ON Air with 912 Sports

  By Kevin Price

Photos by Mike Brinson 

Heze Kent won’t ever forget the first school to offer him a football scholarship. 

It was Kentucky, and the offer came during basketball season of his freshman year at Brunswick High. 

Fast forward to July 12, 2025. That was the date the 6-foot-7, 285-pound four-star tight end for the Pirates was set to announce his college choice. 

This story which spotlights the highly-sought-after Brunswick player had to be turned in prior to that announcement to make the print deadline for this month’s preseason high school football issue of 912 Sports Magazine, but we had staff on hand for that much-anticipated announcement earlier this month. You can find our coverage on our other platforms including our social media. 

In the time between his initial offer and his verbal commitment, Kent got scholarship offers by the dozens including offers from nearly every school in the SEC, several in the ACC, plus others from college football heavyweights such as defending national champion Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame and Southern Cal. Even North Carolina and new head coach Bill Belichick made a run at the BHS standout by offering a scholarship in January. 

“I had 47 offers,” says Kent, who without question is the most highly-recruited Brunswick player of all-time in that regard. 

Kent had that long list narrowed down to 10 schools last summer, and by this spring, he had it trimmed to six. Going into the summer, Kent had it down to his final four. Those were Florida, Miami, Texas and Florida State. 

Kent also took official recruiting visits to all four schools during June in the exact order they were listed above. Just days before taking his final visit to FSU, Kent didn’t offer any clues as to whether he might be leaning toward one of those among his final four when he sat down with 912 Sports for an interview. 

“I’m undecided,” he said. “After going to Florida State, I’ll have 19 days to make a decision. It’s been fun going on all the visits, but it’ll be time to make a business decision. I’ll just go with my gut, do what is best for me. I’ll take everything into account.”

Kent noted it got more difficult to eliminate schools from his list with each step, especially once he got down to his final 10. 

“It was hard. I had a good relationship with a lot of the coaches, but I had to look at what was best for me and the best fit for me,” he said. 

Among the final schools to drop off the list were Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama. It became well-known that the Bulldogs wanted Kent to switch to offensive tackle, and he confirmed that when being interviewed for this story. 

Kent remains steadfast in his desire to continue to play tight end beyond high school. 

“I told schools to stop recruiting me if they wanted me to play tackle,” he said. “I told them I wanted to go to school to play tight end.”

Kent noted that all the schools in his final four promised him the opportunity to remain at that position if he opted to play for them. 

“They’ve all told me I’m a ‘once-in-a-10-year-type player,’” he said. “You can’t get my build, my athleticism and how I can move and do everything. They said they can take advantage of it.”

His current coach, Brunswick’s Garrett Grady, also believes his jumbo tight end can continue to flourish at the position in major-college football.

“I believe he can with his ball skills, his speed,” Grady said. “He also blocks well when he’s an attached tight end and when he’s out perimeter.”

Whether it’s been on the football field or basketball court where Kent has also starred during his time with the Pirates, his overall athleticism has been on display and has posed problems for opponents in both sports who have issues matching up with the big-bodied athlete. 

Last football season, Kent was the leading receiver for an explosive BHS offense that was deep in the skill positions, a big reason the Pirates reclaimed the Region 1-5A championship with a perfect league record and went 10-2 overall on the season. Kent finished with 41 catches for 983 yards and eight touchdowns, all of which were team-high marks. He averaged almost 82 receiving yards a game and exactly 24 yards per catch. 

Brunswick also lets Kent run the ball, usually after taking direct snaps from center. He carried the ball 32 times in 12 games last fall for another 211 yards, averaging 6.6 yards per attempt. Kent scored another eight touchdowns on the ground. 

Kent obviously isn’t hard to find on the BHS offense. He’s the biggest among the 11 players on the field, but it’s more than his overall size that forces an opponent to game plan specifically for him when preparing to play the Pirates. Kent presents issues for any defense because the Pirates line him up all over the place while utilizing his talents within their offensive scheme. 

“From a physical standpoint, he’s just a massive human being. He has unbelievable ball skills, and just deceptive speed. People think someone that big can’t move, but he definitely can,” said Grady, who is going into his fourth season as BHS head coach. 

“He’s just so versatile in what he can do as well. He can play as an attached tight end, can play in the backfield as an up-back and can play split out wide. There are just so many things he can do that make him special and so unique.”

In basketball last season, Kent was easily the choice as Player of the Year in the South Sub-Region of Region 1-AAAAA. Kent averaged a double-double for the Pirates with 17.2 points per game to go with 14.4 rebounds a contest. He led BHS to the sub-region championship in the regular-season and a runner-up finish in the region tournament before the Pirates advanced to the Sweet 16 in the state tournament while finishing 22-5 overall. 

His junior season was his last with the Pirates on the roundball court. As a big-time football recruit, he will sign with the school of his choice during the annual early signing period this coming December and will enroll at that school in January after graduating early from Brunswick High following this year’s first semester to get a jump on college football. 

