OUR PRESEASON SUPER 7 TEAM-BY-TEAM PREVIEWS BIG ...

Jim Dedmon/CWNG photo
by Aaron Garcia
aaron@carolinaweeklynewspapers.com
K.J. Brent looks skyward and uses his fingers
to count all the colleges that have offered him
football scholarships. It’s as if the Marvin Ridge
senior’s trying to remember all the guests at a
good-sized get-together.
North Carolina. East Carolina. Duke.
Wisconsin. Illinois. Stanford. West Virginia.
N.C. State. Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen
visited, but an official offer never came. And, of
course, his eventual choice: South Carolina.
“I don’t think I’m forgetting one,” concluded
Brent.
It would be understandable if he did. After
all, it’s not surprising that a 6-foot-4 receiver
with 4.5-second speed in the 40-yard dash
has gotten so many scholarship offers. Brent’s
play during his junior year added some beef
to his intangibles. He hauled in 47 passes for
754 yards and seven scores while developing
into a trustworthy red-zone target.
But what causes a double-take is the fact
that last season was only his third full year of
After a slow start to his career, Marvin Ridge senior K.J. Brent has
become one of the area’s best wide receivers.
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Big Man on campus Campus
football.
“I never thought I’d be going to college for
football,” Brent said. “I thought I’d be going for
baseball or basketball or something like that. I
only started playing football in eighth grade.”
Until then, football was reserved for his back
yard – nothing structured. He saved that for the
other two sports. But one day, while attending
Weddington Middle School, former Maverick
teammate Vinnie Sunseri approached the
already-6-foot Brent with what has since
become a brilliant idea.
“You should come out (for the football
team),” suggested Sunseri. “You’re tall, and if
you can catch, you can play.”
And that’s what he did. But it took a while
for Sunseri to prove prophetic.
“I wasn’t good,” Brent admitted. “I had, like,
one catch that year.”
That was almost the end, but after some
thought, Brent decided to give it another go as
a freshman. On the first day of practice, then-
Mavericks coach Bruce Hardin snatched Brent
from the JV field and brought him up to varsity,
where he even started his first
game before settling in as a
second-stringer.
“It was only my second
year playing,” said Brent.
“I was kind of freaked out,
but once I got into the flow
of things, it was fun. It was
nerve-racking, but after the
first hit, I was fine.”
When current coach Scott
Chadwick arrived for the
first day of workouts before
Brent’s sophomore season,
“I saw it right away,” said
Chadwick. “From the moment
we started that first summer, it
was obvious he was going to
be a special player.”
Unfortunately for Brent
and the Mavericks, he suffered
an ankle injury during the
year’s first scrimmage and was
lost for the regular season.
But Chadwick explained that
Brent used the offseason to
make up for lost time and
displayed that work ethic
with his statistics last season.
Chadwick said Brent uses
his size as adeptly across
the middle as he does when
going over a cornerback. But
his biggest advantage?
“He’s got great hands,”
said Chadwick. “He catches
everything. He doesn’t drop
balls, but he makes the spec-
tacular catch, too.”
Luckily, his hands are also
good for counting. q
SATURDAY MORNING
Sports Injury Clinic
For High School Athletes
SATURDAY MORNINGS
9 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
August 21 – November 13, 2010
No Appointment Necessary
CMC-Union Emergency Department
600 Hospital Drive / Monroe, NC
At CMC-Union, our goal is to keep you in the game.
That’s why we offer a sports injury clinic on Saturday
mornings for high school athletes. Services at the clinic
are provided by board-certified orthopedic surgeons on
the CMC-Union medical staff and we offer MRI scans
and diagnostic imaging if needed for faster diagnosis
and recovery. Walk-ins are welcome.
For more information about the Saturday Morning
Sports Injury Clinic, call 704-225-2884.
Union
600 Hospital Drive | Monroe, NC 28112 | 704-283-3100 | www.cmc-union.org
UNION COUNTY WEEKLY • FALL 2010 7