Talawanda senior Brayden Kent follows family footsteps and recent program success as football team kicker and soccer player

He sports two different jerseys this fall. He wears 36 over shoulder pads. He wears 11 without them.

It wasn’t always that way, but senior year tends to bring out the experimental side in people. 

Under the Friday night lights, he touches the ball first. Not with his hands, but with the same weapon that makes him successful on the soccer field: his right foot. 

The sensation and technique are different from kicking a soccer ball. He has far more experience with the black and white penta and hexagons than he does with brown leather and white laces, but he does the job anyway. 

“Now kicking off for Talawanda, Brayden Kent,” the PA announcer says.

And away they go.

Kent, 17, grew up in a soccer family. His mother played in high school and with an assortment of travel programs. His older brother, Logan, 21, who now plays at Wilmington College, played for Talawanda as well. 

His other two brothers, Caleb and Ethan, both 25, also played, but now are seen in the adult league ranks.

As for Kent himself, he started playing the game at 3 years old and never looked back. He watched Cristiano Ronaldo highlights on YouTube, owns a purple Real Madrid jersey with Ronaldo’s name on the back and used him as an inspiration for the player he wanted to be. 

Kent played around the Butler County area before joining the team at Talawanda. 

His first competitive soccer program was Fairfield Optimist Soccer Club, where he participated for three years. Then he changed course and found another team and, along with it, his future high school head coach.

Jeremy Jones, head coach of the Talawanda High School boys’ varsity soccer team for the last three seasons, first encountered Brayden when he tried out for the Oxford United club soccer program. From there, the relationship grew, and while neither of them knew what would come of it at the time, Jones knew the kind of kid he was looking in the eye – the same one helping run the offense on the field and keep building culture off it for his varsity team.

“He’s just a fun-loving kid,” Jones said. “He always just seems to (have) kind of a jovial attitude and way of living. I think he attracts people to him because of that. I can see where sometimes he might be a little shy or a little more reserved or not the loudest talker in the group. From a soccer lens, that’s not as much, maybe because he feels a bit more comfortable. But he definitely brings worlds of energy and is always laughing and picking up his teammates. It’s really cool to see.”

Kent has been a member of the Talawanda soccer team since his freshman year. He played in just one game and tallied one assist, but that was the start of a four-year career in which he has saved the best for last. 

In seven matches as a sophomore, Kent did not tally a goal or an assist. And last season in his junior year, he posted a goal and four assists in three contests. 

His senior year, though, has been a revelation. In 10 games, not only has he registered as many assists as he has ever had points in a single season, but he finished regular season play with 10 goals, placing him 11th in the Southwestern Buckeye League (SWBL). His 26 points this season are tied for ninth in the conference as well. 

“He’s been around the game a long time and brings that maturity and IQ to the field of play as well,” Jones said. “I feel like we can and have used him in multiple positions. He can be a utility player, whether he’s playing the (central attacking midfielder) position or playing as a nine, we’ve used him as a six as kind of a defensive (midfielder) and we’ve even put him out on the wing because we know he can really read the game and anticipate the play of (the) game very well. He compliments Noel’s work that he has as well, so it’s been nice to see.”

Kent’s mind has never solely focused on soccer, though. He’s always been on the go in some way athletically.

Since beginning his tenure at Talawanda, over the summers, he attended football workouts. He would kick around on the football field with his brothers, both with a soccer ball and a football. He wanted to play on the gridiron for Talawanda, but the two sports are in the same season, leading to an assumption that his schedule would just be too busy.

However, before Brayden’s brother Logan left for Wilmington, he found himself at the same crossroads as well. Should he give kicking for the football team a try? And as senior year so often pulls out from people, he said, “Why not?”

“I used to go to all of his games, and I really enjoyed watching football,” Kent said. “Especially watching the NFL, I really liked watching it with him, too. He was telling me how he wanted to be a kicker, and I said that sounded pretty fun. So senior year comes around, and I was telling him that I was just going to 100% commit to it, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I think you should do that.’”

Talawanda has somewhat of a rich history with kickers also playing on the soccer team over the years. The most recent example was who held the position before Kent took over this season, Ryan Warholak.

Warholak was a defender for the Talawanda soccer team his sophomore and junior seasons. He played 10 games his junior year and scored five goals on 11 shots. But his senior year, things changed.

