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The story didn’t start in college.

It didn’t start in high school, either. It didn’t start with seven-on-seven teams or training workouts or social media attractions.

It started with reputation.

“My aunt always told me about this kid, and I was like, who is this kid Damar that she is talking about?”

That’s Paris Ford reminiscing, and he is talking about Damar Hamlin. 10 years ago, when Hamlin and Ford were in middle school, their names were known throughout the city.

Ford is from Garfield, an eastern neighborhood that borders Penn Avenue. Hamlin comes from McKees Rocks, a neighborhood on the Ohio River to the west. Nine miles separate the two neighborhoods and they might as well be in different states, given the traffic pattern to get from one to the other. But reputations can be built across distance, and even back then, when social media was in its infancy, word traveled.

“We had been knowing about each other for a long time from little league football,” Hamlin says, “just hearing about the top names in the city, the top kids. So I knew about him, he knew about me.”

Turns out, there was a connection. A mutual friend split time in Garfield and McKees Rocks, and when that friend passed away while Hamlin was in eighth grade and Ford was in seventh, their paths finally crossed.

“We met up at the funeral,” Hamlin says, “and ever since then, our relationship has been tight.”

Ford has no hesitation in echoing that sentiment.

“We both had a big following, a big buzz through football, and I guess football creates friendships. We just linked and we never looked back.”

Since that meeting nearly 10 years ago, Hamlin and Ford haven’t had too much distance between them. They briefly attended the same school when Ford joined Hamlin at Central Catholic for a year, but while Hamlin graduated as a Viking, Ford moved on to Seton LaSalle before finishing his high school career at Steel Valley.

School moves aside, their careers followed similar arcs. Both Hamlin and Ford led their teams to WPIAL and PIAA championships as seniors. They were both four-star defensive back prospects, according to Rivals.com. They both ranked as the No. 2 prospect in the WPIAL for their recruiting class. They both amassed offers from across the country.

And they both chose Pitt.

Of course, the way things worked out, it was Ford who chose Pitt first. He committed to the Panthers in the fall of his junior year. That gave him the jump on Hamlin, who made his commitment 48 hours before Signing Day 2016 - about four months after Ford had committed and a full year ahead of his own Signing Day in the class of 2017.

“Back when he was committed to Pitt and I wasn’t even committed yet, we were talking about playing together,” Hamlin says. “If you look back at Twitter, you’ll find a tweet where me and him were talking about being a package deal.”

A perfunctory search of social media doesn’t turn up that exact tweet, but in July of 2015, Hamlin did tell Brad Everett of the Post-Gazette that when it came to playing with Ford, “It’s bigger than just football.”

Those weren’t empty words. Four years after he gave that quote to the local paper, Hamlin sat at Pitt’s Media Day as a senior leader last Friday and laid out the relationship he has with Ford.

“I’ve always been a big brother to him.”

And for his part, Ford doesn’t disagree with that assessment.

“You could say that. Anything I need, he’s always there for me and I’m always there for him.”

The bond between Hamlin and Ford added on-field significance over the last 12 months. Ford redshirted his freshman season in 2017 after being a late arrival to training camp. Last season, he moved from safety to cornerback; that move turned out to be short-lived and seemingly ill-advised, as Ford played all of 120 snaps in nine games and moved back to safety this spring.

But he never really left the position, though; his long-time friend made sure of that.

“He taught me a lot,” Ford says. “Sitting out those two years, he was still trying to coach me and still trying to teach me the fundamentals of the safety position.”

“I definitely tried to take him under my wing, teach him everything that I knew,” Hamlin says. “I felt like he should have stayed at safety, really. I wish he did. We might have had more time on the field together. But I just tried to give him everything I could, from a brother standpoint, from a leader standpoint. Just everything I could.”

And it wasn’t just about football. Sure, Hamlin was helping Ford with checks and calls and play recognition and all of the intricacies of Pitt’s defensive scheme, but he was also making sure that his “little brother” was succeeding in all ways. That meant more than a few heart-to-heart conversations along the way.

“Every day," Hamlin says. "Not more of, ‘Get it together.’ Just kind of, ‘Keep your head on tight.’ Spiritually, just trying to be a leader to him every way I can, just trying to be a brother to him every way I can. I was just able to be there for him and give him all the knowledge that I have.”

The time Hamlin and Ford spent together, along with Ford’s maturity and focus this offseason, seems to be paying off. Those two finished spring camp as the top safety tandem and they were listed as the starting safeties in the preseason two-deep Pitt released in its media guide.

Safeties coach Cory Sanders says that he’s “excited to see [Ford] put it all together” individually, but he can’t deny the connection he sees between his two starters.

“It’s funny to see that relationship because you can tell - just the way Damar speaks to him, it’s like a brotherly relationship and it’s funny to sit back and observe and watch. I think Damar helps him a lot, and at the same time, I think Paris helps Damar a lot, too. He pushes him. And Paris brings such a spark and an energy to the field that you love.”

There’s that, too: Ford is one of the best athletes on the team, an explosive player with the potential to make game-changing plays. If Pitt can get him to his potential on the field, the results could be very impactful.

Always one to think big, Ford sees a bright future for the Panthers’ defensive back field in 2019.

“I honestly feel like, no disrespect to any Pitt legends, but this might be the best safety tandem that Pitt has ever seen. I strongly believe that,” Ford says. And he can’t help thinking even bigger when he considers the cornerbacks, Dane Jackson and Jason Pinnock.

“Having those two underneath, it’s such a huge help because I can lay off and know those guys are underneath me. Over the top, me and Damar, we’re not letting anything happen deep. So it’s about to get real.”

Of the two safeties, Ford is certainly more excitable. Hamlin is more reserved, but the prospect of lining up with Ford in the secondary is one that gets his blood flowing. He has never played with Ford on a regular basis; even when they were both at Central Catholic in 2012, Ford was on the freshman team and Hamlin was on varsity.

So, in a way, this moment has been building for the better part of the last decade.

“I’m super excited,” Hamlin says. “I’ve been waiting to play with him since we were in seventh and eighth grade. It’s everything we’ve been talking about. There wasn’t anyone I wanted to play with more than him. I think that’s why we both ended up here.”