Travis Hunter story goes all the way back to grandmother living in a Florida labor camp

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Travis Hunter story goes all the way back to grandmother living in a Florida labor camp

Tom D'Angelo, Palm Beach Post · The Florida Times-Union

Thu, Jul 10, 2025 ·

9 min read

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Shirley Hunter , the matriarch of the family that produced a football star who recently signed a contract for more than $46 million , once lived in a labor camp in rural Palm Beach County with her five children. Her home had two bedrooms.

Shirley then moved into a three-bedroom apartment in Boynton Beach. By that time, she had eight kids.

The woman known as Miss B — because she's "always busy" — worked several jobs. Whether in the fields picking beans and peppers, a housekeeper at Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach, working for the Palm Beach County School District, or as a cook at a local hotel, she lived up to that nickname.

She also could be found at the ballfields where many of her children and grandchildren became household names.

But she made sure work never got in the way of spending time with her children and, later, grandchildren.

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"She always put her family first," said Bill Tome, a family friend for 30 years and retired Boynton Beach police officer who pioneered the Boynton Beach Bulldogs program where many of the Hunters got their start in football.

And while this may sound like the journey of a woman who is angry and resentful about what she did not have, it is just the opposite.

Shirley Hunter, 68, is a proud, grateful woman. A mother to nine children (including one adopted), grandmother to 50 (yes, 50!) and a great-grandmother to 18, there is not one hint of bitterness when telling her story.

"I always keep a positive mind," Shirley said. "I don't complain. I'm proud of where I came from. I was raised very well."

One of those grandchildren, Travis Hunter Jr., has become a celebrated once-in-a-generation football player. He just came into generational wealth, signing a $46.65 million, four-year rookie contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars . His deal includes a fully guaranteed $30.57 million signing bonus, the highest ever for a non-quarterback not drafted with the top pick in the NFL.

Bill Tome of the Police Athletic League and Shirley Hunter celebrate at a viewing party for Travis Hunter, who was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars as the number two pick in the NFL draft during a party in Boynton Beach, Florida on April 24, 2025.

But Shirley matter-of-factly dismisses the idea life could change now because her grandchild, the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, is a very wealthy man.

"I was happy for him," Shirley said. "That's it. I was only happy for him."

The weakness of many athletes after suddenly becoming multi-millionaires is the inability to say "no" to those looking for handouts. Whether that be friends or family members.

Shirley says that will not happen in the Hunter family. That is not how she raised her children and grandchildren.

"This family is not dependent on his money because everybody has their own job," she said. "We don't see it like that. If he do, he do. If he don't, he don't. It's his money. He made it by his self."

Shirley lives in a four-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot home in Boynton Beach that sits four homes from the wall that serves as a sound barrier from I-95. Her doors always are open and the home often is visited by family members.

She was asked if Travis Jr. might one day buy her a new home.

"I don't care if he do. I don't care if he don't," she said. "It's not my money."

Shirley Hunter was looking for better life for kids away from labor camp

A 1975 headline in The Palm Beach Post once called the G.E. Jones Labor Camp the "County's Grossest." The camp was known for its "filth and squalor" with a long history of health violations.

In 1984, Palm Beach County's migrant community numbered as many as 7,000, many living at the Jones Labor Camp, west of Delray Beach. About 1,000 were seeking to move into low-income public housing, which was at a critical shortage in the county.

Among those was Shirley Hunter.

"Something is definitely wrong in the system that does not consider the neediest," Ernesto Gonzalez, director of the South Palm Beach County Migrant Coordinating Council told The Post in 1984. "No one cares for these people."

That story included a photo of Shirley standing in a door frame along with three of her then five children. The number "43" was etched above the narrow opening. Inside the home, in which she had been living for seven years, the bedrooms were separated from a kitchen and bathroom by a curtain.

Three of the children slept in one room. Two slept in the bed with Shirley.

Shirley Hunter, grandmother of NFL star Travis Hunter Jr., is pictured in a photo at her home in the G.E. Jones Labor Camp west of Delray Beach in 1984.

The area was rife with violence. At that time, Shirley said she was on a waiting list for two years to get into public housing.

"When I was pregnant with my baby, a man come to the door with a knife and we had to run out the back door," Shirley said back then. "He wanted to kill us."

She added: "Nobody's been killed here in awhile but they start drinking and then they start fighting all the time, throwing bottles and rocks."

