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Tempered by tragedy - NCAA Football - Yahoo! Sports

By Jason King, Yahoo! Sports
51 minutes ago

OBERLIN, Ohio – The letters arrive each afternoon now, and Hugh Thornton knows they’d make Mom smile.

Ohio State and Illinois one day. Indiana and Michigan State the next. If only he could read them to his mother, Michelle, or his 8-year-old sister, Marley, who were murdered four years ago while Hugh slept in a nearby room in their Jamaican home.

Hugh’s father Mark, who split with Michelle in 1995, is aware his son is one of the top football recruits in the country, but they haven’t talked much since Hugh fled Boise, Idaho in March. His five-year stay with his dad was broken up by a pair of stints in foster care.

“My dad hit me,” he said.

Hugh, 17, believes nothing like that will happen here, in Oberlin, Ohio, a freckle of a town just outside of Cleveland where he now lives with his aunt Lydia. At 6-foot-4 and 285 pounds, Hugh is already being hailed as the top prospect in the history of Oberlin High School. He’s been named team captain without playing a single down.

Still, for Hugh Thornton, the ensuing months are about more than fitting in with a new team at a new school. They’re about starting a new life.

“Somehow, some way – despite all that’s happened to him – he’s still sitting here with every opportunity in the world in front of him,” Oberlin coach Dave McFarland said. “It’s one of those stories so crazy that it’s impossible to make up.”

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