BOULDER — Miss B knew. “She was telling me at 5 years old, this kid was going to be something special,” Bill Tome, the Boynton Beach, Fla., policeman who created the Boynton Beach Bulldogs youth athletics program, told The Denver Post. “That he was going to be the one.” Young Travis Hunter Jr. — who grew up to become the two-way star of the CU Buffs and odds-on favorite to win the 2024 Heisman Trophy on Saturday in New York — became something of a running joke between Tome and Shirley Hunter, his grandma, over the years. Until he was 13, the CU standout was raised in the south Florida town of Boynton Beach, another shining light from a family of athletes. When Shirley Hunter — better known around Boynton Beach as “Miss B” — was working in the school kitchen and saw Tome, she couldn’t stop raving about her grandson, whom she’d nicknamed “Tip.” Even though he wasn’t even in kindergarten yet. “Of all my boys that were into football, he was just — different,” Shirley Hunter told The Post by phone this week. “He was the most into football. … When he’d go outside, playing with himself, he always had a ball in his hands.” One day, she says, she even watched him catch a ball with either hand, then throw a spiral with either hand — even though he wrote with his left. “I watched him and I watched him,” Shirley Hunter recalled. “And Bill and I would always work at the same school together and I said, ‘Bill, that’s the one.’ “He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Bill, have you ever seen a kid throw with both hands and catch with both hands?’ He said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I know.’ “When I said that to him, he was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ And I said, ‘Bill, that’s the one.’ And he grew and he grew and ended up playing football and what ended up happening? He was the one.” “Just an all-around athlete” Tome doesn’t gush lightly. The football riches in South Florida run deep — especially in Palm Beach County, roughly 90 miles north of downtown Miami, of which Boynton Beach (2024 estimated population: 81,470) is its third-largest city. Nearly 30 players who came through Tome’s youth program have reached the NFL. Hundreds went on to receive college scholarships. Travis was different. Before Hunter, arguably the most decorated football player under Tome’s tutelage was ex-University of Miami great Mike Rumph, an All-Big East linebacker on the Hurricanes’ 2001 national championship team. But Rumph never was a Heisman finalist. Or a two-way threat. “He was just an all-around athlete,” Tome said of Hunter, who was with his youth program from ages 5 to 13. “He was the type you don’t take out of the game. He played both ways.” A decade later, he still does. “I just think (it comes from) my confidence,” Hunter, who led CU in interceptions (four), passes defended (11) and catches (92) said late last month. “I’m super confident. “And I believe that I can do it at (the NFL) level, and I’m not going to let anyone tell me that I can’t do something that (I’ve) already done. They said I couldn’t do it in college. I ended up doing it in college. So there’s a lot of people telling me I can’t do it in the NFL, but I’m going to still do it in the NFL. “You know, a lot of people just let other people get in their ear, so they don’t let them do it. And some people just don’t have the right body type to be able to go both ways full-time.” Hunter’s electric skill set and endurance came from both nature and nurture, his grandmother says. CU’s Heisman contender hails from a long line of sprinters — Miss B was a 200-meter Florida state champion in the mid-70s. She says Travis’ father, Travis Sr., ran the 100 in 10.82 seconds while in middle school. The Florida state high school record for the 100 is 9.93. “That’s genetics,” Shirley Hunter said. “He’s got an uncle that they used to call the hardest hitter in Boynton — you couldn’t take him off the field. He would get mad. He never wanted to get off the field. (My sons) always wanted to be on the field. They wanted to play both ways. Even their cousins do the same thing.” “He was always a good kid” Miss B is a sports fanatic, with an encyclopedic knowledge of stats and players and a keen eye for those who rose to the occasion whenever the spotlight burned the hottest. Shirley Hunter, grandmother of CU Buffs star and Heisman Trophy finalist Travis Hunter, poses with her grandson in their hometown of Boynton Beach, Fla., in 2014. (Courtesy Shirley Hunter/family photo) Jack Nicklaus became a personal favorite. Same with Tim Duncan. She’d often huddle with her son and with young Travis to watch San Francisco 49ers games. “That’s his favorite team, that’s his dad’s favorite team, and that’s my favorite team,” Hunter’s grandma explained. Young Travis grew up watching football with Shirley and going fishing with his maternal grandmother. He shone on the basketball court, too, but stopped playing in organized leagues to concentrate on football. “The way he was shooting, he could play point guard (as a collegian),” Shirley Hunter said. “He could really shoot. (It was) football, fishing, video games. He was always playing on the (video) games.” At 14, Hunter moved with his mother to Georgia. He attended Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, where his 46 TD grabs and 19 interceptions as a prep made him 247Sports’ No. 1 recruit in the nation among the Class of 2022. Hunter ultimately chose Jackson State and coach Deion Sanders over Florida State, then followed Coach Prime to CU in December 2022. “(His mother) wanted to move up there and she wanted her sons to go with her,” Shirley Hunter recalled. “She moved them up there so they (could) get a better life than here. And I thank God for her doing that because she made a better person out of him. “He was always a good kid. The only thing he did was just play — never got into fights. And he was always either in the yard playing or (going) fishing.” Related Articles College Sports | Renck: Travis Hunter will win Heisman Trophy, but Shedeur Sanders helped make it happen College Sports | Collecting trophies: CU Buffs’ Travis Hunter claims Bednarik, Biletnikoff awards College Sports | Heisman finalist Travis Hunter is AP Big 12 defensive player of year and 1st-team pick as receiver College Sports | Travis Hunter or Kraven the Hunter? They’re one in the same in new promo video. College Sports | Travis Hunter, the 2-way standout for Colorado, is the AP college football player of the year When it comes to Tip, Grandma knows best. Then again, Grandma always did. “She said he was something special. She knows football. We didn’t know,” Tome laughed. “I guess she knows what she was talking about.” Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.