Great article

[Finsup1981]

I didn’t put about who cause I know some of you wouldn’t read it if I did. I know hes been terrible, but a majority of his penalties were early in the season and the guys still so raw and unrefined. We always talk about being tougher and more physical, well this guy is the most physical player on the team, he tries his ass off. He may not still be very good, but reading this makes me want to root for the kid to make it.

Now if he’s anywhere near as bad as he was in the beginning of the year then I don’t care about any kumbaya rah-rah stories, then he’s gotta go. I’m rooting for the kid to make it, he has the fire and the passion that a lot of these guys don’t have, and it’s important to have guys like Hill who set the tone in practice and by knocking the snot out of the other team, staying late etc . All I’m saying is give the guy one more chance.




MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Close your eyes and try to remember anything that happened in your life at age 5. Or 6. Or even 7. Chances are, all that leaps to the forefront of mind are fleeting moments preserved on VHS or a Polaroid. Moments kept alive with Mom or Dad’s colorful narration over time: the trip to Disney World, the first Pop Warner touchdown.

Left alone, memories fade. Childhoods get fuzzy. Life goes on.

This is the not the case for Julian Hill.

First, the same damn chihuahua chased him home from elementary school. It’d yelp and yelp and nip at his heels the whole way. Then, he’d walk through the front door of a trailer and brace for the worst every day. There was no telling what’d happen that particular day in Fayetteville, N.C. The scenes persist — permanently — as flashes of light etched his mind. Sights and sounds and smells he will never forget.

A stranger smashing the windows out of his mother’s car.

Bullets spraying his home.

****roaches and rats scattering across the bedroom floor.

Marijuana smoke filling the air.

Domestic violence.

When asked for the lowest of lows, Hill doesn’t hesitate. He can still picture the couches thrown, the glasses shattered, the flurry of hooks and uppercuts and haymakers thrown at his own mother. It was awful. He’ll never be able to forget it. The stream of boyfriends who moved in with his mother were physically abusive. One particular fight didn’t scar Hill because this was what he witnessed every single day.

“It got rough,” Hill says. “Who’s breaking it up?”

Eventually, the abuser gets tired and quits. Perhaps a neighbor or a housemate calls the cops. But even that knock on the door from law enforcement never solved a thing. Mom never went to the police herself, never sought help in a serious way. The very next morning, Hill would see everyone act as if nothing happened. His mother never tried to actively flee these situations, so Hill never viewed the violent attacks as a problem. Rather, this was the “culture,” the result of Mom thinking she could fix these men in her life, viewing the abuse as a necessary sacrifice to survive and her own demons. She had severe drug issues.

Floor to floor. Trailer to trailer. Fight to fight. Son didn’t realize it at the time but — for 3 to 4 years of his childhood — he was homeless.

At worse, Julian Hill knows he could be dead.

At best, he should suffer trauma at a deep level.

Instead, he’s in the NFL. He’s lounging inside the Miami Dolphins sparkling facilities. The man with a bushy beard and tender eyes wears a Chicago White Sox hat and a t-shirt featuring a close-up of Marty McFly. The third-year NFL tight end is a hulking presence. The 6-foot-4, 251-pound bull appears fully capable of supplying the NBA’s Heat six hard fouls or NHL’s Panthers a five-minute major. On a football field, he’s exactly what these Dolphins need to finally win in December: all smash, no flash. Hill would love to seal off a defensive end and spring De’Von Achane free for 50 yards. Or catch a TD on third and goal. Or lead these Dolphins to their first playoff win in a quarter-century.

But when Hill wakes up, his motivation is quite difficult than his peers.

He’s on a mission to save lives — no metaphor, no exaggeration. Hill knows the millions of viewers at home watching the NFL do not see the America he survived as a kid. So it was only natural for Hill to feel a magnetic pull toward kids like him living on the brink today. When he’s not at his day job, this Dolphins pro is 2.9 miles down the road at His House Children’s Home chatting 1 on 1 with as many at-risk kids as he possibly can.

Kids who’ve been trafficked. Kids who’ve never felt healthy love in their entire lives.

Kids in desperate need of hope.

Hill must pay it forward because, if not him, who?

There’s no burying his childhood.

He’ll relive it all.

---

The conversation begins with the banging of a fist on the table. He refuses to disclose her name — their relationship is complicated today — but Julian Hill insists his biological mother did everything she could. Back in the day, she was in the military. She even worked as a chef.

Unfortunately, to put it kindly, she then “fell down a rabbit hole” of drugs and couldn’t stop.

Different boyfriends. Different people to “house-sit.” Anyone who could help pay a few bills was welcomed inside their trailer. Most fed her worst impulses and, at one point, Mom entered drug rehab. Hill never knew his Dad. He bailed from the jump. So for those three months, he moved in with his mother’s best friend from high school: Shannon Schaeffer and her husband, Paul. Mom was released. Julian moved back in with her. Next thing he knew? An entirely new family was moving into their trailer. Three people. Then, four. Then, five. To the point that eight people lived inside and his mother was sleeping on the couch.

One chilly morning, Mom started the car up early to get the heat circulating. When they walked back outside to leave for school, it was gone. Never to be seen again.

Hill was 6 years old at the time. At home, all he recalls seeing is alcohol and marijuana use out in the open. Thinking back, he’s certain his mother and the others were using worse drugs behind closed doors. About three months into this living arrangement, a fight broke out. The couple that had moved in was able to contribute money. Mom was broke. Hill, his brother and his mother were all booted from their own home.

That’s when the descent began.

