By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director
Less than a decade ago, Derick Hall was wreaking havoc on opposing offenses as standout linebacker at Gulfport High.
On Sunday, he’ll take the biggest stage for a sporting event that any young football player could ever dream of.
Hall is in his third season as a member of the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks will play the New England Patriots for the 2025 NFL championship in Super Bowl LX at 5:40 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. NBC will televise the game.

Hall’s head coach during his days with the Admirals is proud of what his former pupil has accomplished.
“Not to say I’m shocked, because he told us back in 2018 that he was gonna be in this moment,” John Archie, current Athletics Director at Pascagoula High and head football coach at Gulfport from 2018-2022, said Saturday. “It’s a very proud moment for me. He was always a great kid. First one to show up and last one to leave.”
Hall recorded one tackle in the NFC Championship win over the Los Angeles Rams two weeks ago. This post-season, he has recorded three tackles, and on the season, he finished with 30 tackles, including three for loss, with two sacks.
A 2019 graduate of GHS, he was drafted in the 2023 NFL Draft in the second round by the Seahawks at No. 37 overall. A feat that came after he was named All-Southeastern Conference his senior season at Auburn.

And an even almost unfathomable achievement considering complications of his birth.
Hall, you see, was born four months premature, and was not breathing and was barely given a chance of living. But his mother, Stacy Gooden-Crandle, never gave up on her son.
“He was actually born dead,” she said, in a recent interview. She stated that Hall was so small, he could fit in her hand. He was on life support for a week, had bleeding in his brain, had severe asthma, and was hospitalized for weeks at a time.
“He always had a heart of gold,” Archie added. “But you have to give some of that credit to his mom. Miss Stacy poured her all into him and he reciprocated it.”
That love and encouragement resulted in Hall going on to record 83 tackles as a senior for the Admirals, and he earned a spot in the Under Armour All-American Game which led him to Auburn and now into the Super Bowl.

As a senior on The Plains, Hall recorded 60 total tackles, seven sacks, two forced fumbles, and one interception to earn all conference honors.
In his first year with the Seahawks, Hall set career highs in tackles (36), sacks (8.0), quarterback hits (20), forced fumbles (2), fumble recoveries (1), and scored his first NFL touchdown (36-yard fumble recovery at Atlanta) in 2024.
“You never know how many snaps you’re going to get. You never know what snap could possibly be your last,” Hall said, in an interview this week. “And I think that’s a grand scheme and a great outlook with this game. Like, you never know what snap can lead to your shoestring coming untied. And I think that’s huge. And being able to go out and play every play like it’s that one and, I think, let everything else take care of itself. And I think that’s what we do here as a unit.”
Hall also recently talked about his memories of watching the Super Bowl each year with his mom.

“It was everything. We would always have people over to the house,” he said. “We would sit back, order some pizza, wings. Mom would cook a few things, and we would just have a big Super Bowl party. And this was every single year. Every single year. I mean, every single year. So to have an idea to know that somebody’s probably doing that to watch us play, man, and our whole world has their eyes on us – and we’re not going to make this game bigger than any other game – but just having this opportunity, it’s a blessing.”