Interestingly, Kent said he was thinking about playing only basketball in high school. He played both football and hoops for his middle school as a seventh-grader, but only played basketball his eighth-grade year. 

It was his mother, he says, who talked him into giving football another try. Getting back on the gridiron when he went to Brunswick High has obviously paid off for Kent.

He has finally verbally accepted one of those numerous scholarship offers and will make it official with his signature in due time. He’ll soon be getting paid pretty good money to play college football, too, which is just the way it works in today’s world of big-time college athletics. 

“I’m blessed to be in this position,” Kent says. 

While he’s looking forward to football beyond high school, Kent is excited about his senior season with the Pirates which opens in August. 

“I feel like we’re pretty good right now, but we’ve got room to get better and improve,” he said. “I think we’ll have a chance to make a good run.” 

   By Kevin Price

Photos by Mike Brinson

Kaden Hendrix is serious about his school work. The Brantley County quarterback maintains a 4.0 grade-point average while taking college prep classes. 

The senior signal-caller for the Herons is also serious about another sport, and that’s baseball. He pitches and plays on the infield for the Brantley baseball team in the spring and hopes to play baseball in college as well while furthering his education. 

He’s getting interest from a handful of schools who could end up offering him a roster spot after he graduates from Brantley next spring. That would be a dream come true for Hendrix who is our featured Scholar-Athlete for our 2025 preseason high school football edition of 912 Sports Magazine. 

“That’s the goal,” says Hendrix about earning a baseball scholarship. 

He has been playing high-level travel ball with the East Cobb Astros since the end of Brantley’s baseball season. 

Brantley’s head football coach believes that his senior quarterback also could catch the eyes of college coaches this fall if he continues to blossom on the football field. David Shores, a seasoned coach who is entering his second season with the Herons, says Hendrix has untapped potential as a quarterback and simply needs more time and reps to come into his own at the position. 

“He was raw and rusty last year,” said Shores who saw the Herons go 2-8 in his first season in Nahunta. “He played on the junior varsity as a freshman, but didn’t play as a sophomore. He’s grown a good bit in the game the last year, has really matured a lot. 

“He can spin it. He has a big arm, and he’s gotten better with his touch, throwing on the run, all those things.”

Hendrix rejoined the the Brantley football program after Shores talked to him about giving it another try shortly after he accepted the school’s vacant head coaching position ahead of the 2024 season. 

Hendrix, who is 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, threw for 954 yards on 54-of-155 passing last season with six touchdown throws and 12 interceptions. He completed less than 35 percent of his passes, but he made strides as a quarterback throughout the season that didn’t always show up on postgame stat sheet. 

Shores said the Herons tried to run a spread offense last year to best utilize the talents of Hendrix and the assortment of skill-players the team had. Thing is, a young and inexperienced offensive line hampered the offense’s overall effectiveness most of the season. 

“We started two freshmen and a sophomore up front, and our protection wasn’t very good to be honest,” Shores said. “He didn’t have a lot of time sometimes and took a lot of sacks.”

This season, the Herons will change their approach offensively, largely because of their returning personnel. They are going to line up in the flexbone, an offensive look that features three running backs and a quarterback behind the offensive line. It is more of a running offense, but still can possess a passing threat.

And make no mistake, the Herons still plan to use their quarterback’s arm while also utilizing his legs as a runner as well. 

“Kaden is pretty good drop-back passer,” Shores said, “and if we had a stable full of receivers, we’d probably spread it out and throw it all over the yard. We just don’t have that, so we have to be a little more creative offensively.”

Hendrix said he understands the new offensive approach and likes how the plan is coming together.

“We’re repping it a lot, getting better and better at it,” he says. “Every day, our passing looks are getting better and better as well.”

The Herons say they play to make opponents respect Hendrix as a runner, too. They can call his number on designed runs or option plays out of the flexbone. Of course, he can scramble and hopefully make something out of nothing when a play breaks down as well. 

“I like running the ball and getting dirty,” he says. “I like contact. I’m not gonna shy away from it.”

His head coach wasn’t surprised to hear him say that. “He’s ultra-competitive, loves to win, hates to lose,” Shores said. “You gotta have that at the quarterback spot.”

Hendrix, the youngest of three boys who all played sports while attending Brantley, says he’s wired to be a high-achiever. That’s one of reasons he strives to make good grades in school. The biggest reason for that, though, is that his parents won’t accept anything less, especially his mother who is an elementary school teacher in Brantley County.

Hendrix took an Advanced Placement course this past school year to earn college credits and plans to take a few more AP courses this year. He also took a duel-enrollment history course through Coastal Pines Technical College last year. Hendrix is a member of the Beta Club and has earned distinction as a Georgia Merit Scholar. 

“He could pick where he wants to go to school, just on academics,” Shores said. 

When he’s not busy with travel baseball or high school sports, Hendrix likes to play video games including MLB The Show, Madden NFL and NBA 2K. He also likes to fish and play outdoors with his two nephews and his niece. 

“I also just like hanging out with friends and the family,” Hendrix said.