“You’re surviving,” Hill says. “It was nothing but that.”

After borrowing a friend’s car for a while, they got a minivan. Whatever he owned — school clothes, a few pairs of underwear — were tossed into the back and Hill moved trailer to trailer. In all, he attended four different elementary schools.

First, they moved in with a different friend from Mom’s high school days. (A miserable experience.)

Next, they were eight deep in another person’s trailer for two months.

At 1 a.m., Hill awoke one night to raucous screaming. When he walked outside to see what all the commotion was about, 20+ people were cussing and fighting. Suddenly, a dude with a baseball bat approached their minivan. “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” shouts Hill, reliving each blow. All four windows were smashed. Mom frantically tried to stop him. She didn’t even have anything to do with this altercation. Turns out, this person was pissed off at someone living inside this trailer and thought the minivan was theirs.

He did spare the windshield. Mom was able to cover those four windows with trash bags and drive Julian to school.

But once again, Hill’s family was booted. The hosts blamed them for the melee.

Naturally, they moved two trailers down… into the home of the people who wrecked their van.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out. This stint lasted four months.

Fourteen people lived inside. One woman inside had five children — who had girlfriends, who had babies. Julian slept on a water bed with his mother and brother. There was hardly any food in the cabinets, ****roaches scurrying all over the floors and the fridge never had a drop of milk. Julian remembers pouring water into his Fruity Pepples cereal. It was revolting. (“I’m scarred still!”) For dinner, he usually ate a Hot Pocket or a Little Debbie cake. And if he was lucky, they’d dine off the Dollar Menu at McDonalds. His go-to order was a McChicken sandwich. (“When we got those, man, it was a celebration. Let’s go! That’s a feast.”)


Getty Images
Several times, he credits his mother for putting whatever food she could on the table but she couldn’t get clean. Whatever money she earned cooking at a hotel was spent on something else. Hill never had the luxury of “wants” in life. When it was time for a new pair of shoes, he’d get hand-me-downs or a $10 pair at Payless. Yet, any lack of material desires was nothing compared to what he witnessed on a daily basis.

Childhood innocence, bliss were nonexistent virtues.

Inside this trailer, domestic violence was at its worst.

“There were definitely times where you were fearful,” Hill says. “I’m a little kid, man. I’m seeing grown men. I’m seeing my mom in vulnerable states, and that’s the only person I know in my life. I don’t have anybody else to go to. This is the person who’s leading me into battle, who’s taking care of me at night, who’s directing me. My mom wouldn’t let anybody come in-between us.
“She’s trying to make ends meet. So she’s going to try to bring anybody she can into life that can help and whatever sacrifice she has to make personally, she was trying to make that. At the cost and expense of her.”

Punches were thrown by the adults nonstop. Kitchens were completely “flipped over.”

Violence was an everyday thing. Guaranteed as the sun rising in the AM.

And the next morning, he’d always see them made up, kiss, express love, move on.

“So as a young kid, you’re like: ‘Is it a problem?’” Hill says. “They’re loving and they’re happy the next day like nothing happened.”

He repeats: This was the scene “every day.”

Considering this was all he saw, Hill started throwing fists himself. On the trampoline out back, he’d spoil for a fight vs. other kids.

He cannot even put a number on the number of men brought into his life. Not all were romantic partners because his mother needed all financial assistance she could get. “And whatever she was using that money for?” asks Hill, biting his tongue. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she was using it for. Only thing I can say is that I had food on the table — not all the time — but, at times, it was good.”

One near-fatal night, those fists were replaced by bullets.

The night before his birthday, around 11 p.m., their trailer was blasted by gunfire. A terrified Hill fell from the couch to the floor and hid underneath a blanket.

Once the noise subsided, everyone walked outside to assess the damage. It felt like he was in the middle of a movie. Hill remembers staring at the trailer and counting the bullet holes. There were one… two.. three… nine in all. Somehow, nobody inside was struck by those nine bullets. Cops showed up. Cops never got to the bottom of this. Hill has no clue who pulled the trigger but Hill sure as hell knows why.

“Drugs,” he says. “I’m sure it was drugs.”

One week later, they were kicked out.

The good news? A woman with two daughters across the street let them move in.

The bad news? The woman was a hoarder.

“Stuff all the way to the ceiling,” Hill says. “Disgusting, man.”

Walking through the house was essentially an obstacle course. Plates were stacked everywhere, even inside the bathroom. The sight. The smell. All of it was gross. At night, Julian and his mother slept on a small twin air mattress. They’d watch The Lion King on VHS and then put earplugs in to mute the sound of ****roaches and rats. Trying to kill one or two of these insects was useless since they were hiding in every nook and cranny. Move one item and a handful would dart out without fail.

So one day, his mother had an idea. She spent the entire day cleaning the place. All trash was thrown out. All floors were scrubbed. This was an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition brought to life. Only, this grand reveal did not lead to celebration.

The homeowner returned and was livid. Fuming. Went ballistic because she preferred the grime.

You guessed it.

 

[Finsup1981]

Julian was kicked out again.

Back to square one. Back to survival mode. Back to trying to think of anyone who may open their home for a few months. One lady Mom knew from work let them stay at her house across town. Living quarters were crammed again — Hill recalls a dozen people living inside — but this period of childhood also proved to be a defining moment in his life. One night, the 9-year-old Julian finally realized that this lifestyle was not normal, not healthy.

