Spotlight Bull: Zavier Hamilton plays piano, surfs, builds collector LEGO sets and sacks quarterbacks
September 24, 2026 | Football
If there's a piano in the room, Zavier Hamilton can entertain you. Relying on his 10 years of formal training, depending on his mood, he might choose Beethoven's Fur Elise or perhaps the Moonlight Sonata.ย
As a kid, he took ballet lessons, played chess and learned to surf.
He loves LEGO's, collecting rare sets and assembling them. At his Tampa residence, you'll find the LEGO displays for Harry Potter, Marvel superheroes, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars โฆ and much more.
"I guess I'm versatile,'' said Hamilton, a University of South Florida health science major who hopes one day to become a hospital administrator. "I guess I have a lot of interests in my life.''
Hamilton also plays linebacker for South Florida's football team.
Don't get confused. Football isn't an afterthought. It's his foremost passion. He has been preparing for this moment all his life, filling an important role for the Bulls (3-0) as they travel Saturday afternoon to face the Mid-American Conference's Bowling Green Falcons (0-3).
Football is everything to Hamilton. It's just not the only thing. There's a difference.ย
"Since I got to USF, I've definitely gained more confidence in myself,'' said Hamilton (6-foot-2, 230 pounds), who played high-school ball in Florida's Panhandle and chose the Bulls after being offered scholarships by most of the SEC and ACC schools. "When I first came, I struggled. My identity was attached to whether I was doing good or not in football. But the people here really showed me that I could be way more than just a football player. I could be my own person.
"It could get really bad sometimes. Especially whenever you've been doing something your whole life and you feel like what you're doing is synonymous with your identity as a person. It used to get to a point sometimes where it's like, 'Man, what am I even doing?' You start to lose the love. And that hurts even more because football is an integral piece of you. But I'm definitely on the right path now.''
Hamilton said he has he gained healthy perspective from Lee Dorpfeld, South Florida's Director of Sport Psychology who he referred to as "possibly the greatest person in our athletics building,'' and his mother, Katherine Batt.
"College athletics can be a pressure-cooker,'' Batt said. "When we went to our very first freshman meeting after he committed, the coaches told us to give love and encouragement because we had no idea how hard this was. And it is hard. It never stops and you can't compromise that to stay at an elite level.
"You're the best player from where you're from (in high school), then you're surrounded by a lot of great players and you wonder where you'll fit in. You're surrounded by these expectations and some of them just aren't real. It can be a lot for a kid. That's why I always wanted my kids to try a lot of things and not define themselves by (being known exclusively as a football player). The game is not who you are. If you have a bad day, it's OK.''
Those lessons have been learned.
"I used to overthink everything and worry about what other people thought (about my football skills) or try to play for their pleasure,'' said Hamilton, who has five older siblings, including a sister who attends veterinary school in New Zealand. "Now I play for myself. And if it didn't go well, it's 'next play.' A next-play mentality. I'm happy with the way I'm playing. I'm happy with myself and what I bring each day. That has made all the difference.''
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Taking Advantage Of Opportunity
ย Hamilton's South Florida coaches and teammates are happy, too.
"He (Hamilton) plays very fast and he's very smart,'' Bulls linebacker Sam Robinson said. "He's calling out formations out there that the other team is running. He knows his job.''
Defensive coordinator Josh Aldridge said he recruited Hamilton to Auburn University when he was AU's linebackers coach. When South Florida's Grayson "Pup'' Howard suffered an opening-week injury, forcing him to miss the next two games, Aldridge didn't hesitate on moving Hamilton into the starting lineup.
Hamilton now leads the Bulls in tackles for a loss (three), while registering a game-altering sack at Army and registering 12 tackles overall in three games.
"Zay is one of the few guys we have who can play both (linebacker) positions, the Mike and the Will, and that's a testament to who he is as a person and how he prepares,'' Aldridge said. "He's going to take such good notes. You almost have to be careful what you tell him because he's going do exactly what you said. Know what I mean? Super intelligent, super organized, efficient with his time โ all those things.''
That has been another adjustment for Hamilton, who described himself as "an OCD guy.'' In his room, everything is super organized, down to the coordinated colors of his books. He insists on cleanliness and order. So he naturally responds to football's meticulous preparation schedule, where few things are left to chance.ย
In his personal life, though, Hamilton has learned to be more flexible.
"You can't have everything absolutely perfect all the time โฆ or else you'll make yourself crazy,'' Hamilton said. "I have things that need to be a certain way and I've learned to bend on other things. I love organization of things as a whole. Sometimes, though, you need to be chill.
