Hunter Broyles has been passionate about football his entire life, starting in the Peewee division of the Warrior Football program and working his way up through the ranks until he, now, finds himself as a senior at White County High School reflecting, not on what he has given to the game, but on what the game has given him.
“Time management,” Broyles listed as one of the things he’s gained while playing football. “Trying to balance the school life and work life with practice and conditioning and games, it's a challenge. But it’s also something that will benefit me in my future – being able to find balance in my life and prioritizing what needs to be done now.”
For Broyles, his football career has meant early mornings, late nights, and giving up a variety of other sports he played before high school. He’s put work in with his coaches, with his teammates, and alone.
“Hard work always makes you better,” Broyles said that perseverance is the number one lesson he has learned from his years on the gridiron. “No matter how hard the situation is, there’s always to be a better outcome if you are willing to put in the work.”
Warrior head coach David Foster, who has watched Broyles grow as a player and a person over the past three seasons, isn’t shocked by the lesson his center said he’s learned.
“For the past three years he’s really worked to hone his technique and just get better at his craft. He’s really bought into what he’s been asked to do,” Foster said that Broyles was asked to move from a guard position to center last year and took the change in stride. “His work ethic is obvious. He’s a very powerful football player, yet absolutely versatile. He moves easily from his usual defensive interior line position to edge when our scheme asks him to.”
When asked about what he would say to next year’s Warriors, the ones who will take the field when isn’t there, Broyles didn’t hesitate, offering them the advice he said the game has taught him.
“It’s worth it, just continue to push through,” he said and then added some brutal honesty. “It’s going to suck at times. There will be times that aren’t fun. Practice isn’t fun. But when you actually make it to a game, when you’re able to play beside some of your best friends in the world, when you have the great coaching staff supporting you through everything – inside and outside of football – you will see: it’s all worth it. It’s really worth spending your time in high school sports.”
Foster wouldn’t have expected anything less in the forms of advice from the lineman.
“Hunter is a real cerebral player, and now he has emerged as a real leader for us,” he said. “He’s always been a leader within his position group, always willing to help his teammates learn and understand what’s going on. But now, this year, he’s grown into an emotional leader. Someone who will motivate the entire team. Someone they can look to for direction.”
Broyles said he learned from the best. He said that when his junior season came to an end it was emotional, knowing that the guys he had spent his entire career with wouldn’t be beside him this year. That it was time for him to go it alone.
“I played with them for so long, it almost felt like a goodbye right on the field. So many emotions, everyone crying,” he said about the one moment that will live in his mind forever. “It was a blessing to be able to play with those guys. They really laid the groundwork for what we’re doing now, they helped me become a better football player just because I played beside them.”
Broyles knows that his time to walk away from Warrior football is coming faster than he realized it would back when he was a 7-year-old Peewee putting on the maroon and gray uniform for the first time. But that doesn’t mean his playing days are over. Broyles has given years to the game and studied all the lessons it offered him, now the game will be giving back to him in the form of a college education.
“Carson Newman has given me a verbal offer, and I am planning on going up there and playing for them on a scholarship,” he said. “I am going to major in finance. I still have to sort out exactly what path my career will take, but a financial advisor of some type.”
But before he turns in his maroon and gray for some blue and orange, Broyles wants to soak in every minute he has left at Dee Harris field, but more importantly, every minute he has with the people he has spent almost every day of the last eleven years beside.
“It’s going to be tough,” he said about the rapidly approaching moment when he takes off that helmet with the “S” on it for the last time. “People. That’s the answer. That’s what I’m going to miss. These people.”
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