Details are hazy. All Julian remembers is that it was (very) late and they were driving down a (very) desolate road. His mother didn’t explain where they were going or what she was doing. Only that she needed to visit someone and that he needed to stay in the car. “You can only imagine what was happening, right?” he adds. Mom returned, turned the key to start driving home on these backroads, and couldn’t stay awake.

She closed her eyes… tilted her head down toward the steering wheel… and their car swerved.

They easily could’ve struck another car. Or a tree. Anything.

“She’s falling asleep and I’m waking her up,” Hill says. “I’m like, ‘Ma, ma! Wake up, wake up!’ Right there, I made a vow to myself: ‘I’ll never smoke.’”

That night, son saw how quickly drugs could’ve ended both of their lives. An enlightening moment. The root of their homelessness — and all problems that came with it — was substance abuse. On the spot, he vowed to never drink or smoke his entire life. He only saw the negative effects of both. Hill believes his mother’s intentions were good. Car gets stolen? She finds a new means of transportation. Booted into the street? She talks their way into another trailer. She hustled. But after this night, his eyes were clear to the vicious cycle. Absolutely nothing was going to get better because his mother wasn’t making structural changes to her life.

“A kid’s going to need to be a kid and follow your parent,” he says. “Wherever they go, if they go down that dark room, and they take the car? ****, you better go because where else am I going?”

After two months inside this home, yet again, they were kicked out.

By then, Hill’s brother was living with his grandmother. His sister was living with her biological father.

Completely out of options, Julian and his mother turned back to Shannon and Paul Schaeffer.

His life changed forever.

---

April 2025. His afternoon is free, so Julian Hill takes the short drive from his current world at Miami Dolphins HQ to His House Children’s Home. There’s no signage out in the open, no indicator that you’ve arrived at your destination. His House is hidden — by design — with extremely tight security.

We cannot simply drive directly to the main lobby. A woman inside a booth must first examine your ID.

We get the OK, drive on and a gentleman named David Castrillon greets us inside. He’s the director of development here and, no, he is not a man who sugarcoats the dark reality facing the forgotten children in America today.

As soon as he taps the gas pedal on a golf cart to tour the campus, he brings up this vigilance.

His House cannot let any of its children venture off into South Florida via public transportation. Vans transport them to school, to restaurants, etc. And the reason the flow of traffic is monitored so closely, the reason bells and whistles are kept to a bare minimum along the main drag is that these kids are most at-risk to be trafficked. After sporting events — Dolphins games, F1 races, Copa America, etc. — employees have caught such monsters with telescopes tracking their movement. A few years back, His House intercepted drones flying over their property to locate specific children. Castrillon cites the movie, “Sound of Freedom,” which reveals the horrors of child trafficking. If a kilo of coke costs $15,000, he adds, a child that’s sold “a hundred times over” can make 10,000 times more than that.

This is a multi-billion-dollar industry and South Florida ranks No. 2 in the country for the highest number of kids trafficked.

“Their perpetrators are still out there,” he says. “We’ve got to protect them.”

Consider this the front lines of a war nobody wants to think about — let alone talk about — because such a netherworld is too unfathomably horrific. Sadly, such evil has a very large pool of abandoned kids to prey on. In the U.S., there’s roughly a half-million kids in foster care. Florida alone has 19,000, trailing only California and Texas. “The kids that we have here,” Castrillon says, “are kids that have nowhere to go. They’ve been rejected everywhere.”

On average, kids who land at His House have already cycled through 50 different home placements. All arrive with a level of trauma because all they know is abandonment, abuse and neglect from a hodgepodge of terrible situations. The best way Castrillon can put it? Think about the last time someone broke up with you, and the pain it caused you as an adult. Now imagine a young child being told they’re loved only to get dumped again… and again… and again… and again. One 14-year-old girl here had 92 different foster-care placements.

Whenever a child ages out of foster care, they can opt for a stipend of $1,200 but far too many drift right back into high-crime, low-income areas. The majority end up homeless or commit a crime within six months. Compounding the problem is the fact that as biological parents bail — Dads refusing to be Dads — foster families also dwindle. There’s a stigma to fostering. The net result: thousands of kids slipping right through the cracks of society.

Right here is a last resort. A chance for kids to finally receive what Castrillon calls “healthy love.”


Go Long
How a boy or girl winds up here is no mystery. Child Protective Investigators are alerted to a child who may be in trouble and — if there’s no family member, no foster parent available — this is a lifeline. A facility that hosts up to 200+ kids at a time inside 16 large homes. Most are between the ages of 5 and 18. His House matches up staff members who are from the same ethnic communities as kids, and does everything possible to prepare teens for the real world that awaits in adulthood via financial literacy, health/nutrition and career workshops. They’ll even learn how to cook.

Of course, Hill wasn’t trafficked. But Hill knows better than anyone that saving a child requires more than just a roof overhead. Nothing is fixed overnight. Everyone here witnessed the same sights Hill — often worse — which means somehow getting them to truly believe they’re more than a product of their circumstances.

Our golf cart pulls up to one such house. Castrillon chats in Spanish with one of the workers at the door and we slip inside to continue our chat.

More chilling stories are shared.

This is a real world we can choose to deny, or fight.

So many teen moms arrive — many the victim of trafficking or sexual abuse — that His House has its own maternity ward. “The youngest I think that we’ve ever seen here,” Castrillon says, “we had an 8-year-old that had a four-month old baby.”

Sometimes, new arrivals don’t even know their age. Other times, a teen mom doesn’t know the name of her own child. Six months ago, an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old arrived and neither was sure if they were a boy or a girl. They didn’t know anything about sex organs, nor had ever attended a day of school in their lives.

