UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Life as a fifth-year senior at Penn State means DaeSean Hamilton has experienced the ups and downs of college football, so much so that teammates apparently are lining up to talk to the wide receiver.
They're all vying for his attention – and maybe even a simple hello – these days, at least that's one teammate's take on it.
"DaeSean is a very interesting character," senior tight end Mike Gesicki, Hamilton's closest friend on the team, said this week. "There's like 50 kids on our team that would like die to just be friends with DaeSean. DaeSean talks to a very select few people. He's just a very interesting dude. I can still remember the first time I met him when I got here my freshman year. Then just our friendship developing and people were just like how are you and DaeSean friends? You guys are complete polar opposites. But me and DaeSean are best friends."
Perhaps he keeps his circle small – Gesicki said running back Andre Robinson has since worked his way into the friend group – but for some reason they all want to hang out with Hamilton. Maybe it's because Hamilton is Penn State's all-time receptions leader, a mark he surpassed in September. Hamilton's seven touchdown catches are tops on the team. And with 39 catches for 646 yards, he's a big part of the offense.
But no, apparently teammates have wanted to hang out with the guy long before this season's successes. That's all news to Hamilton.
"Andre for the past year was like, 'Dude, I wish DaeSean would talk to me,'" Gesicki recalled. "I'm like, 'I don't know, man. Maybe go up and say what's up to him?' Then Andre actually went through my phone, got DaeSean's number when I wasn't looking and texted him. DaeSean was like, 'Who is this?' And he's like, 'Oh, yeah, it's Andre.' So then Andre would text him like 100 times a day, really just annoy him to be his friend. Now he knows that Andre's a funny dude and he likes hanging out with him."
Hamilton laughed Wednesday night, acknowledging Gesicki's version of the story was true and this was the first year he's talked to Robinson after the running back FaceTimed and texted him at all hours of the day and night. Despite being on the same team for three years, they finally hit it off, with Hamilton calling Robinson "kind of weird and annoying at the same time, but I like Andre a lot."
Surely that's the kind of compliment Robinson was hoping for.
"The whole 50 people trying to be my friend, I don't hear nothing about that," Hamilton said Wednesday night. "I guess I am kind of an exclusive guy. I haven't really talked to a lot people in my time here unless they try and talk to me. I'm kind of like a speak-when-spoken-to kind of person or that I come off as like a jerk or something that I don't want to talk to people. But it was kind of funny hearing Mike's side of it and other people too."
Hamilton's seen quite a bit in his time at Penn State. He arrived with Christian Hackenberg, Adam Breneman and the rest of the 2013 class, a group that was looked upon as the one that kept the program alive after it was dealt unprecedented NCAA sanctions. There are only seven fifth-year seniors still on this team, including Parker Cothren, Curtis Cothran, Brendan Mahon and Andrew Nelson, who all arrived on scholarship with Hamilton. Once those names and 18 others – such as Gesicki, Jason Cabinda, Marcus Allen, Grant Haley, Troy Apke, Saeed Blacknall and others – are announced Saturday afternoon on senior day, it closes another chapter in Penn State history.
"I don't really think about what we've turned this into, obviously, because I'm in this every day and we're working every single day, so you don't get to sit back and think about it," Hamilton said. "But seeing where we used to be to where we are now it's obviously noticeable. We're light years ahead of where we used to be, and it's really cool to see."
Hamilton's head-down, business-like approach certainly left an impression on his teammates. And as the receiver joked, his personality helped balance that of the talkative Gesicki, who Hamilton said loves the cameras. Hamilton joked it's his job to "basically bring him back down to earth," something the receiver does pretty regularly.
Whether with an Instagram comment shutting down his friend of by telling Gesicki his position is less glamorous, it's all in good fun. That could be evidenced by Hamilton's phone blowing up after setting Penn State's receptions record while Gesicki's was more quiet after he set Penn State's tight end receptions record earlier this season.
"Is not happening by coincidence. Me and DaeSean put a lot of work in in the off-season, after practice, before practice, during practice," Gesicki said. "For me and him to be as close as we are, and to have the records and all that, the accolades and all that stuff that comes along with it, it's great. ... I was like joking around with him, and I was like, 'How come I didn't get any love for breaking the record for most catches by a tight end?' He's like, 'Mike, you're a tight end. Nobody cares about that. Just keep blocking, doing your job, whatever.' "
Gesicki is part of the 2014 class that arrived with James Franklin. It's a group Franklin and his staff frantically put together while setting up shop across town at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center, settling at the hotel because the assistant coaches didn't have their clearances completed in order to operate out of the football building.
For Franklin, that stretch of time meant sleeping in his office until his family moved to town, a bachelor-type lifestyle that allowed him another window into Hamilton.
"I'd come out at 6 o'clock in the morning he'd be out on the turf running routes by himself, or on the JUGs machine or whatever it is," Franklin said this week. "Those lonely bachelor nights I had living in the building, you see things that maybe you normally wouldn't see, and DaeSean is just a guy who is really invested."
