UNLV student trainer short on stature, high on accomplishments

One stood 3 feet, 7 inches.

His name is Brandon Hamilton. He’s 28 years old. He’s from Detroit, but he has people here. For the past two years, he has been a student trainer at UNLV, taping ankles and treating hamstrings with the UNLV football and volleyball teams.

On Saturday, he graduated from UNLV with a degree in athletic training.

I’m told quite a cheer went up when he walked up on stage to shake hands with Dr. Len Jessup, the UNLV president.

I also met another young man named Ray Pruitt; he was introduced as Brandon’s brother. Ray is of normal size and he’s not really Brandon’s brother. It just seems like it. It has seemed like it since the two were seventh-graders growing up in a blighted neighborhood in southwestern Detroit.

Ray lived across the street from Brandon. He said they shared similar interests — mostly following the Lions and Tigers and the other Detroit sports teams, and street hockey.

Ray says his ankles still are still sore from when Brandon would slash him. Guys who stand 3-7 usually are not big goal scorers, but they tend to be effective at slashing and at digging the street hockey ball out of the corner.

Ray Pruitt flew in from the Motor City to watch his little brother receive the parchment. Brandon, I was told, graduated with a 3.9 grade-point average.

“I wish,” he said.

It was “only” 3.7.

But what are two percentage points when you’ve been through what he has?

“He’s been taking me around, and just to hear how he impacts everybody he deals with on a regular basis, how everyone is so excited for him … it’s hard to put into words how proud I am,” Ray said.

Brandon, whose parents are of normal size, has a condition called pseudoachondroplasia — a severe form of bone growth disorder. The average height of adult males with this disorder is 3 feet, 11 inches.

Most of his life has been surgeries and adjustments, both physical and mental adjustments, none of which has precluded him from living productively and attaining goals. He drives his own car, thank you — a blue 2004 Chevy Cavalier. The foot pedals have been adjusted. Otherwise, it’s just like every other Cavalier.

Does he wish he would have been picked earlier when sides were chosen for basketball? You bet. But he is as tough as the streets in which he grew older. Yes, kids can be mean. You deal with it. You develop mental toughness. You set goals and you achieve them, if you work hard. Like kids of any size.

You decide you will go to junior college and study business, but you find business to be boring. So, associate’s degree in hand, you reinvent yourself — sort of like Madonna, who also is from Detroit.

Maybe at 3-7 you can’t play in the NBA. Or Vogue on center stage. But maybe you can tape ankles in the NBA.

A lot of people didn’t think Brandon Hamilton would be able to tape ankles at UNLV. He managed. He wished he would have had a bigger platform on which to stand, though. People don’t realize how you must move around to tape an ankle properly.

It was just one more adjustment.

“It was interesting, there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it,” said Hamilton, who was wearing a Tigers jersey with Justin Verlander’s name and number on back.

“I did my best with the knowledge I had,” he said of taping the ankles of the UNLV football players when Bobby Hauck was coach. “I traveled once, to San Jose State. We almost won.

“I never had to check anybody for disrespecting me, or anything like that.”

Kyle Wilson, UNLV’s longtime head trainer, said Hamilton was highly motivated and at the top of UNLV’s student training class, even if he was lousy at taping ankles.

“That’s just one small part of it,” Wilson said. “He was a smart guy, always asking questions. He wanted to learn. And he sure loved hockey.”

A lot of people would say Brandon Hamilton is an overachiever. I think he would prefer to say he has been on a nice run. Sort of like the Lions when Wayne Fontes was coach.

He graduated from UNLV, and now he has been accepted to graduate school at St. Cloud State in Minnesota. St. Cloud has a Division I hockey team.

His ultimate goal was to be a hockey trainer at the University of Minnesota. Another adjustment may be called for. St. Cloud State beat Minnesota twice last year.

Brandon will drive his Cavalier to the Frozen Tundra for the fall semester. He’ll need to check the antifreeze, and hopefully they’ll provide a bigger platform upon which to tape the ankles of the checking line. He’ll also probably need around $14,000 for tuition and room and board and other expenses, $14,000 that he doesn’t have.

That might sound like a lot. But in talking with Brandon Hamilton, one gets the impression that it’ll be just another small obstacle to overcome.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski