Here is how and why dual-sport star Tre Donaldson landed with UM basketball team
There was never any question that University of Miami guard Tre Donaldson had what it took to become an elite athlete, considering his family history.
The only question was which sport he would choose to pursue in college after being recruited as a high-level football and basketball prospect out of Florida State University High School in Tallahassee.
His mother, Stacie Symonds, is one of the best softball players Palm Beach County history, starred at FSU and on Tuesday was inducted into the USSSA Hall of Fame in Kansas City, Missouri.
His father, Rhodney Donaldson, was all-conference in basketball and baseball at Troy University, was drafted by the Florida Marlins in 1997 and spent a few years as an outfielder in the club’s minor-league system.
“Growing up with both parents being such successful athletes, I didn’t have little action figures or any toys like that, it was either a bat or some type of ball,” Donaldson said. “That shaped me to who I am today, my toughness, my resiliency, I got it all from them.”
Donaldson excelled in every sport he played.
He was an outstanding baseball player as a kid, both at the plate and in centerfield, but to his parents’ dismay, baseball ranked third on his list of favorite sports.
He played quarterback and defensive back for FSUHS, was Florida’s No. 20-ranked safety and No. 33 overall football prospect, and he threw for 1,765 yards with 15 touchdowns on 68% passing.
In fact, Donaldson said he was recruited as a safety by UM football coach Mario Cristobal when was at Oregon and by UM defensive backs coach Zac Etheridge when he was at Auburn.
But basketball was always his first love.
His mother said one of her favorite baby photos of Tre is of him in a diaper sitting on top of a basketball.
“He was good at everything he touched, and in my opinion, he was best at baseball, but basketball was his life,” said Symonds, a retired parole officer with the Florida Department of Corrections. “He just gravitated to it, loved to watch it and to play it.”
Rhonald Donaldson agreed.
“I thought baseball was his best sport, but out of high school I thought, like a lot of people did, that he would pick football,” said the elder Donaldson, who runs a training facility for elite athletes in Cairo, Georgia. “But it was always Tre’s dream to play in the NBA.”
Symonds recalled that when Tre was in elementary school there was a basketball court in the neighborhood and when night fell, Tre would knock on the neighbor’s door and ask him to shine his headlights onto the court so he could keep practicing.
Donaldson played four years of varsity basketball in high school and led the team to the state championship under coach Charlie Ward, who won the Heisman trophy as an FSU quarterback and went on to play nine years in the NBA.
Ward, now the head basketball coach at Florida A&M University, knows better than anyone about being a dual-sport star and says he could tell right away that Donaldson was extraordinarily gifted as a football and basketball player.
“I saw a lot of myself in him because he had great instincts,” Ward said by phone on Tuesday. “He could see the next play early on. It was just a matter of maturing and growing in that role of point guard, as he did over the course of the years that I was with him.”
Ward added that Donaldson’s experience on the football field helps him on the basketball court.
“To me, Tre was a natural quarterback, even though he was good at safety and recruited mainly as a safety, and those instincts and vision are similar to what you need as a point guard,” Ward said.
“He could tell you what he saw on the field and help coordinate the play, and that’s something that’s very hard to teach. Also, as a football player, you don’t mind running into things because there’s physicality around you and that shows in how he plays basketball.”
Donaldson agreed that his football experience helped prepare him for college basketball.
“My anticipation is the biggest thing I learned from football, being able to make reads,” Donaldson said. “The vision part comes from playing quarterback, being able to see things before they happen and dictating with my eyes to my teammates. My anticipation defensively helps me get steals.”
He played two years at Auburn and transferred to Michigan, where last season he started every game and led the Wolverines to the Sweet 16 before making the move to Miami to play under first-year coach Jai Lucas and associate coaches Charlton “CY” Young and Erik Pastrana, with whom he had deep ties.
“Coach CY sealed the deal,” Donaldson said. “I went to school with all his kids, won a state championship with two of his sons, I was at his house all the time, so just being part of that was really special. When he told me he was coming to Miami, that sealed the deal. He had recruited me out of high school when he was at FSU and Missouri.”
Young, a Miami native who played at Carol City High, is delighted to finally be able to coach Donaldson, who was in fourth grade when they met in Tallahassee at a pool party.
“God works in mysterious ways,” Young said.
Young had just been fired as head coach at Georgia Southern and taken a job as an FSU assistant under Leonard Hamilton. He was invited to the home of Donaldson’s uncle, Eli Rosier, who ran the North Florida Elite AAU girls’ basketball program (and happens to be the father of former UM quarterback Malik Rosier).
Young’s two daughters, Ariel and Audia, were AAU basketball phenoms in Georgia and Rosier wanted them to join his teams. In addition to a father who played and coached, their mother, Carolyn Jones-Young, played at Auburn, in the WNBA and was a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team.
Ariel was in eighth grade at the time and Audia was in fourth grade. They both wound up playing in college, Ariel at North Carolina and Audia at Auburn and Xavier.
Rosier had a pool party at his house for all the AAU families. And that is where Young first saw Donaldson.
“There’s this little fourth-grade boy running around the house, terrorizing everybody,” Young recalled, laughing. “He’s fighting his sister; he’s like a crazy little dude running around. He ran by me and I said, `Little man, what’s your name?’ He says, `My name’s Tre.’ And that was my introduction to Tre Donaldson.”
The Young and Donaldson families grew close through the years and that bond remains.
“I started talking to his uncle, and he says, `Hey, I know Tre is young, but he’s got a gift,” Young said. “So, I started following him and mentoring him. By the time he was in seventh grade, I thought, `I’ve got to make sure I keep this one.’ He was special, a natural leader, tough, very confident.”
Young tried to recruit him to FSU, “I begged on hands and knees”, but the Seminoles didn’t make a serious push until late in the recruiting cycle because the assumption was that Donaldson would wind up choosing football over basketball.
“Leonard had been in Tallahassee for 25 years and of the all the kids who were on the cusp of football and basketball, 99% chose football,” Young said. “But here comes Trey.”
Donaldson has never second-guessed his decision, and is excited about this new chapter.
“For me to chase my NBA dream, I wanted to be in a place where I can grow mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and having ties to the coaches on this staff made this the perfect place.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 2:38 PM.