Ten years ago, Castrillon learned they cannot accept every single child. One girl had been trafficked for so long she became a trafficker herself from the inside. They’ve since learned to detect such red flags. Those with an arson background also cannot be admitted. One strong personality has the potential to destroy a home. “And,” he adds, “it takes so much more effort and time and resources to build it back up than to tear it down.” Even then, there’s a fine line to tightrope. It’s common for kids to tear apart a house during an event because that’s normal for them and “normal,” Castrillon acknowledges, “is chaos. They need to see chaos to feel like, ‘I’m OK.’”

Normal is also sleeping on the floor or underneath their bed the first two weeks.

Normal is hoarding food because old survival instincts kick in — the concept of a consistent meal is foreign to them.

Normal is a young girl approaching Castrillon and saying the most inappropriate things he’s ever heard in his life. Things he’d never repeat.

“It’s like, ‘Whoa!’ Why? Because they’ve been trafficked since they were four years old. So that's all that they know,” Castrillon says. “And so to get them from what they know to ‘This is healthy love. This is a healthy relationship. That takes a true community to come together and be able to see it.’ And when they see somebody like Julian that like, ‘Hey, I came up from this and look where I'm at now.’ That gives him hope. And if there’s anything that these kids need it’s hope.
“Hope in a brighter tomorrow that if he can make it, I can make it. And so when he’s here and they see him, he’s a walk of hope. He’s a hope of light.”

Whenever visitors do stop by to bring gifts or speak or lend a hand in some capacity, they’re usually taken aback. Hill was himself, and we’ll explain more in Part II. Kids look suspicious, not grateful. They barely utter a word. The instinct isn’t Thank You, rather What does guy want from me? They’ve never encountered such generosity before.

One in 4 kids who’ve been in foster care suffer a form of PTSD. Through 1-on-1 psychiatry, His House tries to help them all discover that joy within.

Before even thinking about a possible career, kids must learn to believe in themselves.

“Otherwise, all the stuff that you give them,” Castrillon says, “it’s not going to make a difference.”

Boys and girls themselves get to pick the theme of their bedrooms. This day, we’re standing in the “butterfly room.” Flowers are perched on a ledge next to a large teddy bear. On the wall there’s a purple butterfly, which signifies inner strength and overcoming adversity. On another wall there are several positive messages painted as reminders: Dream Big, Work Hard, Be Brave, Keep Smiling, Stay Positive, Make it Happen. This is the hard part for anyone trying to save at-risk kids anywhere in the country. No stranger with a microphone can instill true hope in kids via a 45-minute speech because hope itself is something most of them have never felt before. It’s cultivated within.

Focusing on the positive is always the first step toward healing. Before meals, kids are asked the same question: “What are you grateful for?”

First-time experiences help. One by one.

Birthday parties and baby showers and Christmas parties. (Most have never even seen a Christmas tree.) New clothes. (That’s why His House doesn’t take clothes donations. These kids have been wearing the shirts and pants of other kids their entire lives.) Dining out at a restaurant is always a thrill. The first time they went to Benihana — a hibachi chain — kids effectively went bonkers when the chef started flipping utensils and steak right in front of their eyes. Most were on such a high from the theatrics they didn’t even bother to eat their meal when it was cooked. Still, something as simple as a waiter asking kids, “How can I help you?” is a subconscious boost. (“They’ve never heard that before,” Castrillon says.)

Venture into any major city and you’re bound to see the jarring juxtaposition. Near a very rich neighborhood, there’s homelessness. Miami’s the perfect Petri dish. Two blocks away from Wynwood, a booming entertainment district, is Camillus House serving the homeless. Castrillon notes that 50 percent of those people living in the street grew up in foster care.

To him, that’s the key: Save as many kids as you can and you prevent future drug abuse, future homelessness, future offspring left to pour water into their cereal.

“You’ve got to catch it,” he says. “You have to be proactive about it so they don’t become a statistic.”

With that, we climb back into the golf cart and start looping around the property.

There’s a peace and prayer garden. Two years ago, Publix helped create this space to plant and care for vegetables in six pots. A few girls are laughing at the playground. There’s colorful artwork splattered on the buildings, too. Inspirational messages such as The key to success is within and Love Yourself. But, uh, nobody will be playing basketball any time soon. The backboard is completely smashed. All that exists is the rectangular border of what used to be a backboard. “It needs a little bit of TLC,” Castrillon admits.

Which is putting it kindly. The sight of that backboard is symbolic. Places like this do everything they possibly can to save a life, but it can feel like nothing is ever enough.

Transformational change is possible. At a ceremony last year, a woman named Jackie Gonzalez said she and her sister would’ve become victims of trafficking if it wasn’t for their three years here. She became the lead detective on the human trafficking task force for state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. There are glimmers of hope on the national level. Castrillon notes that Jamie Foxx was in foster care and that Tyler Perry endured both abuse and homelessness growing up.

Most people, however, suppress their past trauma. Bury it so unbelievably deep that they’re never able to represent “a light of hope for somebody else.”

A light is needed here — and everywhere — for kids struggling.

Someone who was nearly swallowed whole himself, received a second chance, and completely turned his life around.

Someone who’s closely listening to every one of David Castrillon’s stories this sultry spring day.

They need Julian Hill.

 

[Avigatorx]

When I clicked on this thread I didn't realize I was gonna read War & Peace.

 

[Feverdream]

When I clicked on this thread I didn't realize I was gonna read War & Peace.

Reading is FUNdamental.

