AOTW: Star Receiver from Alaska earns Division I Football scholarship

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - If you want to get cheers from the crowd on gameday, you have to put in the work when it’s quiet, and no is watching.

That has been the mindset of Alaska star wide receiver Landon Drumm for several years.

″I’ve been working hard for this my whole life, no days off," Drumm said after running routes in a small indoor gym in Anchorage. “This has been my goal since I was a little kid, I want this real bad, more than anybody.”

That attitude and commitment paid off for Drumm, who has committed to West Virginia University, just one of two Alaskans from the Class of 2026 to sign with a Division I football program.

“I really felt like I could succeed there,” Drumm said of choosing WVU. “The coaches there had a great vision for me and our recruiting class and overall, just like the facilities and everything, I just, I fell in love right away.”

After shining at South Anchorage, Drumm opted to play his senior season at Arapahoe High School in Colorado.

“Overall, the exposure I got down in Colorado was just awesome,” he said. “I wasn’t getting a lot of exposure down here, and going down to Colorado really helped boost my recruiting, so I’m very grateful for doing that.”

Drumm had a 1,000-yard season and caught nine touchdowns last year, competing in the same state where his father, Brandon, played college football and was ultimately drafted to the NFL in 2003.

″I’m trying to be better than my dad," Drumm said with a smirk. “There’s a lot of competition in my family, so, I’m trying to get better than him.”

And Landon is well on his way to that goal and has been on that trajectory for years, according to his longtime trainer Mike Hinton, with OTS Sports.

″Seeing him from the early stages and just seeing how much he’s worked over the years and being committed to his craft and coming in and training and developing and having the desire to improve...that’s the difference between Landon," Hinton said. “He’s just been committed to the work over the last four years and it’s made the difference and that’s why he deserves the opportunity that he has right now.”

Drumm has balanced football and school for much of his life, and the two will culminate later this month when he walks the stage for graduation with his former teammates and classmates.

″That’s another thing I wanted to come back to Alaska and be able to walk with all my friends from kindergarten, so that was another big thing for coming back."

Drumm will continue to train locally before taking off from the Last Frontier, to become a West Virginia Mountaineer.

“Their motto is ‘hard edge’,” Drumm said. “Coach Rich Rodriguez does a great job of emphasizing that and I’m excited to get down there and show them what I got.”

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