Franklin saw a wide receiver trying to make the most of his opportunity in a loaded position group. Hamilton didn't want to fall behind after he redshirted as a freshman because of a pre-existing wrist injury suffered in high school. Then, Hamilton was dealt a coaching change from Bill O'Brien to Franklin. Then, two seasons later, another new offensive coordinator. Last but not least was a new quarterback in Trace McSorley.
The receiver who burst onto the scene during the Lions' victory in Ireland during the Croke Park Classic with Hackenberg under center and Franklin making his Penn State debut, then struggled to become a reliable target the next two seasons. A drop on a deep ball against Pitt last season was Hamilton's low point, but what followed could be why so many of his younger teammates are drawn to the guy.
"I played horrible last year. ... It was more like the past year-and-a-half, two years I don’t think I played that well," Hamilton said after last Saturday's win against Rutgers. "I was working out two or three times a day to get that monkey off my back."
"In the summer, we’d have a lift in the afternoon around 1 o’clock. Around 8 or 9, I would get treatment, then work out on my own — with weights, on strength, running routes, sprinting and trying to make myself faster by running with a weighted vest on. I would do the team workout after that, and have 7-on-7 afterwards, then do a catch with Mike or Juwan (Johnson). The next day I would do it all over again. I couldn’t wait for the weekend. I would work my ass off every day. But even on Saturdays or Sundays, we’d find a day to throw with a lighter load."
Indeed, the quickest way to win the attention of the big man on campus is to try to keep up with Hamilton's rigorous training schedule, something Johnson, a redshirt sophomore wide receiver, figured out faster than others. After every practice for the last two years, Penn State's trio of Hamilton, Gesicki and Johnson stayed after practice to catch extra passes. Long after their teammates left the field – some of them already out of the building by the time they called it quits – Hamilton and Gesicki took extra reps to prove to themselves and those who doubted them their struggles were a thing of the past.
Johnson said he looked up to Hamilton. By spending more time with him catching passes, he thought maybe the senior's work ethic would rub off. That could be the case. Johnson had a game-winning touchdown earlier this season against Iowa.
Teammates took note as Hamilton was in the football building around the clock and still is, working to attain a level of perfection that helped set the standard for younger players. Strength coach Dwight Galt has consistently called Hamilton one of the team's hardest workers.
The extra training sessions also meant more friendly banter between Gesicki and Hamilton, a pair that finishes each other's sentences, and by McSorley's estimations, busts on each other around the clock.
"Yeah, I see what Mike's saying. (DaeSean) is very selective of who he kind of hangs out with, but it's not like he's not a good friend," the quarterback said with a laugh.
McSorley was in the same recruiting class as Gesicki.
"He's a good friend to guys on the team and he's like an older voice for lots of the young guys on the team," McSorley said. "It's kind of funny, because him and Mike have a really good relationship, but you hear them talk to each other and they're always almost kind of yelling at each other. ... It's kind of funny to be able to sit back and watch. They're always kind of going at each other, but they're best friends. ... DaeSean is always having fun, always laughing, always having a good time."
While Gesicki put his sophomore campaign in the rearview mirror long ago and didn't want to go back to that humbling drop-filled season, the two friends picked each other up because of their low points. After Hamilton's drop against Pitt, it was Gesicki who was there, knowing all too well the criticism was coming Hamilton's way.
Both also shared a quarterback in Hackenberg, a joke that Hamilton likes to make to Gesicki, telling him Hackenberg and the highly-touted tight end were the "duo that never happened here at Penn State."
"That's like his favorite joke," Gesicki said with an eye roll.
Now a semifinalist for the Mackey Award, given annually to the nation's top tight end, Gesicki has reinvented himself much like Hamilton because of the ups and downs of his college career. The tight end is equally pleased offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead, who didn't know who he was when Gesicki walked into his office right after Moorhead was hired, has been part of his turnaround.
"I was joking around with him about how when he first got the job, I walked in and I was talking to Tommy (Stevens), and I was like who is this guy? We're bringing in the head coach from Fordham? I was expecting a big-name guy," Gesicki said. "I was telling coach Moorhead that and he was cracking up on the practice field when I was telling him. And then he came back at me. 'Yeah, I was looking at the film and I was looking for a tight end that could catch the ball.'"
They can now all laugh about where they've been and how they've moved past it. After all, the journey for these seniors and delivering Penn State a Big Ten title and a rebirth among college football's elite has been the reward.
With NFL aspirations and just three college games left, Gesicki and Hamilton are running out of time and late-night catches in the shadows of Beaver Stadium.
That's something their younger teammates don't envy, but surely there are two spots open in the post-practice club, and Johnson is accepting all applicants. After all, if it was cool enough for Hamilton to put in extra work, surely others will be competing to take his spot.
"Juwan always says, 'Man, we've got a few more weeks and then I'm going to be out here throwing the ball to myself,'" Gesicki recalled. "I'm not sure who Juwan is going to let enter this prestigious club of ours, but whoever it is, they're going to go out there and get a bunch of extra work and prepare and be ready for Saturdays, just like we have been for the past two years."