Anyone old enough to remember that?

 

[Avigatorx]

Reading is FUNdamental.

Anyone old enough to remember that?

 

[Finsup1981]

When I clicked on this thread I didn't realize I was gonna read War & Peace.

This is Part 1 he still has Part 2 coming soon lmao

 

[chuck dezl]

So it looks like I'm a Julian Hill fan now. I regret how upset I was getting with him last year. I really hope he turns it around this year

 

[Finsup1981]

So it looks like I'm a Julian Hill fan now. I regret how upset I was getting with him last year. I really hope he turns it around this year

He deserved all the anger, he was playing terrible and he knew it...he really cleaned it up the 2nd half of the year, really hope he can turn it around I'm rooting for him.

 

[PhinFan1968]

Reading is FUNdamental.

Anyone old enough to remember that?

The good old "RIF" campaign, yep. We had a bookmobile that would come around the neighborhood every month or so and they always had displays about it.

Miss those days...used to get so excited when the bookmobile came around. They had ALL the cool kids' books.

 

[The Goat]

I didn’t put about who cause I know some of you wouldn’t read it if I did. I know hes been terrible, but a majority of his penalties were early in the season and the guys still so raw and unrefined. We always talk about being tougher and more physical, well this guy is the most physical player on the team, he tries his ass off. He may not still be very good, but reading this makes me want to root for the kid to make it.

Now if he’s anywhere near as bad as he was in the beginning of the year then I don’t care about any kumbaya rah-rah stories, then he’s gotta go. I’m rooting for the kid to make it, he has the fire and the passion that a lot of these guys don’t have, and it’s important to have guys like Hill who set the tone in practice and by knocking the snot out of the other team, staying late etc . All I’m saying is give the guy one more chance.




MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Close your eyes and try to remember anything that happened in your life at age 5. Or 6. Or even 7. Chances are, all that leaps to the forefront of mind are fleeting moments preserved on VHS or a Polaroid. Moments kept alive with Mom or Dad’s colorful narration over time: the trip to Disney World, the first Pop Warner touchdown.

Left alone, memories fade. Childhoods get fuzzy. Life goes on.

This is the not the case for Julian Hill.

First, the same damn chihuahua chased him home from elementary school. It’d yelp and yelp and nip at his heels the whole way. Then, he’d walk through the front door of a trailer and brace for the worst every day. There was no telling what’d happen that particular day in Fayetteville, N.C. The scenes persist — permanently — as flashes of light etched his mind. Sights and sounds and smells he will never forget.

A stranger smashing the windows out of his mother’s car.

Bullets spraying his home.

****roaches and rats scattering across the bedroom floor.

Marijuana smoke filling the air.

Domestic violence.

When asked for the lowest of lows, Hill doesn’t hesitate. He can still picture the couches thrown, the glasses shattered, the flurry of hooks and uppercuts and haymakers thrown at his own mother. It was awful. He’ll never be able to forget it. The stream of boyfriends who moved in with his mother were physically abusive. One particular fight didn’t scar Hill because this was what he witnessed every single day.

“It got rough,” Hill says. “Who’s breaking it up?”

Eventually, the abuser gets tired and quits. Perhaps a neighbor or a housemate calls the cops. But even that knock on the door from law enforcement never solved a thing. Mom never went to the police herself, never sought help in a serious way. The very next morning, Hill would see everyone act as if nothing happened. His mother never tried to actively flee these situations, so Hill never viewed the violent attacks as a problem. Rather, this was the “culture,” the result of Mom thinking she could fix these men in her life, viewing the abuse as a necessary sacrifice to survive and her own demons. She had severe drug issues.

Floor to floor. Trailer to trailer. Fight to fight. Son didn’t realize it at the time but — for 3 to 4 years of his childhood — he was homeless.

At worse, Julian Hill knows he could be dead.

At best, he should suffer trauma at a deep level.

Instead, he’s in the NFL. He’s lounging inside the Miami Dolphins sparkling facilities. The man with a bushy beard and tender eyes wears a Chicago White Sox hat and a t-shirt featuring a close-up of Marty McFly. The third-year NFL tight end is a hulking presence. The 6-foot-4, 251-pound bull appears fully capable of supplying the NBA’s Heat six hard fouls or NHL’s Panthers a five-minute major. On a football field, he’s exactly what these Dolphins need to finally win in December: all smash, no flash. Hill would love to seal off a defensive end and spring De’Von Achane free for 50 yards. Or catch a TD on third and goal. Or lead these Dolphins to their first playoff win in a quarter-century.

But when Hill wakes up, his motivation is quite difficult than his peers.

He’s on a mission to save lives — no metaphor, no exaggeration. Hill knows the millions of viewers at home watching the NFL do not see the America he survived as a kid. So it was only natural for Hill to feel a magnetic pull toward kids like him living on the brink today. When he’s not at his day job, this Dolphins pro is 2.9 miles down the road at His House Children’s Home chatting 1 on 1 with as many at-risk kids as he possibly can.

Kids who’ve been trafficked. Kids who’ve never felt healthy love in their entire lives.

Kids in desperate need of hope.

Hill must pay it forward because, if not him, who?

There’s no burying his childhood.

He’ll relive it all.

---

The conversation begins with the banging of a fist on the table. He refuses to disclose her name — their relationship is complicated today — but Julian Hill insists his biological mother did everything she could. Back in the day, she was in the military. She even worked as a chef.

Unfortunately, to put it kindly, she then “fell down a rabbit hole” of drugs and couldn’t stop.

