Hammond Central coach Tyler Milby describes senior Jayden Gee as “a super quiet kid.”

But Milby, who is in his first season with the Wolves after two at Bishop Noll, also has a telling nickname for Gee, a 6-foot-1, 175-pound safety/wide receiver.

“I call him ‘The Instigator’ because he jumps on kids,” Milby said. “If you’re slacking, he comes at you. He doesn’t shy away. But he also backs up his words.

“We feed off of him. He’s not one of our four captains, but we feed off his energy. If he stays up, we all stay up. If he has a bad moment and brings it down a little bit, you can feel everyone go down with him. But he doesn’t keep it that long. He goes right back up, and he does his best to keep his energy up, to keep everyone up. He’s that high-energy kid, and he helps a lot of kids out.”

Hammond Central senior left tackle Chris Harris has high hopes for Gee this season.

“He’s going to be a great player, a phenomenal player,” Harris said.

Gee displayed a glimpse of that ability during Hammond Central’s season-opening loss to South Bend Washington. He had seven tackles, a fumble recovery and a forced fumble, and he made five catches for 55 yards.

“We put him in a spotlight to say, ‘Hey, you’re that dude, show us you’re the dude,’ and he kind of showed it in that first game that he’s that dude,” Milby said. “He wants Hammond Central to succeed. He wants every team, everyone here at Hammond Central to succeed.”

Gee’s success has been building incrementally. He didn’t start playing football, as well as basketball, until sixth grade.

“I was big in elementary school, and I just didn’t really want to play,” he said.

As a freshman, Gee was heavier than he is now, weighing 210 pounds as a defensive lineman on the junior varsity team. He began to make changes as a sophomore.

“I started to slim down,” he said. “With conditioning and basketball, I started to slim down.”

Gee spent most of last season as a receiver on JV but earned an opportunity at safety on the varsity team toward the end of the season.

“I was showing them I could play at practice,” he said. “Being a lineman before, I had to get everybody to take me seriously at safety. I had to show I could do it. That was big.”

Gee carried his momentum into the offseason.

“I just got more physical and faster,” he said. “I was just learning how to play the position, studying my position.”

Over the summer, Gee spent a lot of time with senior wide receiver/defensive back Zierre Taylor and junior quarterback Jackquell Jackson. They got in reps on their own, even when the field at Hammond Central was locked, in anticipation of taking on expanded roles this season. Jackson is a first-year starter.

“He’s my No. 1 wide receiver,” Jackson said of Gee. “He catches the ball. I like his aggression through contact. I always target Gee when I see him.”

Gee viewed himself primarily as a basketball player when he was younger but has shifted his focus to football.

“Middle school, it was all basketball,” he said. “High school, I fell in love with football.”

Gee hopes to continue playing football after high school as a safety in college. Milby has confidence in Gee’s potential to make it a reality.

“We’re here to get them there,” Milby said. “Our No. 1 priority is, those kids who want to play college football, to get them there and teach them the correct tools of how to do it, and Gee is one of those kids who wants to play college football. We want to give him the tools to be successful in terms of how we can call stuff on offense, him taking a leadership role on defense. He’s buying into it.

“He has the right size, good speed, he’s physical, he’s tough, he’s not afraid. … I truly believe he can go play at a high level and be successful.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/27/football-hammond-central-jayden-gee/