Meet the Chester receiver who’s new to football but came up with a viral TD catch that landed on ESPN

At first glance, it looks like a glitch or perhaps the work of an elaborate hoax perpetrated by sophisticated software.

In reality, it was a junior varsity football catch that went viral, captured the attention of pro and college athletes, and even landed in the Hall of Fame hands of ESPN’s Randy Moss.

Not a bad week for Chester High school’s resilient receiver Cory Hicks Jr., who, until a few months ago barely knew any football terminology.

“Knowing that this really just happened in my first year playing football,” Hicks said in a phone interview, “that’s crazy.”

In fact, he is so new to football, Hicks had to be reminded to put his mouthpiece in, mid-play.

It occurred Sept. 19 against visiting Interboro. Chester led, 21-0, in the fourth quarter. The Clippers faced third-and-20 from about their own 35-yard line.

Sophomore quarterback Jaiden Holmes dropped back, then heaved a pass into double coverage, looking for Hicks down the right sideline.

“I remember my coaches yelling at me to put my mouthpiece in,” Hicks said. “So I’m trying to fix my mouthpiece while running the route at the same time.”

Teeth properly protected, the 5-foot-9, 138-pound receiver eventually saw the ball headed his way.

“As I’m trying to go for it, the defender was holding my arm,” he said, “so then I tried to go for it with the other arm, and at that point the ball just fell in my hand and then I felt it on my biceps and I just kept going.”

Hicks, who is right-handed, caught the ball over his head with his left hand, back turned to his quarterback, defender still draped over his body, and then galloped into the end zone without breaking stride as if it were all part of the plan.

The result was a 65-yard touchdown and a mixture of confusion and elation that capped Chester’s 28-0 victory.

“Everybody was just like, ‘Oh my God. Did y’all see that?’” said Chester assistant coach Edward Nelson Jr.

Holmes never saw the catch from the backfield, but was shocked to see his teammate streaking toward the end zone. He didn’t actually see what happened until he got home. That’s when his mother, Natasha Holmes, who filmed the catch, showed him the video on her phone.

“I was shocked,” said the 5-7, 130-pound quarterback. “He caught the ball, but it also kind of landed in his hand. I was like, ‘I really threw that?! I threw that good of a ball?’”

Soon after, Holmes sent the video to Hicks, who sent it to Nelson, who put it on Twitter.

It didn’t take long for the improbable catch to go viral, eventually racking up millions of views on Instagram, where Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Chase Claypool also noticed Hicks’ near-mouthpiece mishap.

“Dude putting his mouth guard in mid route too,” Claypool commented.

Trey Wade, a senior guard on the Arkansas men’s basketball team, also commented, “Be like that sometimes.”

The catch was also featured on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown during Moss’ segment, “You Got Mossed,” when the former NFL receiver highlights great catches from around the country.

There seemed to be, however, one reaction that many, including Hicks’ own teammates, had in common.

“It looked just like a Madden [video game] glitch,” Chester JV head coach Dennis Shaw said.

“I’ve seen people throw controllers across the room because of glitches like that,” Hicks joked. “When I told my mom, she was like, ‘what’s a glitch?’”

For the uninitiated, the “Madden glitch” refers to any manner of unrealistic, often bizarre plays that may occur during the popular Madden NFL video game series.

For example, a player may inexplicably fly through the air, be impossible to tackle, or an invisible player might make a catch, causing frustration for an opponent.

Glitches appear to be rare and are most often attributed to an error in the game’s coding.

There was no such mistake in Hicks’ case.

Perseverance in the face of adversity seems to be emblematic of the young man’s path toward football.

“He had zero understanding of the terminology,” said Shaw, who has been coaching at Chester for eight years. “He didn’t know how to run routes, or what they were called. You could tell he just hasn’t been playing football. But he’s come a long way.”

Shaw added that Hicks shows up to practice every day regardless of his playing time and has accepted criticism well. Hicks dresses for varsity games but is deep on the Clippers’ talented depth chart.

He quit after just one game in middle school. Years later, he gave football another shot because his high school friends became more interested in the game. Quitting again, however, crossed his mind during offseason workouts this summer.

“Seeing that other kids knew what they were doing and I didn’t,” he said, “made me feel like I didn’t fit in.” He said his teammates and coaches encouraged him and helped him learn the game.

But his mother, Danielle Whitfield, is the reason he persevered.

“It’s really my mom because she’s been doing a lot on her own for a bunch of years,” he said, “so if I give up, it’s telling her it’s OK to give up, and I’ve never seen her give up.”

Hicks said his father died in 2019. His mother, he said, has worked several jobs and has always sacrificed for her 12 children.

“I think this is a good [lesson] for all the kids in Chester,” said Nelson, who graduated from Chester High in 2016 and was a standout football player at Morehouse College.

“They deal with a hard life in Chester, so the least we can do is prepare them for the world. That’s the main thing with Chester, just teaching kids to persevere through things in life.”