On the back of a horse, Starling knew he had found the right fit
When UVa swooped in last week and changed his life, three-star wide receiver Demick Starling couldn't believe it. That's why, as he was finishing up his official visit, he still couldn't.
And before he left for home, he committed to Bronco Mendenhall and the Wahoos.
“Once I knew that I was going on the visit, I wasn’t trying to get my hopes up about the glam and the glory,” Starling told CavsCorner that day. “Look, it’s a Power 5 organization so I know that the facilities and the stadium were going to be great. I knew that. So, I wanted to keep an open mind about other things, like what are the people like and what are the coaches like, know what I mean? What’s the city like?”
What he couldn't have known, though, was that he would know it was time to commit as he was riding a horse for the first time.
“I met a lot of the players and all the coaches and everything and it just felt like home,” he said. “You have that feeling where it just seems like family. It felt like I was still down in Tennessee with my own family and just brought up there. It was right.”
“Demick blossomed late in his high school career, didn’t attend summer camps, a bit of a diamond in the rough,” Mendenhall said on NSD. “We were fortunate to have one of our analysts, Zach Bradshaw, identify him. He’s an amazing, amazing athlete. Fantastic track and field competitor who excels at sprints and the high jump. We feel he has the skills, and more importantly the desire and work ethic, to fit into our wide receiver room and develop along the same path that some of our recent players at that position have.”
Starling's mother and grandmother were also on the trip and they too came away from their time on Grounds extremely excited for what was ahead.
“They loved it just as much as I did,” he said. “They feel comfortable with sending me to UVa. They also see that it’s like a family there, too.”
The fact that UVa, Marques Hagans, and Mendenhall found him and gave him this opportunity Isn't lost on the up and coming receiver.
“I’m really lucky,” he said simply, before adding that he knows what UVa wants to see out of him. He said his connection with host Terrell Jana made that, and his ultimate decision, all the more clear.
“Coming in, he’s going to be like a mentor," Starling said, "and a leader for me I think."
Before then, though, the work remains. As he goes through the rest of his senior year and an eventual trip back to Charlottesville to move in, there's a lot that Starling wants to do. And he's fully aware of the grind that awaits him.
It's what makes the last week even more Incredible.
“Man, it still doesn’t feel real,” he said. “It really doesn’t. It feels like a dream come true for me. They believed in me, man. So I’m going to come in and work hard and make them proud.”
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