When Stuckert arrived at Talawanda in 2023 (a year following Brayden’s brother Logan’s graduation), he had a kicker who did plenty of good work, but the well was running dry. He needed a backup option, so he brought in a former player, who was previously a oach on his staff, to ask if there were any players that might be interested in kicking for the team and decent enough to do it well.

A junior at the time, Warholak had his name brought up. And the coach and player scheduled a meeting.

The meeting was short, but it was everything the Talawanda football program could have asked for. 

“Have you ever really kicked a football?” Stuckert asked.

“Well, I’ve messed around with it,” Warholak responded.

Without hesitation, Warholak lined up a 35-yard field goal and drilled it with ease in front of Stuckert’s very own eyes. And the investment paid off.

“We worked with Ryan from the minute that he stepped on that field until he graduated as a senior,” Stuckert said. “He ended up going 90 of 91 on PATs (point after attempts) in his career, so he set the school record for a season (60-for-60) and a career PATs made, and as he was doing that, he also ended up with 25-plus touchbacks. So I think some of the soccer kids saw that success that he had and thought, ‘Man, that would be kind of cool to do both,’ and I really think that’s how the BK thing spawned.”

With the influence of his brother and the recent success of Warholak, who is now playing Division III football at Trine University as a kicker, Kent announced he wanted to give it a shot. 

Unlike Warholak’s story, though, the onus was still on Kent to outwork his opposition.

And he did.

Before the season, Kent sent a text to Warholak telling him that he was going to take over the mantle and wanted some tips. So he and Warholak met up for their own private kicking sessions at Yager Stadium, where the record holder passed on his knowledge to the apprentice. 

Then, training camp rolled around, and Kent put on pads for the first time. Nervous energy flowed through his veins, but the pads made it real.

He was really going to be a football player.

After winning the starting job and playing eight games this season, Kent has yet to miss a PAT, sitting 22-for-22 on the year. He missed a field goal against Harrison High School in Talawanda’s game against Harrison High School on Oct. 9, but he made one earlier in the year against Eaton High School, putting him at a 50% hit rate. 

“I’ve been around the game a long time, so I’m not naive enough to think that it couldn’t happen, but to sit here and say that I thought he was going to be the caliber of kicker he is right now, I would be lying,” Stuckert said. “Honestly, where that comes from, I just haven’t seen him kick a whole lot. He wasn’t one of those guys that was with us last year. We’d see him kicking in the offseason and dabbling around with it. But we didn’t really know how hard he was going to work at it and how natural it was going to be. But he has certainly taken it by the reins.”

Coming into a new sport can be challenging. As a senior who had never done more than mess around with a football, let alone kick with pads on under the Friday night lights for a team with major playoff aspirations, Kent was in for a big change. 

But his best friend, senior tight end Joey Beckett, who he met in middle school playing on the same basketball team, helped him acclimate. They even share a locker.

“He welcomed me to the team, and after he welcomed me to the team, I started getting people’s Snapchats and numbers,” Kent said. “I could text them if I needed anything, and they could text me if they needed anything. Then, me and the others grew a friendship together.”

Kent’s biggest impact with both programs has been his leadership. While he’s not playing every snap for the Brave football team, he still has an incredibly important role. And since his soccer career began years ago, he has been able to make even more of an impression in that locker room and scheme.

“This year, especially when the team graduated so many (seniors) last year, he, like Noel Albarran, really stepped into being a senior leader,” Jones said. “Since the June open field sessions that we had, they’ve really just taken the reins and were natural leaders. He has really continued to develop throughout the season with his on- and off-the-field leadership. I think a good team also spends time together off the field, and I know that Brayden has embraced that opportunity to schedule some hang sessions with the team, away from practice and away from coaches, just to bond. He’s really taken that to heart, and I think he’s done a nice job.”

While Kent’s high school athletic experience will be coming to a close at the end of this school year, there are plenty of benefits that being a dual-sport athlete (one could argue a triple-sport athlete, as he plays basketball in the winter for Talawanda) has provided him. Not only is it more physical activity, but the recognition of a dream and experiencing a new environment, even with the inherent risks, is one more athletes should take.

“You should always go try new things,” Kent said. “I know it might be a big risk to try it, but I’ll say it’s a really fun activity to play. At least try out, and if they don’t like it after a week or two, they can end up doing something else. But I would really just say just go out there and try your best, and talk to the coach and let them know how you feel.”