Different boyfriends. Different people to “house-sit.” Anyone who could help pay a few bills was welcomed inside their trailer. Most fed her worst impulses and, at one point, Mom entered drug rehab. Hill never knew his Dad. He bailed from the jump. So for those three months, he moved in with his mother’s best friend from high school: Shannon Schaeffer and her husband, Paul. Mom was released. Julian moved back in with her. Next thing he knew? An entirely new family was moving into their trailer. Three people. Then, four. Then, five. To the point that eight people lived inside and his mother was sleeping on the couch.

One chilly morning, Mom started the car up early to get the heat circulating. When they walked back outside to leave for school, it was gone. Never to be seen again.

Hill was 6 years old at the time. At home, all he recalls seeing is alcohol and marijuana use out in the open. Thinking back, he’s certain his mother and the others were using worse drugs behind closed doors. About three months into this living arrangement, a fight broke out. The couple that had moved in was able to contribute money. Mom was broke. Hill, his brother and his mother were all booted from their own home.

That’s when the descent began.

“You’re surviving,” Hill says. “It was nothing but that.”

After borrowing a friend’s car for a while, they got a minivan. Whatever he owned — school clothes, a few pairs of underwear — were tossed into the back and Hill moved trailer to trailer. In all, he attended four different elementary schools.

First, they moved in with a different friend from Mom’s high school days. (A miserable experience.)

Next, they were eight deep in another person’s trailer for two months.

At 1 a.m., Hill awoke one night to raucous screaming. When he walked outside to see what all the commotion was about, 20+ people were cussing and fighting. Suddenly, a dude with a baseball bat approached their minivan. “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” shouts Hill, reliving each blow. All four windows were smashed. Mom frantically tried to stop him. She didn’t even have anything to do with this altercation. Turns out, this person was pissed off at someone living inside this trailer and thought the minivan was theirs.

He did spare the windshield. Mom was able to cover those four windows with trash bags and drive Julian to school.

But once again, Hill’s family was booted. The hosts blamed them for the melee.

Naturally, they moved two trailers down… into the home of the people who wrecked their van.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out. This stint lasted four months.

Fourteen people lived inside. One woman inside had five children — who had girlfriends, who had babies. Julian slept on a water bed with his mother and brother. There was hardly any food in the cabinets, ****roaches scurrying all over the floors and the fridge never had a drop of milk. Julian remembers pouring water into his Fruity Pepples cereal. It was revolting. (“I’m scarred still!”) For dinner, he usually ate a Hot Pocket or a Little Debbie cake. And if he was lucky, they’d dine off the Dollar Menu at McDonalds. His go-to order was a McChicken sandwich. (“When we got those, man, it was a celebration. Let’s go! That’s a feast.”)


Getty Images
Several times, he credits his mother for putting whatever food she could on the table but she couldn’t get clean. Whatever money she earned cooking at a hotel was spent on something else. Hill never had the luxury of “wants” in life. When it was time for a new pair of shoes, he’d get hand-me-downs or a $10 pair at Payless. Yet, any lack of material desires was nothing compared to what he witnessed on a daily basis.

Childhood innocence, bliss were nonexistent virtues.

Inside this trailer, domestic violence was at its worst.


Punches were thrown by the adults nonstop. Kitchens were completely “flipped over.”

Violence was an everyday thing. Guaranteed as the sun rising in the AM.

And the next morning, he’d always see them made up, kiss, express love, move on.

“So as a young kid, you’re like: ‘Is it a problem?’” Hill says. “They’re loving and they’re happy the next day like nothing happened.”

He repeats: This was the scene “every day.”

Considering this was all he saw, Hill started throwing fists himself. On the trampoline out back, he’d spoil for a fight vs. other kids.

He cannot even put a number on the number of men brought into his life. Not all were romantic partners because his mother needed all financial assistance she could get. “And whatever she was using that money for?” asks Hill, biting his tongue. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she was using it for. Only thing I can say is that I had food on the table — not all the time — but, at times, it was good.”

One near-fatal night, those fists were replaced by bullets.

The night before his birthday, around 11 p.m., their trailer was blasted by gunfire. A terrified Hill fell from the couch to the floor and hid underneath a blanket.

Once the noise subsided, everyone walked outside to assess the damage. It felt like he was in the middle of a movie. Hill remembers staring at the trailer and counting the bullet holes. There were one… two.. three… nine in all. Somehow, nobody inside was struck by those nine bullets. Cops showed up. Cops never got to the bottom of this. Hill has no clue who pulled the trigger but Hill sure as hell knows why.

“Drugs,” he says. “I’m sure it was drugs.”

One week later, they were kicked out.

The good news? A woman with two daughters across the street let them move in.

The bad news? The woman was a hoarder.

“Stuff all the way to the ceiling,” Hill says. “Disgusting, man.”

Walking through the house was essentially an obstacle course. Plates were stacked everywhere, even inside the bathroom. The sight. The smell. All of it was gross. At night, Julian and his mother slept on a small twin air mattress. They’d watch The Lion King on VHS and then put earplugs in to mute the sound of ****roaches and rats. Trying to kill one or two of these insects was useless since they were hiding in every nook and cranny. Move one item and a handful would dart out without fail.

So one day, his mother had an idea. She spent the entire day cleaning the place. All trash was thrown out. All floors were scrubbed. This was an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition brought to life. Only, this grand reveal did not lead to celebration.

The homeowner returned and was livid. Fuming. Went ballistic because she preferred the grime.

You guessed it.

There is clearly something there to be seen.

