HOSCHTON — A portion of the Mill Creek community may only know Brenton King as “that guy who kicks field goals.”
And if they didn’t before this season, they certainly heard of him after he booted a 56-yarder against Archer -- a kick that currently stands as the longest made field goal in Georgia in 2016... at any level, including college or pro. It also set a new Mill Creek record.
Long before setting records on the football field, however, the now-senior built himself into a legend on the soccer field during his middle school and early high school years.
King was considered one of the Southeast’s premier centerforwards on a local club team and during his eighth-grade year scored 63 goals in a summer league season. He started for the Hawks varsity his freshman season and scored 10 goals despite missing six games due to injury. He played all the way through his junior year and was an integral part of their offense.
“I love soccer, and I felt like I was pretty good,” King said. “That’s what I wanted to do when I was a young kid. I really got into it around middle school. Soccer just came real natural to me. My freshman year I was having a good season then I got injured (with a torn calf) and that slowed me down some. But I still thought soccer was the way to go. It was fun.”
So what changed?
“Injuries more than anything else,” he said.
A broken left ankle (twice), the torn calf, a torn hamstring, and a growth plate tear in his right leg that took four months to rehab -- it all occured within a three-year period between 13 and 15 years old. During all of this, Mill Creek's then-middle school football coach watched King casually kicking field goals with his dad one day just for the fun of it while waiting on older brother Bryson, at the time kicking for the high school junior varsity team.
“The coach knew I was a good soccer player, and they didn’t have a kicker so he asked me if I wanted to join and kick for them,” King said. “I was in the seventh grade, but my birthday allowed me to join the eighth-grade team so I gave it shot. I was OK.”
Brenton went a perfect 3-for-3 on field goals and 100 percent on extra points that season, though he couldn’t remember how many: “They scored A LOT of touchdowns so it was quite a bit.”
However, in his actual eighth-grade year, he declined an offer to rejoin the team -- before going back to the girdiron as a freshman, opting for double duty with the freshman football team in the fall and playing soccer in the spring. In his sophomore year he kicked for the junior varsity and went 8-for-8 on field goals. Even so, King maintained that soccer was his ultimate path.
“I had been doing (soccer) for so long I just thought that’s where I would end up,” he said. “And really I just kind of did football as something fun to do but I wasn’t really that serious about it. I guess you never know.”
Upon the graduation of his brother Bryson before his junior year, King knew there was an opportunity to nab the starting placekicking job. But it was not given to him on a platter. In fact, King's rise into one of the state’s premier kickers actually came down to a single afternoon of five kicks against fellow junior Nick Rice -- the player that supplanted King on the eighth-grade team and kicked for the junior varsity as well.
“Nick was probably supposed to win the job. He had been kicking longer than I had,” King said. “There was definitely pressure to perform.”
King answered the call, drilling all five of his attempts while Rice missed two, handing the job to King. King also won the kickoff duties, drilling all of his attempts into or out of the end zone.
“I had a good day,” King said. “I think that was when I began to take things a little more seriously. It was really just something I did for fun but when I saw that I could be pretty good at it I really started to work harder on it.”
It was about this time that Mill Creek coach Shannon Jarvis began to take more notice.
“We knew he had a good leg but with his soccer we also knew that there was still a lot of potential for him to get better since he spent most of his time on that,” Jarvis said.
King did not disappoint. As a junior handling all the placekicking duties he went 62-of-63 on extra points, 19-of-27 on field goals -- with a long of 51 yards -- and produced 67 touchbacks on 93 kickoffs. The 19 field goals set a single-season school record and tied the state record.
So far this season, King is 52-of-53 on PATs, 10 of 14 on field goals, including the 56-yarder, and has produced 70 touchbacks on 76 kickoffs. His 10 field goals this season give him 30 for his career, which is a school record as well.
