Marquise Lightfoot and I’Marion Stewart were teammates for only one season.
But they had plenty of time to become friends even before Stewart transferred to Kenwood for his senior year.
“I knew I’Marion since the recruiting process started,” Lightfoot said. “So we’d already been bonding. We went on road trips together, to Tennessee, to Nebraska.
“So we go back a little bit, not way back. But when he transferred I was definitely excited [knowing] it’d make practice even more fun.”
Lightfoot, Stewart and fellow Kenwood senior Ivan Moore shared one more moment together Wednesday evening when they made their college commitments official by signing national letters of intent during a ceremony in the school’s auditorium.
Lightfoot, a 6-5 edge rusher who’s the No. 3 senior in Illinois and a top-60 national prospect according to 247Sports.com, is heading to Miami. The Hurricanes don’t have a history of tapping into Illinois talent, but they landed two of the state’s top three players this year in Lightfoot and five-star defensive lineman Justin Scott from St. Ignatius.
Stewart, a four-star receiver ranked eighth in Illinois who played his first three seasons at Bolingbrook, is bound for Michigan. Moore is a three-star edge rusher who will play at Northern Illinois.
Stewart enjoyed his road trips with Lightfoot, but is ready to move on to the next phase of his football career.
“I’ve been getting recruited for like, five years now,” Stewart said. “And it got to the point where I got a little tired. Got a little exhausted going to other games right after my games. It was fun but I definitely got tired.”
The recruiting process had its upsides and downsides for Moore as well.
“It was definitely fun at first,” he said. “But then everybody goes through that little dry period. That was very stressful. But NIU definitely stuck with me the entire time. They’ve been recruiting me for a little over a year now. It just made it feel natural. [Assistant] coach [Travis] Moore showed a lot of love to my family, to me, to my coaches.”
Lightfoot said he and Scott — who is the consensus No. 15 senior in the nation — have been feeling plenty of love from Miami fans after the latter flipped his commitment from Ohio State.
“‘The 773 to 305 [area code] train,’ that’s what they were saying down there,” Lightfoot said. “When he committed to Miami, it was a surprise to me as well. But it was a good surprise.
“We’re going to turn the ‘U’ back to the ‘U.’”
Lightfoot is looking forward to being on the same line as Scott, while knowing they face a big transition.
“We’re going to definitely put the work in,” Lightfoot said. “High school football and college football are two different things. [But] when we get down there and get our feet wet, we’re definitely going to show them why we got the No. 1 D-line ranking in recruiting.”
