Richmond Senior quarterback Caleb Hood wants to bring glory back to Rockingham

Caleb Hood always wanted to be a Richmond Senior Raider.

His grandfather, Paul Hoggard, was a former Raiders coach. His father, Errol, who played high school football for Hoggard at West Caldwell High, later played cornerback at North Carolina.

And Caleb, now a junior, has regularly gone to Raiders games since he was in third grade. He was a ball boy, sometimes running onto the field for impromptu halftime games with his buddies.

“I couldn’t wait to play here,” Hood said. “It was surreal (the first time he put the uniform on). I remember the student section from the other team was like, ‘It’s past your bedtime’ from the other side.’ ”

Hood was a starting freshman quarterback then. He won that first game, 45-24, against Pfafftown Reagan. Richmond went onto finish 7-5 in the 2017 season, and Hood threw for 2,095 yards and 16 touchdowns.

But Richmond Senior coach Bryan Till, who was a first-year coach during Hood’s rookie season, already knew he had a special talent.

“Our quarterbacks coach at the time told me that we had a kid coming up who will be really good,” Till said. “I’ve been around several Division I kids, and what tends to separate those guys is not just the talent, but they tend to have a love and focus for the game, and Caleb had that.”

And when Till saw how hard Hood was working in the weight room, he really began to think he had something special.

Sure enough, last season Hood threw for 1,956 yards and 21 touchdowns, and he ran for 594 yards and six scores. Richmond finished 11-2. That was the Raiders’ best record since an 11-2 finish in 2014, the final year that Hoggard coached the team.

The 2018 Richmond team also reached the third round of the N.C. 4AA playoffs, just two wins away from the state finals. So Hood got a taste of big success at the school he always dreamed of playing for, but he also saw the pressure that comes with it.

Richmond Senior is the only high school in Rockingham, and Raiders games are a major attraction for the townsfolk. So being quarterback at Richmond is really big deal.

“It’s great,” Hood said. “But it’s a lot of pressure. A lot of times everything is your fault , and if it’s going good, it’s your fault, too. People notice you, so you’ve got to watch yourself and make sure you’re doing the right things.”

For Hood, the right thing is mainly getting Richmond back on top of the N.C. high school football mountain, where it used to sit, nearly alone.

Richmond Senior opened in 1972, and the school has won seven state championships. It has had one losing season, but before Till took over, the Raiders had gone 20-7 in two seasons and didn’t resemble the state juggernaut they once were.

“Our plan,” Till said, “when I first came in was to get this community back together.”

He worked hard to get the youth league and middle school teams to run the same offenses and defenses that the high school team ran. He increased the team’s presence on social media and became a regular in the community. He brought increased organization to the team.

Ultimately, Hood said Till helped bring back hope and pride to Rockingham.

Now a top-40 prospect in the N.C. junior class by 247 Sports, Hood wants to bring a title back to his hometown. He knows that is the one thing everybody wants most.

At 5-11 and 212 pounds, Hood has offers from Appalachian State, Duke, North Carolina and Wake Forest. He said those schools are recruiting him as a defensive back, which is fine by him.

“Man,” he said, “I just want to play football.”

For now his goals are to play quarterback and lead the Raiders to that big 2019 season. He wants to pass for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000. In two games this season, he has thrown for 325 yards and five touchdowns, and has run eight times for 56 yards. But he hasn’t played a whole game yet due to blowouts.

On Friday at home against rival Butler, Hood figures to be on the field the whole time. And he can’t wait for the season’s first big test.

“It’s just a mental thing,” Hood said. “To us, we work harder probably than anybody in the state. We’ve got to stay motivated, and we don’t think anybody’s better than us in our head. We’re fearless.”

This story was originally published September 5, 2019 at 6:40 PM.