College
UTEP Miners: How faith, community and Aaron Jones brought Deion Hankins home
UTEP Miners running back Deion Hankins, the leading running back in El Paso city history, turned down offers from Arkansas and Oklahoma State to stay home and in hopes of becoming the next Aaron Jones.
EL PASO -- To find the future of UTEP football, you have to drive Northeast up Highway 54, past the Biggs Army Airfield and into the shadow of the Franklin Mountains. There, around the corner from a local taco joint that’s far more comfortable taking your order in Spanish, lies Parkland High School.
Deion Hankins is an 18-year-old kid still finishing up his high school degree when we sit down to talk in the weight room at Parkland High School on a warm March day. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him. Hankins’ natural curls add another few inches onto an already impressive 6-foot, 212-pound frame as he sits down on a bench in head coach Eric Frontz’s office. He looks every bit the part of a seasoned college football player, and he has yet to take even a collegiate practice snap at this point.
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