CANTON, Ohio — It should come as no surprise Patrick Willis was a dominant two-way star in high school.
In addition to being a star linebacker at tiny Central High in Bruceton, Tennessee, Willis was also nearly unstoppable as a running back. When he went to play college football at Ole Miss, he knew after the first day of practices that he had little desire to carry the football with SEC defenders coming after him.
“I was recruited as an athlete, and not as a linebacker,” Willis said Friday during a press conference for his enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
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“So when I got to Ole Miss, after the first day of practice, the running backs coach comes to me and says, ‘Freshman, I thought you were supposed to come down and get some running back reps.’”
What he did not know was Willis had already seen and heard enough to make him never want to take handoffs ever again.
Willis described a play in which the team’s safety came charging toward the line of scrimmage at top speed and delivered a huge hit on the running back.
“He hit him so hard, it sounded like a freight train,” Willis said. “I heard him coming before he hit him. And he hit him so hard at that very moment, I said, ‘You know what, there’s no way I’m going to let someone hit me like that.’
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“I’d rather hit somebody else like that.”
And that’s exactly what Willis did time and again throughout his college and professional career. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2019. As a pro, he earned trips to the Pro Bowl in each of his first seven NFL seasons.
Willis never had any regrets about which side of the ball he chose to play.
“I think it worked,” he said, laughing.
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