But at some point. if that "something" does not present itself consistently, it's time to move on.

I'd say Hill has until late July for that to be seen.

 

[MARINO1384]

Did i miss the part where it explained why he sucks at football?

 

[Feverdream]

The good old "RIF" campaign, yep. We had a bookmobile that would come around the neighborhood every month or so and they always had displays about it.

Miss those days...used to get so excited when the bookmobile came around. They had ALL the cool kids' books.

...and the book sales from Scholastic! I'm so old that I bought a book of Beatles lyrics.

 

[Finsup1981]

There is clearly something there to be seen.

But at some point. if that "something" does not present itself consistently, it's time to move on.

I'd say Hill has until late July for that to be seen.

Agreed, time to put up or shut up for him he's had enough chances..really hope he turns it around he brings the physicality and toughness we have all been asking for.

 

[The Goat]

...and the book sales from Scholastic! I'm so old that I bought a book of Beatles lyrics.

It was so antiquated and pure. You brought in a few dollars, and three weeks later, your teacher handed you a book.

 

[lurking]

I didn’t put about who cause I know some of you wouldn’t read it if I did. I know hes been terrible, but a majority of his penalties were early in the season and the guys still so raw and unrefined. We always talk about being tougher and more physical, well this guy is the most physical player on the team, he tries his ass off. He may not still be very good, but reading this makes me want to root for the kid to make it.

Now if he’s anywhere near as bad as he was in the beginning of the year then I don’t care about any kumbaya rah-rah stories, then he’s gotta go. I’m rooting for the kid to make it, he has the fire and the passion that a lot of these guys don’t have, and it’s important to have guys like Hill who set the tone in practice and by knocking the snot out of the other team, staying late etc . All I’m saying is give the guy one more chance.




MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Close your eyes and try to remember anything that happened in your life at age 5. Or 6. Or even 7. Chances are, all that leaps to the forefront of mind are fleeting moments preserved on VHS or a Polaroid. Moments kept alive with Mom or Dad’s colorful narration over time: the trip to Disney World, the first Pop Warner touchdown.

Left alone, memories fade. Childhoods get fuzzy. Life goes on.

This is the not the case for Julian Hill.

First, the same damn chihuahua chased him home from elementary school. It’d yelp and yelp and nip at his heels the whole way. Then, he’d walk through the front door of a trailer and brace for the worst every day. There was no telling what’d happen that particular day in Fayetteville, N.C. The scenes persist — permanently — as flashes of light etched his mind. Sights and sounds and smells he will never forget.

A stranger smashing the windows out of his mother’s car.

Bullets spraying his home.

****roaches and rats scattering across the bedroom floor.

Marijuana smoke filling the air.

Domestic violence.

When asked for the lowest of lows, Hill doesn’t hesitate. He can still picture the couches thrown, the glasses shattered, the flurry of hooks and uppercuts and haymakers thrown at his own mother. It was awful. He’ll never be able to forget it. The stream of boyfriends who moved in with his mother were physically abusive. One particular fight didn’t scar Hill because this was what he witnessed every single day.

“It got rough,” Hill says. “Who’s breaking it up?”

Eventually, the abuser gets tired and quits. Perhaps a neighbor or a housemate calls the cops. But even that knock on the door from law enforcement never solved a thing. Mom never went to the police herself, never sought help in a serious way. The very next morning, Hill would see everyone act as if nothing happened. His mother never tried to actively flee these situations, so Hill never viewed the violent attacks as a problem. Rather, this was the “culture,” the result of Mom thinking she could fix these men in her life, viewing the abuse as a necessary sacrifice to survive and her own demons. She had severe drug issues.

Floor to floor. Trailer to trailer. Fight to fight. Son didn’t realize it at the time but — for 3 to 4 years of his childhood — he was homeless.

At worse, Julian Hill knows he could be dead.

At best, he should suffer trauma at a deep level.

Instead, he’s in the NFL. He’s lounging inside the Miami Dolphins sparkling facilities. The man with a bushy beard and tender eyes wears a Chicago White Sox hat and a t-shirt featuring a close-up of Marty McFly. The third-year NFL tight end is a hulking presence. The 6-foot-4, 251-pound bull appears fully capable of supplying the NBA’s Heat six hard fouls or NHL’s Panthers a five-minute major. On a football field, he’s exactly what these Dolphins need to finally win in December: all smash, no flash. Hill would love to seal off a defensive end and spring De’Von Achane free for 50 yards. Or catch a TD on third and goal. Or lead these Dolphins to their first playoff win in a quarter-century.

But when Hill wakes up, his motivation is quite difficult than his peers.

He’s on a mission to save lives — no metaphor, no exaggeration. Hill knows the millions of viewers at home watching the NFL do not see the America he survived as a kid. So it was only natural for Hill to feel a magnetic pull toward kids like him living on the brink today. When he’s not at his day job, this Dolphins pro is 2.9 miles down the road at His House Children’s Home chatting 1 on 1 with as many at-risk kids as he possibly can.

Kids who’ve been trafficked. Kids who’ve never felt healthy love in their entire lives.

Kids in desperate need of hope.

Hill must pay it forward because, if not him, who?

There’s no burying his childhood.

He’ll relive it all.

---

The conversation begins with the banging of a fist on the table. He refuses to disclose her name — their relationship is complicated today — but Julian Hill insists his biological mother did everything she could. Back in the day, she was in the military. She even worked as a chef.

Unfortunately, to put it kindly, she then “fell down a rabbit hole” of drugs and couldn’t stop.