"The thing that helps is not making it about yourself all the time. I fall back on my faith. One of the things I love is helping others and serving the needs of others. That's why it's appealing to me to work in a hospital one day. Helping others will always put you in the right frame of mind.''
Maybe that's why Hamilton, even in an enhanced role at linebacker, loves playing special teams.ย
"It's all about pride,'' Hamilton said. "There's honestly no greater honor than being able to run down there for your brothers, do your job well and to give that amount of effort. I don't want to let them down. If you play for the love of your teammates, you'll never mess up.ย
"Whenever my name is called, I want to do anything I can to hep the team. That's why special teams is probably my favorite thing to do. I feel like it really shows the culture of a team. Whenever your best players are on special teams, there's nothing better to run down on the kickoff and smack someone at the very beginning of the game. That's football. Way back when, I think that's what I fell in love with.''
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An Early Football Focus
Hamilton remembers falling in love with football as a young kid. He knew that was his sport to pursue. The person who trained and motivated him was โฆ his mother.
"At the time, she was a single mother with four kids, but she still took the time to help me,'' Hamilton said. "That's the way she always was, so giving, so dedicated, never complaining. She was always there for me.''ย
Hamilton's mother, who knew very little about football, watched YouTube videos and asked enough questions that allowed her to design a training regimen. Ladder drills. Running up and down a sand dune. You name it. Hamilton was such an enthusiastic young player, his mother remembers him running up and down hotel stairwells during family vacations.
As it turned out, Hamilton's mother, while working with his two older football-playing siblings, met and married a football coach, Brian Batt. To maximize opportunities, when the local recreation center was closed, Hamilton's stepfather cleared the family's backyard land in Gulf Breeze and built a 50-yard football field. It came in particularly handy during COVID, when some of the Panhandle's college and NFL players also used it for training.
"When you think about it, I've been preparing to play football for most of my entire life,'' Hamilton said. "I learned the discipline and the importance of preparation from a really early age. I like having the confidence of knowing that I have prepared โ and prepared very well. There's no greater feeling of knowing that you're completely ready. That's how I live my life.ย
"You play free and you play fast. I think that's how you should approach life. The most prepared person wins all the time. Attention to details, that matters. And good things happen if you run to the ball. At least that's how I feel about it.''
Now Hamilton has acquired the healthy perspective of knowing that football is only part of his life โ not his entire life.
"Our minds are really interesting,'' Hamilton said. "We feed our minds with the things we tell ourselves โ and many of those things are just not true.
"I used to be a nervous wreck. I was bouncing up and down, super anxious about everything that's going on. My brain was flipping through stuff really fast and it seemed like life was sped up. That's not the right way to live.''
Hamilton said he once couldn't handle boredom. He had to be doing something. Now he views boredom and idle time as a luxury, a moment of decompression from his hectic life.
He also has a new sidelight when he returns to his family's home, which is now a 155-acre farm in Wing, Ala., about three miles from the Florida state line. His stepfather, who owns a plumbing company, always wanted to own a farm. Hamilton's mother wasn't so sure, but reluctantly agreed. Now she, too, adores the life of raising 100 head of cattle, horses, goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits, ducks and even a few alpacas.ย
"A new experience,'' Hamilton's mother said. "But it's like what I wanted for my kids. I always wanted them to experience things, try something new. Hey, maybe you'll really like it.''
Hamilton still lives those lessons. He's just a hard-working USF student who plays the piano, knows chess, understands the benefits of ballet, surfs if he can find the right waves at the right beach, continues to build his LEGO collection โฆ and plays football. There's always football. But it's the thing he does. It's not who he is.
"Basically, I love my life right now,'' Hamilton said.
He particularly loves his choice of joining the Bulls. At first, he thought about selecting Florida State, just down the Panhandle road, but South Florida felt more like a second home. Head coach Brian Hartline and his staff โ along with the previous staff that recruited him โ has been honest and helpful.
"I feel like I have a lot of people who love me and will do almost anything for me,'' Hamilton said. "I'm privileged to have the opportunity to play football at South Florida, have these kind of resources and play at this high level.
"When I went through my time of being stressed out or anxious about it all, I think I was taking for granted what I actually had. That's really a disservice to anyone who had a dream of the life I get to live. Football won't last forever. I know that and I'm going to enjoy every last second I have with it. But there are other aspects to me. Understanding that has allowed me to enjoy football even more. I'm blessed.''
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โ#GoBullsโ
Joey Johnston
Athletics Senior Writer