In addition, last season's 67 touchbacks set a school record and his career total of 146 is also a program best. He drilled eight touchbacks in last week's 41-0 Class AAAAAAA first round defeat of Newton, which tied another school record, and he converted seven extra points at Duluth, which represented the third-most in a game. He also had a touchback this year while kicking off from his own 25 (following a penalty), and against Newton he boomed one kickoff through the uprights.
Jarvis said opposing coaches are now discussing King as part of every pregame conversation.
“Almost every conversation I have with the (opposing) coaches starts with Brenton and what a weapon he is,” Jarvis said. “Our overall yardage as a team is down but our scoring is up. That is a direct reflection of Brenton.
“You know, 90 percent of the other teams drives start at their own 20 because of Brenton. And with the way our defense has played we’re getting a lot of short fields. Also, we only really need to get to about the 43 or so because we feel comfortable trying any kick with Brenton from 60 on in. He is a huge factor and weapon for us.”
During the sequence of the school-record, 56-yard kick, it was initially supposed to be a 51-yard attempt. But a motion penalty pushed the ball back. Yet King said he waved off any attempt by coaches to abort the kick.
“He probably did do that but honestly we never thought about not going for it,” Jarvis said. “Like I said, we’re confident in him from 60.”
King said he didn’t do anything out of his ordinary pre-kick preparation for his school-record attempt.
“It’s the same no matter the distance,” he said. “I just measure my steps, imagine the kick going through, give a couple of taps on the helmet to the holder, and then go. I felt when I hit it it had the distance. I only looked up at the last second to make sure it went through and it did. I expect to make every kick so it wasn’t that big a deal at the time. That’s my job. But afterwards it’s pretty cool to know I have a school record and that it’s the longest in the state this year.”
The production, and records, for King have not gone unnoticed. He already has a full-scholarship offer from Old Dominion -- and it is rare for schools to offer full scholarships to incoming freshmen kickers.
Georgia and Georgia Tech have shown interest, and he kicked over the summer in front of both programs, as well as, Maryland, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. He has taken unofficial visits to Georgia, Old Dominion, and Louisville. He also said he has "retired" from soccer and will spend the winter and spring working on getting better on the girdiron.
“Obviously, with college being so expensive, I’m going to go with wherever I get the best offer,” he said. “A full scholarship is hard to turn down so if no one other than Old Dominion offers me a full ride then that’s where I’ll go. But if everyone I have visited offers me full scholarships, I’m probably leaning toward Louisville. I really liked the coaches, the players, and the whole atmosphere. We’ll see what happens.
"I'm done with soccer. I'm just going to focus on improving my kicking technique and getting better. It wasn't as hard of a decision as I thought it might be."
For now, what King and the Hawks hope is that he simply continues his stellar form when they play host to Cherokee in the second round at Mill Creek Community Stadium Friday night.
However, King said he is not focused on personal records. King, who grew up in the Mill Creek area, has watched the Hawks since he was an elementary school student. He feels this is the best Mill Creek team in its 12-year history and wants to help the Hawks order their first state championship rings.
“I just want to see us be able to walk off with the trophy and get rings,” he said. “Whatever I need to do to help us be able to do that is what I’m concentrating on. The seniors want to go out being the first to get a title. This is a great team. That (opening game) win over Colquitt County really gave us the confidence that we were ready to take that next step. I think we’ve been playing with a lot of confidence. But I also think we can still get better. As long as we don’t make silly mistakes and turn the ball over, or miss kicks, we feel we can beat anyone.”
Jarvis said expectations for this team have been high since the final play of last year’s state semifinal loss to Colquitt County.
“I love his confidence on that,” Jarvis said. “I want all the kids to have that kind of confidence. We’ve had high aspirations for this team since the last play of last year. That left a bitter taste in our mouth.”
But Jarvis also knows that despite being considered a big favorite against Cherokee, they must not look ahead.
“We really are taking things week-by-week. We’re playing with a sense of urgency and we’re not taking anything for granted,” he said. “They have a very well-coached and good football team. All the little things, like tackling and maintaining blocks and not making silly penalties, will be big factors.”
