Micah Hilts: More than a Football Player

Micah Hilts uses his hands to make plays on and off the field, from catching passes as a tight end to lending a helping hand in his community. But he does not want to be known as just a football player. 

Helping others comes before football. His parents instilled in him the importance of community involvement. Back home in Colorado, the Hilts family would frequently take part in community service projects through the churches they attended. 

Another key piece of Micah’s life is family. He is the youngest of six kids by seven years.

“Family is super important to me,” Hilts said. “I have a tattoo on my arm that says ‘family is everything’ in Amharic, which is one of the languages they speak in Ethiopia because my three oldest siblings were adopted from Ethiopia. It's the truth: family means everything.”

The adoption process has shown Hilts how beautiful it can be.

“It does not matter to me that they're adopted to me, they're my brothers and sisters,” said Hilts. “I see the opportunity that my parents gave them, and how much that they have blessed everyone around them.” 

At Vista Ridge High School in Colorado Springs, Hilts was of course a football player, but he also put his athletic capabilities on display for track and field and basketball. He finished second in triple jump at the Class 4A State Championships and helped lead the basketball team to a district championship his senior year. 

But playing college football was always the goal for Hilts. Being recruited out of Colorado – a state not known for its high school football like Texas – created a small challenge to catch the eye of college coaches, though.

“I always knew I would work to play Division I football, and God made that happen,” said Hilts.

Since arriving in San Marcos, he has battled injuries on the field. In his freshman year in 2019, he tore his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) before halftime in the season opener at Texas A&M. He fought through it and kept playing all season while wearing a brace.

In 2020 as a sophomore, he tore his pectoral muscle in the first week of fall camp and sat out the entire season as a medical redshirt. Factor in the challenges of that year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it felt insurmountable for Hilts.

“I think mentally it was really hard for me at first, but then I just took it as an opportunity to have a year to grow and I put on almost 30 pounds, which I needed to do to be successful,” said Hilts. “Honestly, I haven't looked back since then.”

Even with the string of injuries, Hilts has played in 21 of a possible 24 games in the 2019 and 2021 seasons and has caught 15 career passes while also seeing time on special teams. 

Hilts has persisted and leaned on his faith through trials and tribulations. This has led him to be very involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), working his way to a leadership role. 

Pat Ford, the FCA Campus Director for Texas State, has seen Hilts transform and grow into his faith since his freshman year.

“When he showed up, he was a very quiet and shy freshman who just stayed on the outside looking in,” Ford said. “Today, he is confident in his faith and is so outgoing. He also leads our Monday night huddle on occasion as well as his team’s bible study. He has great spiritual maturity for such a young man.”

With the role, Hilts helps plan the FCA schedule, speaks to FCA high school organizations and churches, and helps raise money for other students to go to events like FCA U.

Any university in Texas with an FCA program can send their athletes to Glen Rose, Texas for FCA U. The weekend is filled with worship and learning in small groups of athletes from different universities. This past year, Hilts served as a huddle leader and continued to showcase his faith-based leadership.

Hilts, who won the 2021-22 Texas State chapter’s FCA Student-Athlete of the Year award, leads in the classroom as well. He has been named twice to both the Texas State Dean’s List as well as the Sun Belt Commissioner’s List.

Hilts is working towards a degree in communication studies with aspirations to work in aviation. His dream job is to be an aviation mechanic, which is fitting considering he is one of the most “handy guys” on the team.

“My dad is from Alaska, and I've been going there since I was a little kid,” said Hilts. “There was talk about doing things the ‘Alaskan way,’ so from a really young age I was always interested in building stuff and doing little projects.”

One of his first big projects was buying a go-kart in middle school and fixing it up with a wing and large headlights. The combination of working with engines and playing airplane games as a kid created the passion to work in the aviation field one day. 

He continues to build things during his spare time, such as a wooden Supercat overlayed with gold foil and lights as well as a drop-leaf coffee table that can be converted into a game table. 

Hilts was given the opportunity to further his construction skills when he was offered an apprenticeship the past two summers through a member of his church who runs Four Rivers Construction. 

“That just opened up a whole bunch of new doors and is one of the things that I've really never worked with in the past,” said Hilts. 

Even considering his construction projects, work with the FCA, life as a student and athlete, Hilts still makes time for helping in the community. It might be his biggest passion of them all. 

James Sherman, Director of Player Development for Texas State football and a former kicker for the Bobcats, helps the program arrange community service projects. He could see immediately Hilts was special from the perspective of being a holistic student-athlete.

“He came into the spring game, and I thought, this guy’s got a chance to do really different things,” said Sherman, “and be a big impact person on our team and in the community too.”

“Micah is always one of the first guys to sign up for something,” added Sherman. “He will sign up, but then go grab two or three guys and get them to sign up. They think that they do not want to go, but then they love it and sign up next time.”

Sherman explained that Hilts is not the kind of person that does things to check off boxes. 

“If we are going to clean up the river, he is the guy that makes sure he puts every ounce of his energy into that,” said Sherman. “He’s looking for work, he’s doing it with a smile on his face, and he’s leaving things better than he found it.” 

With Hilts only being at Texas State for four to five years as a football player, he does not want his impact to just be someone who sits in one of the hundred seats in the team room and goes out to play football. He is driven by the joy on the faces of kids or the impact he and his teammates help create around town.

He wants to do something for the community that has done so much for him.

“That is part of why I love this place so much, I don't want to just take, take, take,” said Hilts. “Giving back has always been something that has been natural to me. I just like doing things for people, honestly.”

Some organizations that Hilts works with includes the Special Olympics, Buda’s Brightside, San Marcos Public Library and youth football camps. 

Hilts recalled one of his favorite days being the “Bro-B-Que,” hosted by Buda’s Brightside. 

“It was super fun to talk to all these guys and have fun playing games with them,” Hilts said. “A group of guys on the football team went up there, grilled some chicken and had a really good time.”

Continuing his work with the Special Olympics from Colorado to Texas is what makes this organization one of Hilts’ favorites. 

“Part of why I enjoy it so much is just seeing the joy in these people's faces in anything that they're doing, and just so happy to be doing it,” Hilts said. “That's refreshing in such a go, go, go, instant gratification world that we live in.”

This past July, Hilts was named a nominee to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team and is on the Wuerffel Trophy Watch List. Both are awards that recognize football student-athletes for work off the field as much as they do on. 

Hilts is honored to be recognized by the organizations, but that is not why he does it.

“I always want to be remembered as somebody who put other people first, and that's the biggest thing,” said Hilts. 

“For me, one day football is going to end, whenever that is,” he added. “Even after that, wherever I work, I want people to say, ‘Micah is someone who I can rely on and will have my back.’ And honestly, somebody who people are going to say, ‘that's someone who puts others before him.’”

Whether Hilts is on the field making plays or helping those in the community, his legacy will be cemented not only at Texas State, but the city of San Marcos. He is here to lend a helping hand.