FEATURE STORY

yreek Hill wants the record to show this: He is not a small guy, even though he may look like one on TV. The camera may giveth 10 pounds, and also, apparently, it can taketh away — especially when you’re standing next to a behemoth like 6-foot-4, 320-pound offensive guard Nick Allegretti.

Tyreek and I are literally talking about anything and everything. Our conversation leapfrogs to topics like Mercury retrograde, his die-hard dedication to beach volleyball, his love of travel (naturally, the beachier the destination, the better), and his typical 10-plus pounds of happy, donutrelated off-season weight gain. Now, the conversation has turned to what he feels is the most surprising thing about him. In his opinion, his height is the one thing that seems to shock and awe all who meet him. And not, as it happens, his lack of it.

“I’m bigger than I might look!” he swears. “I feel like most people see me and be like, ‘Hey, you like you’re the same height as Kevin Hart or something.’ When people see me on TV, they think I’m 5 feet 5 inches, but when they see me in person, I’m like f***ing tall. Well, not tall, but kind of tall. I’m 5 feet 9½ inches, 195 pounds. They’re like, ‘Man, you’re kind of big. That’s crazy!’”

I tell him to watch out for those donuts we were both waxing poetic about earlier — his favorite: strawberry, cream-filled, glazed (oh my!). “Exactly, man,” he says with a laugh. “I will look like Carl Winslow, not Kevin Hart, for real.”

So OK, as a football player in his prime, a physical metamorphosis into the Winslow family patriarch might not be the doppelgänger he hoped for, but, just like Winslow, well, family matters. (Dear readers, please forgive me for this segue).

“The greatest luxury in life is my kids, man,” Hill proclaims. “My kids motivate me each and every day. People always ask me who I do it for, and it’s those four munchkins right there, man.”

He’s got mad love for his little ones: son Zev, 7, twins Nakeem and Nylah, and son Khai., all 3 years old. But as the only girl, Nyla is definitely the apple of her father’s eye. “She changed my life,” he declares. “She gave me a whole new perspective on how I look at life. Before I had my daughter, people would tell me I was such a hardass, a tough guy. But after, she just softened me up. I’m like a teddy bear now. Literally, she gives me the Puss ‘n Boots eyes, from Shrek, and then literally I just break down and give her anything she wants. If you want to say she has me wrapped around her finger, you’d be right — she does. And I never thought I would see the day.”

I beg to differ. Though he’s young, the importance of family in Hill’s life isn’t lost on me — he references his kids, mother, grandparents, and sister often throughout our chat. They’re his biggest fans, and he, theirs. Whatever he does, whatever ventures he undertakes, he tries to make family affairs. That includes working with his self-named Tyreek Hill Family Foundation, which helps at-risk youth reach their goals, as well as his most recent venture, a transportation service, that came to be after he sold a short-lived trucking business side hustle last year. He’s even planning on hiring his sister, Jordan, as a full-time assistant to run Uber à la Hill.

“I’m always trying to find ways to put my family and friends in the right situations without actually handing them money, because I don’t like to give people $10,000 just because I’ve got it. I say, ‘Hey, do you want a job? You can drive this [SUV], or you can drive the van, but you’ve got to go get your chauffeur license, and then you’ve got to go get your gun license so you can be able to provide security.’ I’m always trying to teach people instead of giving them the easy way out. That’s the way my grandparents taught me. I was never given anything. I always had to work for it.”

This is one point on which he’s very clear: Nothing in life is worthwhile if you haven’t earned it. “Success doesn’t come easy,” he maintains. “That’s something that my grandparents and my parents always taught me. If you want to be the best, you’ve got to work like you’re the best. Talent isn’t going to always get you where you want to be at.”

The lesson that was instilled in him early on is one that he definitely plans on passing down through the generations. “That’s something that I tell my 7-year-old, Zev, because he’s beginning to play football. And you know, when you get to be 6, 7, 8 years old, you begin to feel yourself. So, my son scored one touchdown, and he just thinks the world owes him. He’s like, ‘Dad, you see that? I deserve a PS5.’ And I’m like, ‘Son, come on — that’s not good enough. One [touchdown isn’t] enough for us; we are better than one.’ So I try to set the tone for my kids. Besides prowess on the field, his mini-me is also giving young Tyreek Hill vibes in one very specific way. “I would say he’s a lot like me, especially when he loses. He hates to lose — he’s like, the worst sort of loser ever. He won’t shake anybody’s hand. He won’t talk to you. So, yeah, he’s just like me.”

When I express surprise — Hill, like the Southern-born man he is, peppers his speech with a plethora of platitudes and yes ma’ams in a gracious way — he hastens to add that the bratty Tyreek of yesterday is firmly in the past, where he belongs. “As a kid I was definitely like that, but no, not now,” he swears. “You kind of grow up out of that once you get to a certain age.”

Now, when he loses, he has a different mentality, especially when that loss means the end of a season. “Typically I really don’t do anything, man. I just thank God for allowing me to play the game and bless my family. And then, me and my whole family will go on a vacation and enjoy each other, somewhere like the Maldives, where I can sit on the beach and drink mimosas. Then I’m cool. I try not to get so tied up in it. I know how much I love this sport and how passionate I am, but I don’t want to sit there and cry, because there’s literally nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing I can do if I get mad. So I just try to control what I can control, and that’s just being happy in my own space.”

That’s kind of his motto for life, his ethos, and how, most important, he lives up to his famous nickname. He explains, “When you think about the cheetah, it may not be the most dominant animal in the land, but night after night, it’s still running, still out there hunting. It has that mentality of ‘Maybe I won’t catch my prey right away, but I’ll keep going.’ I have that same mindset — I never give up, no matter what, until I catch you. That’s who I am as a person. [Adopting] the cheetah way of life is to be passionate about what you do. Love every second, love every moment — and chase greatness. But most especially, love yourself. Make sure you look in the mirror every single morning and say, ‘I love you. I love me some me!’ — just like Terrell Owens used to say. That is all you need.”

A winning strategy indeed. One might even say it’s magic.

JACKET, SHORTS & SNEAKERS: Louis Vuitton JEWELRY: Tyreek’s own