before class began and three weeks before the opening game, Hamlin tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He had surgery, but tore the ACL again the following spring.
As Hamlin watched from the sideline in 2010, Sherritt – now in the Canadian Football League – set the tackles record and helped lead the Eagles to the national title.
By the time Hamlin saw the field in the fall of 2011, he was a redshirt sophomore who hadn’t played a down.
“It was tough on Ronnie,” EWU head coach Beau Baldwin said. “We were thinking he could play right away, and all of a sudden he was injured.”
But Hamlin quickly made up for lost time. Three games into the 2011 season, he became a starter at strong inside linebacker, and has held down the spot since. The tackles grew along with his hair, which has reached almost to waist-length – the product of a friendly wager with former Eagles safety Jeff Minnerly.
He’s at 46 starts and counting, the most on the team. Except that Hamlin isn’t counting – he’s too busy pursuing an impressive double-major in construction management and mechanical engineering while holding down a 3.56 GPA.
Besides football practices and meetings, Hamlin’s weeks are filled with class presentations, papers and homework.
“It gets a little stressful,” Hamlin said.
Building a reputation
Taking the cue from Sherritt, Matt Johnson and other standout linebackers, Hamlin has been a force on the field for three years. He was a first-team all-Big Sky pick in 2012 after logging 136 tackles, fifth-most in school history.
Last year, he was named a team captain and finished with 140 tackles, and showed his versatility with a momentum-changing, 77-yard interception return for a touchdown at North Dakota. Somehow, he was only a second-team all-Big Sky selection.
The 6-foot-2, 235-pounder likes the strong inside linebacker spot “because you get to do everything: playing the pass, the run, blitzing – but your body takes a toll.”
Because of the injuries earlier in his career, Hamlin was granted a sixth year of eligibility. Then he suffered a minor foot injury during fall camp.
The bigger hurt came in the locker room, as the Eagles’ defense struggled in several games. In five contests, they gave up at least 500 yards of offense.
“It’s no secret, we’ve had some tough going,” Fetter said.
Finally, it fell to Hamlin, a team captain for the second year, to speak up at a recent team meeting.
“I’m not a big talker, but I’ll say what I have to, and I felt at that point I needed to say something,” said Hamlin, who said he drew on the examples set by former Eagles linebackers Sherritt, Johnson and others from 2010.
“We needed to be more like that team, not pointing fingers, taking the blame even when it’s not your fault. I think I got the point across,” Hamlin said.
In the last three games, the Eagles have held Northern Colorado, Northern Arizona and North Dakota to a combined 970 yards of total offense and 13 of 45 on third down.
“When he speaks, people listen,” Fetter said. “It comes from the heart, and the guys respond.”
A lock for success
Hamlin’s future is bright, but he’s hasn’t peered past the Montana game.
“There’s so much riding on this one,” he said, not even mentioning the tackles record – only the qualities that led to it.
When he does break the record, he hopes to make Sherritt proud.
“J.C. and Zach, they were blue-collar guys who stuck their nose into everything and played every play like it’s their last,” said the 24-year-old Hamlin, who along with senior teammate Cody McCarthy hopes to impart the same worth ethic into the next generation of Eagles linebackers.
Some would say they already have: Underclassmen Miquiyah Zamora and Albert Havili look poised to carry on the tradition.
“I can see it in a lot of them, and it’s going to be exciting to come back and see them,” Hamlin said.