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Shirley says today that she surrounded herself with people she considered "family." She said her home always was clean, and she made sure she kept "calm" in the face of what others would deem untenable conditions.

"They say Travis is very calm on the football field," Shirley said recently about her grandson. "That part came from me. I've always been good to people, kept them calm, respectable. Looked at the positive side of everything."

Shirley gave birth to three more children, including Travis Jr.'s father, and moved to Boynton Beach.

"She's a proud woman," Tome said. "All she cared about were those kids, and she wanted the kids to be involved (in sports), staying out of trouble, and just having a good life. The best she could do. And that's what she did.

"As long as they were involved and happy, she was happy."

Hunter family athleticism passed down from Shirley

Shirley Hunter, who was born in New York and moved to Belle Glade with her family when she was 7, was just shy of her 17th birthday when her oldest child was born. Travis Sr., whose son is angling to become a rare two-way star in the NFL after winning the Heisman Trophy at the University of Colorado , was born 13 years later. The seventh of her eight biological children.

"I made a pact with my friends," Shirley said about her teenage years. "We used to talk about what are you going to do when you get out of high school? I said I'm going to have kids. I said I was not going to drink, I was not going to smoke, not use drugs. Not get married.

"I kept my pact," she added.

But not get married?

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) runs a passing drill during the Jacksonville Jaguars' third mandatory minicamp Thursday, June 12, 2025, at the Miller Electric Center in Jacksonville, Fla.

"Because I don't listen to men. I don't listen. If I had something break down in the house, I know how to fix it because I was taught how to fix it. I didn't need a man to fix nothing because I knew how to do it myself."

The Hunter name soon would become royalty in Boynton Beach when it comes to athletics, and Shirley likes to think she had a little to do with that.

The fact is, she has everything to do with that.

Shirley attended Atlantic High School and was the 1975 state champion in the 200 meters. She was into all sports, especially football — she played sandlot football with her brothers — saying she would have loved to play the sport if girls were allowed. There was no flag football back then.

"I would have played receiver," she said. "And then kickoff return because I was a sprinter."

All five of her boys played football, and three ran track, including Travis Sr. Two of her daughters ran track and the other was a gymnast.

Football was a family affair for the Hunter family. Shirley has a photo of Travis Sr. and several family members, including three brothers, when they played for the Southeast Florida Reapers, a semi-pro team based in Boynton Beach.

Shirley made sure none of her jobs would keep her away from her children or grandchildren for very long. That would cut into her time with them on the ballfields.

"She signed us up for football," said Shirley's grandchild, Woodrow Hunter, 25, who played running back and cornerback at Atlantic. Woodrow's career was cut short by a knee injury.

"She took us to football practice every day. Took us to football games. Took us to the circus. Took us to Orlando. She did everything for us."

When Travis Jr. was 4, Shirley signed him up to play football. When he was 5, she told Tome that Travis was "the one."

Travis Jr. acknowledged her influence after winning the Heisman Trophy. She was in the audience in New York.

Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback/receiver Travis Hunter and his cousin, Woodrow Hunter, on draft night.

"My grandma, you're the person that got me to start playing football," he said. "That means so much to me. You saw the vision before I even saw the vision. At 4 years old, you told me to put on some pads, go outside, and play with your cousins. Y'all see how small I am. Just imagine me at 4 years old trying to put on shoulder pads. It's crazy.

"I thank you. I know you're up there crying. I rarely talk to you, but I am telling you right now that I love you. Thank you for everything you have done."

Woodrow, who is as close to Travis Jr. as any of his cousins, attended the draft and his cousin's wedding. Travis Jr. married Leanna Lenee on May 24 in Athens, Tennessee. Woodrow says it's "surreal" to see how far his cousin has come.

Woodrow believes the best thing that happened to Travis was moving to Georgia with his mother just before starting high school. That, he said, "separated him from everything that was going on" in the Boynton Beach area.

"It was always something," Woodrow said. "Like a curse. Injuries or hanging with a bad crowd. Always something stopping us.

"We have a lot of talent in our family, and he's the first person to make it to the NFL. So many could have made it to the NFL and he was the first to do it."

Tom D'Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

Palm Beach Post deputy sports editor Eric J. Wallace contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars rookie Travis Hunter's grandmother raised kids in labor camp

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