Different boyfriends. Different people to “house-sit.” Anyone who could help pay a few bills was welcomed inside their trailer. Most fed her worst impulses and, at one point, Mom entered drug rehab. Hill never knew his Dad. He bailed from the jump. So for those three months, he moved in with his mother’s best friend from high school: Shannon Schaeffer and her husband, Paul. Mom was released. Julian moved back in with her. Next thing he knew? An entirely new family was moving into their trailer. Three people. Then, four. Then, five. To the point that eight people lived inside and his mother was sleeping on the couch.

One chilly morning, Mom started the car up early to get the heat circulating. When they walked back outside to leave for school, it was gone. Never to be seen again.

Hill was 6 years old at the time. At home, all he recalls seeing is alcohol and marijuana use out in the open. Thinking back, he’s certain his mother and the others were using worse drugs behind closed doors. About three months into this living arrangement, a fight broke out. The couple that had moved in was able to contribute money. Mom was broke. Hill, his brother and his mother were all booted from their own home.

That’s when the descent began.

“You’re surviving,” Hill says. “It was nothing but that.”

After borrowing a friend’s car for a while, they got a minivan. Whatever he owned — school clothes, a few pairs of underwear — were tossed into the back and Hill moved trailer to trailer. In all, he attended four different elementary schools.

First, they moved in with a different friend from Mom’s high school days. (A miserable experience.)

Next, they were eight deep in another person’s trailer for two months.

At 1 a.m., Hill awoke one night to raucous screaming. When he walked outside to see what all the commotion was about, 20+ people were cussing and fighting. Suddenly, a dude with a baseball bat approached their minivan. “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” shouts Hill, reliving each blow. All four windows were smashed. Mom frantically tried to stop him. She didn’t even have anything to do with this altercation. Turns out, this person was pissed off at someone living inside this trailer and thought the minivan was theirs.

He did spare the windshield. Mom was able to cover those four windows with trash bags and drive Julian to school.

But once again, Hill’s family was booted. The hosts blamed them for the melee.

Naturally, they moved two trailers down… into the home of the people who wrecked their van.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out. This stint lasted four months.

Fourteen people lived inside. One woman inside had five children — who had girlfriends, who had babies. Julian slept on a water bed with his mother and brother. There was hardly any food in the cabinets, ****roaches scurrying all over the floors and the fridge never had a drop of milk. Julian remembers pouring water into his Fruity Pepples cereal. It was revolting. (“I’m scarred still!”) For dinner, he usually ate a Hot Pocket or a Little Debbie cake. And if he was lucky, they’d dine off the Dollar Menu at McDonalds. His go-to order was a McChicken sandwich. (“When we got those, man, it was a celebration. Let’s go! That’s a feast.”)


Getty Images
Several times, he credits his mother for putting whatever food she could on the table but she couldn’t get clean. Whatever money she earned cooking at a hotel was spent on something else. Hill never had the luxury of “wants” in life. When it was time for a new pair of shoes, he’d get hand-me-downs or a $10 pair at Payless. Yet, any lack of material desires was nothing compared to what he witnessed on a daily basis.

Childhood innocence, bliss were nonexistent virtues.

Inside this trailer, domestic violence was at its worst.


Punches were thrown by the adults nonstop. Kitchens were completely “flipped over.”

Violence was an everyday thing. Guaranteed as the sun rising in the AM.

And the next morning, he’d always see them made up, kiss, express love, move on.

“So as a young kid, you’re like: ‘Is it a problem?’” Hill says. “They’re loving and they’re happy the next day like nothing happened.”

He repeats: This was the scene “every day.”

Considering this was all he saw, Hill started throwing fists himself. On the trampoline out back, he’d spoil for a fight vs. other kids.

He cannot even put a number on the number of men brought into his life. Not all were romantic partners because his mother needed all financial assistance she could get. “And whatever she was using that money for?” asks Hill, biting his tongue. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she was using it for. Only thing I can say is that I had food on the table — not all the time — but, at times, it was good.”

One near-fatal night, those fists were replaced by bullets.

The night before his birthday, around 11 p.m., their trailer was blasted by gunfire. A terrified Hill fell from the couch to the floor and hid underneath a blanket.

Once the noise subsided, everyone walked outside to assess the damage. It felt like he was in the middle of a movie. Hill remembers staring at the trailer and counting the bullet holes. There were one… two.. three… nine in all. Somehow, nobody inside was struck by those nine bullets. Cops showed up. Cops never got to the bottom of this. Hill has no clue who pulled the trigger but Hill sure as hell knows why.

“Drugs,” he says. “I’m sure it was drugs.”

One week later, they were kicked out.

The good news? A woman with two daughters across the street let them move in.

The bad news? The woman was a hoarder.

“Stuff all the way to the ceiling,” Hill says. “Disgusting, man.”

Walking through the house was essentially an obstacle course. Plates were stacked everywhere, even inside the bathroom. The sight. The smell. All of it was gross. At night, Julian and his mother slept on a small twin air mattress. They’d watch The Lion King on VHS and then put earplugs in to mute the sound of ****roaches and rats. Trying to kill one or two of these insects was useless since they were hiding in every nook and cranny. Move one item and a handful would dart out without fail.

So one day, his mother had an idea. She spent the entire day cleaning the place. All trash was thrown out. All floors were scrubbed. This was an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition brought to life. Only, this grand reveal did not lead to celebration.

The homeowner returned and was livid. Fuming. Went ballistic because she preferred the grime.

You guessed it.

Great story, thanks for sharing.